The Negative Impact of Covid-19 Restrictions on Italian Families: Could the Implementation of Online Play Specialist Strategies Make a Difference?
On the first day of March 2020, the World Health Organization declared the status of pandemic. Since then, Covid-19’s outbreak has reshaped the routines of families and children all over the world. In Italy, restrictions began on February 23, 2020, to prevent the virus from spreading into other regions from the area of Codogno (Lombardy, northern Italy) where the first case italian case of Coronavirus was detected. Although the lockdown of Codogno, the virus rapidly spread across Italy until the Government declared the status of national lockdown on March 11, 2020. The strategies to face pandemics have brought restrictions on mobility, socialization, and behavior among adults, adolescents, and children (see Italian Government, 2020). More specifically, cinemas, theaters, cultural centers, sport-centers, shops not selling staple goods, and schools were closed.
Moreover, authorities are still imposing social distancing and home working to stop the contagion (Lazzerini & Putoto, 2020) since Italy is severely suffering from the Covid-19 pandemic. As literature stressed out, Italian families were affected by children’s irritability, regressive behaviors, and problems in managing pre-existing behavioral, psychological, and physical difficulties (Pisano et al., 2020). Plus, homeworking negatively impacted parenting as working mothers and fathers, daily struggling to fulfill their professional responsibilities, reported problems to manage their sons at home (Colizzi et al., 2020; de Girolamo et al., 2020).
By closing or reducing the time-schedule, Italian schools have redesigned the learning process and children and adolescents' social experience. School closure represents a disruption in youngsters' learning trajectories, while remote education challenges both students and teachers (Daniel, 2020). However, the lack of data about the long-term effects of remote education makes it premature to determine whether it is positively or negatively impacting students' learning processes (Zimmerman, 2020). The literature highlights that this change may be harmful to children and adolescents with clinical conditions (e.g., autism, special educational needs) and mental health issues since it disrupts the structured routine guaranteed by school for learning and socialization (Bozkurt et al., 2020; Bozkurt & Sharma, 2020a; Lee, 2020). Lacking a school routine is also associated with a higher risk of weight gain in children and adolescents (Rundle et al., 2020). Plus, the online environment is becoming the primary source of socialization for most children and adolescents - often navigating without adults' supervision - with a higher risk of developing problematic internet use patterns (De Miranda et al., 2020; Dong et al., 2020). As stressed out by Bozkurt and Sharma (2020b), the concept of ‘normality’ has been reshaped in individuals’ daily life: smart-working and remote education are now part of the human’s routine, that can be defined as ‘the new normal’ and will have a long-term impact on the new generations.
Overall, according to previous studies over the impact of the SARS epidemic (2002-2004) and contemporary research over Covid-19 pandemic, depression, stress, irritability, anxiety, PTSD symptoms are direct consequences of quarantine isolation across different age-ranges (Courtney et al., 2020; Hawryluck et al., 2004; Liu et al., 2012).
Risks for the quality of the relationship between parents and children are also worth noticing. Economic insecurity, lack of leisure time, low perceived social support are all consequences of Covid-19 restrictions and risk factors for parental burnout syndrome (Lindström et al. 2011; Sorkkila & Aunola, 2020). Parental burnout consists of emotional and physical fatigue related to the parent's role, which leads to considering interacting with the child as no more enjoyable, less engaging, and perceive a massive emotional distancing, psychosomatic complaints, and depressive symptoms (Roskam et al., 2017). Parental burnout is also a predictor of children's neglect and maltreatment, an issue that needs to be appropriately addressed with preventive interventions (Mikolajczak et al., 2018).
During the Covid-19 months (i.e., from March 2020 national lockdown to present), parents have to spend more time alone at home with their children since: (a) school's timetable is reduced, (b) parents are often recommended to work from home, (c) grandparents, aunts and uncles, and babysitters are less engaged in family routine given the possibility of a mutual contagion. Defining barriers within the family house between workspaces and children-spaces can be very challenging, depending on variables associated with the family socioeconomic status (e.g., the house's dimensions, the number of rooms, the number of gardens). In this framework, parents of children in clinical conditions are more at risk of developing burnout because the caregiver’s physical and psychological strain can become massive (e.g., autism, disabilities, intellectual disabilities, cancer, ADHD) (Arafa & Lamlom, 2020; Weiss, 2002). These data underline the importance of professionals' intervention to support children with physical or psychological frailty during the Covid-19 era, providing them with a constant routine for learning and socialization activities. This chapter proposes implementing an online adaptation of the Play Specialist intervention model, addressing at ameliorating diverse aspects of the family life experiencing psychosocial difficulties.