Parenting and Emotional and Behavioral Responses of Children and Adolescents to the COVID-19 Epidemic: A Cross-sectional Survey in China

To investigate parenting and children’s emotional and lifestyle responses to the COVID-19 epidemic, we conducted an online survey of random, representative sample of residents with children aged 3–17 years in mid-March, 2020 in China. 1655 parents were surveyed with 80.1% response rate. During the epidemic, half (49%) of children had stress symptoms and 10% had emotional problems; children had higher screen time, less exercise and worse sleep than before. Socially disadvantaged children were more vulnerable to the epidemic. Children whose parents communicated about the epidemic more frequently, who had irritable parents and experienced worse parent-child closeness had higher probabilities of emotional problems, stress symptoms and worse lifestyles. Improve parenting skills and communication quality is necessary during the epidemic.