Modifications des relations intrafamiliales dans les familles françaises de jeunes enfants pendant le premier confinement lié à la COVID-19

Introduction

In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, the French state implemented containment measures requiring parents to stay at home with their children, while ensuring, in addition to daily tasks and work, their schooling.

Objective

The objective of this publication is to present the modifications of parent-child and spousal relationships during this period and their main sources according to the parents.

Method

An online questionnaire from 28 April 2020 to 29 May 2020 collected data from 490 French families with at least one child from birth to six years old. A content analysis of the discursive corpus was carried out with NVivo software (version 10). Quantitative statistical processing (using STATA software, version 16.1) tested the relationships between socio-demographic variables, as well as those relating to the parents’ experiences, and “strained” and “strengthened” intrafamily relationships.

Results

While for 33.3% of the respondents, family relationships did not change, they became stronger for 42.5% and tense for almost a quarter (24.3%).

Conclusion

Understanding the sources of tension experienced by families of young children during lockdown, as well as what enabled other families to better cope with this situation, may enable measures to be implemented to deal with the consequences of the discomfort generated by the lockdown and to avoid further psychological problems during possible future ones.