Disrupted and Disconnected: Child Activities, Social Skills, and Race/Ethnicity During the Pandemic

Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, parents reported that their children spent majority of time at home, which can dramatically change activities and negatively impact social skills. However, research has yet to uncover relationships between changes during pandemic children’s skills, nor degree these might differ across race ethnicity. To fill this gap knowledge, we leverage a nationally representative survey with 948 conducted May 2021 use Likert scaled questions explore increases or decreases range child (e.g., outdoor activities, schoolwork friend extracurricular screen activities) better worse skills COVID-19. By exploring relationship first 15 months provide new evidence for long-term effects COVID-19’s disruptions on development, while highlighting opportunities improve through targeted activities. First, used multivariate linear regression strategy capture associations accounting robust set student, school, parent covariates. Then, interaction terms examine moderating role ethnicity We found an increase were significantly associated also Hispanic households was especially important development Black households,