Analysis of the transcribed interview demonstrated three main themes: (i) understanding the COVID-19, (ii) reflections of the COVID-19 outbreak on the family relations, (iii) reflections of the COVID-19 outbreak on the children’s play and play materials.
Understanding the COVID-19
Four mothers had reported that they told their children what the COVID-19 is. Interestingly, all the mothers who told the COVID-19 to their children had stated that they made some explanations just after the children asked what the COVID is. The other two mothers had emphasized that they did not try to explain the COVID-19 as children did not ask anything about it. Moreover, they had thought that their children did not have sufficient language ability to understand the COVID-19 due to their low level of expressive language ability.
Analysis of the interview had revealed that children learn the COVID-19 in two ways as follows: (I) exposure to news and new home routines related to the COVID-19, (II) explanations of family members. First, they had been exposed to the news about the COVID-19 on TV. Mothers had stated that children heard the words related to COVID-19 such as illness, mortality rate or mask on TV. In addition, mothers had expressed that children observed the new home routines related to COVID-19. For example, children had witnessed that their parents kept waiting for their market bags on the balcony after shopping.
Second, parents had explained to children the COVID-19 using various techniques. They helped children understand the COVID-19 by including it in their daily activities. Mostly, mothers had chosen the words of illness or microbe rather than Coronavirus or COVID in their explanations due to children’s familiarity with these words. Mothers had sung songs related to microbes. In addition, they provide some cartoons related to illness. One of the mothers had used an analogy technique to tell her child the spread of the infection. A mother explained how she used analogy with paints:
Mother O: We told him that there are microbes on the outside, but we cannot see them. We used paints to show where the microbes should be in the house. We rubbed paint on his hands, and we said that if you touch anywhere with your hands, it will be paint. Look, a microbe is something like that. We tried to explain it by demonstrating and providing it to experience.
Mothers who explained the COVID-19 to their children had emphasized that children were able to accommodate the new routines easily. Children were more careful than their parents in terms of not interrupting routines. Children had reminded their parents to wash their hands or take on their masks. In fact, they had warned each other that they should wear their mask during the play. On the contrary, one of the children whose mother did not make any explanations about the COVID-19 had refused to talk with his brother if he wore a mask.
Reflections of the COVID-19 outbreak on the family relations
The second part of the findings is about the reflections of the COVID-19 outbreak on the family relations. Two categories were identified as follows: (I) positive reflections and (II) negative reflections; and three subcategories on each category as: (a) parents, (b) parent-child relations, and (c) children.
Mothers reported that the COVID-19 outbreak made positive reflections on family relations in terms of parents, parent-child relations and their children. First, mothers expressed that they and also their partners were affected internally from the COVID-19 outbreak. The majority of mothers shared an increase in their own parental self-efficacy in the outbreak process. They indicated that they were fulfilling their parenting role. Mothers attributed this to spending more time with their children, and also shared that they were satisfied from parenting in the outbreak process. Two mothers who work at home connected this to being witnesses to the developmental stages of their children. A mother explained her satisfaction from parenting that:
Mother O: My son started to say his first words before the pandemic, but I could not witness this stage. Being at home with him in this one year was good for me as a mother who lived out of home in two of these three years due to my work.
Second, mothers expressed that the COVID-19 outbreak reflected positively on parent-child relationships. The majority of mothers shared that this outbreak contributed to the unity of their family. Throughout this process, the parents were able to spend more quality time with their children. In addition, mothers experienced a change in daily routines. They stated that eating at home together had positive effects on their family relations. They evaluated arriving early at home and additional time for eating together positively in regard to their relationship with children. Moreover, they emphasized that being at home with their children reflects on their professional life. Mothers stated that children coming to the room during a meeting made the parents happy.
Third, mothers pointed out that the COVID-19 outbreak reflected positively on children. The majority of mothers stated that children could accommodate this extraordinary situation and were positively affected from this process. They were able to spend quality time with their parents. Four mothers explained that their children’s expressive language is improved due to spending more time with their parents and receiving more language input from them. In addition, two mothers whose children have accessibility to nature indicated that they find more opportunity to be in a natural environment in this process.
While mothers indicated positive reflections of the COVID-19 outbreak, they also pointed out the negative reflections of it on parents, parent-child relationships, and their children. The first negative reflection of the COVID-19 outbreak was on the psychological wellbeing of the parents. Most mothers felt psychologically overwhelmed. Two mothers complained about the other people violating the rules related to COVID-19 and this made them more stressed. One mother had suffered from heart palpitations due to anxiety. This mother added that she put pressure on her family members to be careful about the hygiene issues. The majority of mothers felt that their freedom was restricted. In fact, two mothers indicated that they had to be in a room at home and lock the door to work. Moreover, nearly all mothers expressed an increase in negative beliefs about themselves and their family members. They became anxious about the grandparents’ and their health, their professional life, their children’s educational and social life. For many mothers, the COVID-19 outbreak induced negative reflections on their professional life. Two mothers worried about the delay in their professional progress. A mother emphasized the difficulty of working at home that:
Mother S: During this period, I had to complete my doctoral thesis. As I was not used to working at home, I could not separate my housework from my professional work.
In fact, one mother felt uncomfortable about taking work home. In addition, mothers agreed that the outbreak changed their daily routines and had to take some extra measures. The time spent outside was restricted. They kept the shopping bags outside. Family members had to wear masks while going outside. They had to wash their hands frequently.
