Single-parent families’ experience of home schooling with young children during the first COVID-19 lockdown in France
Résumé
In France, as in many countries, the measures imposed during the COVID-19 pandemic have disrupted the socialisation patterns of families. COV-JEUNENFANT (COVID-Young Child) is an interdisciplinary project aiming to better understand what mothers, fathers and their young children (up to six years old) experienced throughout the first COVID-19 lockdown in France as favourable or less favourable moments, the possibly gendered and socially situated activities that emerged from domestic work (educational tasks, caregiving tasks, etc.), as well as the related feelings for both parents. Data collection (n = 490) was conducted between April 28, 2020 and May 29, 2020, via an online survey through a dedicated website and different networks (academic, professional, friends, family, social media) submitted to families living in France with at least one child up to six years old. Quantitative (descriptive, bivariate tests) and qualitative (thematic) analyses confirmed that single parents (n = 36) are in a more fragile situation than the rest of the study population, highlighting an unequal distribution of the consequences of lockdown with regard to education levels, resources and housing conditions. The living and working conditions of several single-parent families deteriorated, possibly bearing effects on their physical and mental health. For single parents, increased emotional, educational and caregiving burdens were met with increased perceived pressure on how to take care of one’s children, including media pressure, as well as less satisfying perceptions of their parenting role. Half of the parents mentioned home schooling in their free expressions. Slightly more than half of these parents related the difficulties of teaching at home. The latter was experienced as "complicated," "confrontational", and sometimes a source of cognitive-emotional dissonance. While children expressed missing their teachers and classmates and looking forward to returning to their school in "real life", very few parents reported on the implementation of school-family connections during the crisis.