An international consortium, which brings together scientists from 40 countries, including Portugal, is studying the impact of Covid-19 on parental satisfaction and exhaustion around the world.
The objective of this cross-cultural investigation is to increase the understanding of the factors that make it difficult or help mothers and fathers to deal with the stress resulting from the need to reconcile multiple tasks in a confined situation.
The implications of the pandemic we are facing, «specifically confinement to the home, social isolation, the closing of day care centers, kindergartens and schools, teleworking, lay off and the dismissals brought new challenges to the exercise of parenting and coparenting», says Maria Filomena Gaspar, researcher at the Center for Social Studies (CES) and professor at the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences of the University of Coimbra (FPCEUC), who coordinates the study in Portugal, together with Anne Maria Fontaine, professor emeritus at the University of Porto (UP).
These challenges, adds the specialist in Educational Psychology at the UC, «result from the multiple tasks they have to reconcile (usual parental roles, support for homeschooling, homework, increased hours spent on domestic tasks) in a situation of confinement which is new and, for many parents, accompanied by great financial challenges and the anticipation of difficulties in the future».
The team solicits the participation of fathers and mothers in this study by completing a questionnaire, available by clicking here. A special appeal is made to fathers to respond, "as mothers are usually the ones who most participate in this type of research, which creates a gap in understanding the satisfaction and parental exhaustion of men." The only condition is to have at least 1 child living at home, whatever their age.
Maria Filomena Gaspar explains that “there are factors that can help fathers and mothers to deal with the stress resulting from the need to reconcile multiple tasks in a confined situation, while others can make it difficult.
The first group includes the existence of a partner who shares the tasks and moments when the fathers/mothers take care of themselves, for example, while in the second group we can consider the existence of a child with behavioral problems. or hyperactivity or a mother/father who is very self-demanding”.
This is the second large study conducted by the international consortium investigating parental burnout (IIBP: International Investigation of Parental Burnout) and which is led by Isabelle Roskam and Moïra Mikolajczak, University of Louvain, Belgium.
The purpose of this group of scientists is to study conceptual validity, prevalence and intercultural variation. do burnout parenting around the world.
Author: Cristina Pinto (Press Advisory – University of Coimbra Science Communication
Science in the Regional Press – Ciência Viva
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