The second negative reflection of the COVID-19 outbreak was on parent-child relationships. One mother shared her awareness of being harmful for her children due to her oppressive behaviors related to hygiene issues. In addition, one mother who has two children stated that she was not able to allocate time to her children equally. She had to spend more time on the homework of her older child at school.
The third negative reflection of the COVID-19 outbreak was on children. All mothers reported that children were not able to enjoy their childhood. Mothers noticed that children had to spend more time at home, and they could not get rid of their surplus energy. Two mothers shared their children’s sleeping problems. One mother had suffered from her child’s regression on toilet training due to the discontinuity of the normalization process after lockdown. Similarly, two mothers shared that their children had language retardation because of the isolation. In addition, all mothers stated an increase in the screen time of their children. One mother highlighted “My daughter met with TV and phone screen in the COVID process.”
Reflections of the COVID-19 outbreak on the children’s play and play materials
The findings in this section are divided into two categories as a result of the analysis. These categories are called play/play materials and peer relations.
The first category, play/play materials category, includes play types, play processes, toys and play areas codes. Before going into the details of this category, it should be noted that the impact of COVID-19 should not be seen directly on the play and play materials of children who do not know about COVID-19 and there are indirect reflections for these children. On the other hand, children who are aware of COVID-19 have both indirect and direct reflections on play and play materials.
The parents were asked whether the reflections of COVID-19 appeared in children’s plays, which is the first part of this category. Parents have said that children’s paintings and dramatic plays involve doctors, vaccinations, treatments, a stethoscope, sickness, and masks. This was valid for children who directly knew COVID-19 and at least knew it at the disease level. Children who do not know the COVID-19 generally play symbolic plays, traditional plays, and physical activities such as home dancing, sports, running, and leaping. It has been established that these activities are also mentioned for children who are aware of COVID-19.
The second part of this category, play processes, features the reflections that transform children’s play processes due to COVID-19. These practices include caution from peers to each other about masks, restriction of parking times, decreased frequency of parking times, decreased physical play due to inability to play outdoors, refusal to go out and the use of a park-landing equipment consisting of napkins, disinfectants and masks. A mother defined the park landing gear as:
Mother S: We changed our equipment as we went down to the park more for us. Napkins, disinfectants, she's gonna get in the toy. We clean the whole place and then we sit the kid down.
In addition to these codes on going out, mothers have also defined the reflection of being at home in their play process with some positive expressions. These are children becoming freer, more time playing with their parents and more quality time; parents getting pleasure from the play; research to offer different plays to their children; and taking samples from social media in particular. It has also been noted that children sometimes have difficulty playing alone due to the increased time spent playing plays with parents.
The third part of COVID-19’s reflection of children in play and play materials is about toys. When they think of COVID-19 in terms of children’s toys, mothers mentioned that when they bring in outdoor toys, they experience an increase in screen interaction and similarly they see an increase in the number of toys. Outdoor toys that move indoors are labeled as scooters, bicycles, balls and battery-powered cars. Two mothers stated the following about bringing these toys into the house:
Mother F: But there are some things happening inside the house, at some point it's hard. Mother O: As long as it’s not generally dangerous for us, everything is free.
On the other hand, it was stated that the number of toys in all homes has increased in terms of COVID-19 being reflected in children’s toys. Mothers explained that they do this in order to relieve their own conscience, as children usually stay closed at home. However, mothers agreed that this increase in the number of toys makes the toys worthless, causes children to fall into a craze for consumption, and as a result children get bored. Due to the increase in the number of toys, mothers were advised to stop buying toys and to transform them into toys among the families they know.
The last section of this category consists of playgrounds. COVID-19 lockdown, curfews and the children’s play areas have been moved completely to the home and mothers have identified the houses as playgrounds. A mother objected to this as follows:
Mother O: The whole house is his playground; it’s getting freer in the house. There’s a helicopter on my desk with my files, looking around in the morning.
The second category of COVID-19 has been defined as peer relationships under the title of children’s reflection on play and play materials. Peer relationships were examined using two different codes as peer deprivation and peer interactions. The shortage of peers, which forms the first part of this category, includes not spending time with peers, refusing to play with peers and peers, and being socially cut out from peers. Mothers are described as peer deprivation, such as playing with the adults at home all the time, a decrease in the commute to parks, which is a place where they can socialize with their peers, and the lack of sharing among children during the limited times that go to the park. Mothers explained that all of these factors have left children alone in their plays, not being able to experience sharing and learning not to touch.
Second and final part of this category is defined as peer interactions. The interactions with peers are listed as follows: contactless plays, zero contact, social distancing, lack of sharing, warning peers about masks, parents not challenging other children. Mothers explained that during the COVID-19 pandemic, children had to learn how to play contactless plays, distance themselves from their peers while playing plays, not share food and toys with anyone, and to warn their peers about wearing masks. When asked whether COVID-19 has brought about a change in children’s plays, one of the mothers responded as follows:
Mother G: There’s quite a difference. They used to play a lot of contacts. They used to hold hands. They were walking together, playing tag. I don’t know. They hold on to each other and they slide off the slide. But in this period, children play with zero contact. They’re waiting for each other. There’s a different layout down there. They created a new social order.
Mothers also stated that they are not worried about children playing with their children in the play area, but they are worried that adults approach their children and warn them. A mother used to tell the story of the past:
Mother F: I can’t prevent him from socializing too much if he has friends in the park. I told my husband yesterday that even if we did; there was nothing we could do.