Study reveals how parents and kids interact amid lockdown
Amid the many tragic implications of the COVID-19 pandemic for individuals and families, recent Harvard research has uncovered one significant — if potentially fleeting — silver lining for fathers and children. Dads across the U.S., many of whom now work at home due to coronavirus lockdowns, are feeling closer to their kids. In the first of two online surveys conducted in June by Making Caring Common, an initiative based at the Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE), researchers asked 1,319 American adults, including 284 fathers, about their relationships with their children amid stay-at-home orders. Sixty-eight percent of surveyed fathers reported feeling either “closer” or “much closer” to their children since the pandemic began, and only 1.4 percent reported feeling less close. “In our first survey we were trying to understand the nature of relationships during this time and how they’re evolving in response to the pandemic,” said Richard Weissbourd, faculty director for Making...