Children's social and emotional development in the shadow of a pandemic: A prospective, quasi-experimental study.

This multi-method, multi-informant, quasi-experimental study examines trajectories of child psychopathology over an 8-year period pre-and post-COVID-19 pandemic. We examined parenting as a moderator of the COVID-19 impact. Participants were 310 low-to-middle-income families from the United States with a target child followed over 6 waves (Wave 1, Mage = 2.97, SD = 0.38; 55.3% girls; 55.2% White, 21.3% African American, 16.2% mixed race; Wave 6: Mage = 9.32, SD = 0.76). Findings indicated that children exhibit significant linear growth and COVID-related growth above and beyond the linear growth in internalizing problems. Pre-COVID parenting moderated this effect, such that low paternal structure and consistency and low parental secure-base provision strengthened the association between COVID impact and the growth of internalizing problems, yielding greater increases under high impact and lower increases under low impact.