WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Looking back on the COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on their school-age children, U.S. parents are more likely to report negative social and emotional issues than academic or physical health troubles.
Gallup’s latest update to its COVID-19 tracking poll finds that 45% of parents of school-age children say the pandemic has had a negative impact on their child’s social skills development. Half of them, 22%, report the social difficulty is ongoing, while the other half, 23%, say it has eased. Similarly, 42% of these parents say their child’s mental health has been negatively affected by the pandemic, including 21% who say the issue persists.
In terms of academics, at least three in 10 parents say the pandemic negatively impacted their child’s skills in math (36%), reading (31%) or science (30%), with roughly half of each group saying the effects are ongoing. Fewer parents (23%) say the pandemic negatively affected their child’s physical health.
Meanwhile, solid majorities of K-12 parents -- ranging from 56% to 69% -- say there was no effect on their child’s physical health or math, reading or science skills. Fewer say the same about their child’s social skills development (47%) and mental health (52%). No more than 10% of parents say their child was positively affected by the pandemic in any of the six areas measured.
These results are based on U.S. parents or guardians who have had a child in kindergarten through 12th grade within the past five years, encompassing years when schools faced significant disruption from the COVID-19 health emergency. The survey was conducted by web Feb. 18-26, using Gallup’s probability-based panel.
Previously released findings from the same poll show that while six in 10 Americans say the pandemic is over (59%), a similar percentage worry about seeing another pandemic in their lifetime (58%). In addition, 47% of U.S. adults say their life is completely back to the normal that existed before the pandemic, while 13% expect it to eventually return to pre-pandemic normalcy and 40% think life will never get back to normal.
Parents’ Assessments of Pandemic’s Impact on Children Differ Most by Grade Level
K-12 parents’ impressions of the pandemic’s impact on children diverge most based on their child’s grade level at the start of the pandemic, in March 2020.
Parents of middle school students (who were in sixth through eighth grade at the beginning of the pandemic) are more likely than parents of elementary (kindergarten through fifth grade) or high school students (grades nine through 12) to report ongoing negative effects. This is the case for all six areas compared with elementary school students, and for social skills, math, reading and science compared with high school students.
While partisans’ views of many aspects of the pandemic differ sharply, K-12 parents’ reports of its negative effects on their child’s life are similar across party lines. Differences by other demographic subgroups are minimal, aside from a significant discrepancy in the percentages of women (25%) and men (16%) reporting their child suffers an ongoing negative effect on their mental health.
Implications
In March 2020, the spread of COVID-19 caused the shuttering of U.S. schools and a switch to remote learning across the country for the remainder of the school year. Many districts remained remote for portions of the 2020-2021 school year as well.
More than four in 10 parents of K-12 students say their child’s social skills development and mental health were negatively impacted by the pandemic, and more than two in 10 say the negative effects on these children’s social and emotional development continue today. Fewer parents report adverse impacts on their child’s academics -- including math, reading and science -- or their physical health. Middle schoolers were the most negatively impacted.
Although parents’ perceptions show relatively minimal ongoing academic effects, government data tracking students’ performance in math, reading, science and writing since 1969 in “The Nation’s Report Card” tell a different story. The report recently found that while students have made up at least some of the ground they lost during the pandemic in math, their reading and math scores remain below pre-pandemic levels. Federal COVID-relief aid has been credited with the improvements by some, but President Donald Trump’s plan to eliminate the Department of Education could affect future funding.
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