The Impact of Pandemic Home Schooling on Parental Mental Health
The global pandemic has impacted deeply upon us all in many ways, and parents are no exception. From financial worries and health concerns to trying to work from home with no childcare and of course the added pressure of emergency pandemic home schooling, many parents have reached breaking point, and this is concerning.
As a mother of three, and also a qualified teacher, I was finding this situation almost impossible to deal with. I felt levels of overwhelm and guilt that I had never experienced before.
I watched families all around me struggle to meet the demands of work, finances, household chores, childcare, and more whilst trying to keep everyone safe from the unknown and, as time has passed I've seen them fall into a sort of pandemic burn out.
So I took it upon myself to explore the situation more deeply. Working with Maria Soroka, Psychologist and Managing Director of Fastuna, we created a survey for parents to complete.
I would like to say a huge thank you to the 540 parents who took time to respond to the surveys. Below are the key findings and a PDF file of the full report.
Key Findings:
These statistics are taken from the National Representative survey: (300 parents, we also interviewed 240 parents via our professional and social networks.)
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In total 81% of parents stated that they were experiencing at least one mental health issue such as anxiety, depression, high levels of stress and broken sleep.
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65% of parents reported that their mental health had slightly or significantly worsened during lockdowns.
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50% of parents reported feeling overwhelmed by the level of support that they were required to give their children in terms of home schooling.
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43% stated that they could hardly cope with the level of support their children needed whilst learning online.
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Parents of children who had Special Educational Needs reported much more often that they were struggling to cope with the level of support needed for home schooling, and parents with children in Primary School also felt a higher level of overwhelm.
The final report
To view all of our findings and read the final report, click on the PDF.
*If you would like to use any of this data in publications please let us know, and cite Sarah Vaughan and Maria Soroka as the authors, thank you.