Managing Disruptions in Early Care & Education: Lessons from COVID-19

Abstract

Families face challenging decisions about early care and education (ECE) for their children. Decisions about what is best for each child and family are constrained by family and contextual factors and are prone to disruptions. This study provides a descriptive look at patterns of ECE settings children were in the year prior to kindergarten, beginning in Fall 2019 through Spring 2021, a period during which most ECE arrangements were disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic, and into the 2020–2021 kindergarten year. Analyses of survey (N = 121) and interview (n = 25) data from families whose children entered kindergarten in Fall 2020 revealed multiple and cascading disruptions during this time. Disruptions were nearly universal, and families made continual accommodations as they juggled employment needs and children’s ECE needs. Findings from this study have implications for how actual and anticipated disruptions may have a greater influence on families’ child care decision-making into the future.

Families have diverse options for early care and education and (ECE) settings for their child in the years before kindergarten. Yet, decisions about the setting that is best for each child and family are constrained by local options and availability, cost, location, and the family’s specific needs and preferences (Meyers & Jordan, 2006). These arrangements are also subject to disruptions based on changing parental employment and high rates of turnover within the early childhood workforce. This has been particularly relevant during the COVID-19 pandemic, during which families faced disruptions in their children’s ECE arrangements due to mandatory closures, health risks, employment changes, and other challenges (e.g., Malik et al., 2020; Patrick et al., 2020). There is limited research on ECE disruptions, yet emerging evidence suggests that while some families are able to anticipate some disruptions and utilize back-up providers, unplanned and forced disruptions can have larger implications, such as on maternal employment instability (Scott & Abelson, 2016; Spiers et al., 2015), the child’s education access and outcomes, and the family resources and well-being.

The objectives of this study were to (1) gain a better understanding of how families experienced unplanned ECE disruptions during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic; and (2) how they managed, adapted to, and made choices within an environment of dynamic and unpredictable constraints. Disruptions are a regular part of families’ experiences navigating ECE, and the lessons learned from the mass disruptions during the start of the COVID-19 pandemic have implications for the future.

Role of Disruptions

Literature on childcare disruptions provides some insight into the ways the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting educational and employment disruptions may influence ECE decision-making. Previous research has illustrated the interconnected nature of work and childcare, documenting the challenges families face coordinating work and childcare schedules, especially families with low incomes (Henly & Lambert, 2005; Sandstrom & Chaudry, 2012; Speirs et al., 2015). For families with low-incomes, disruptions to childcare often impact parents’ employment, resulting in unexpected absences, shortened hours, loss of pay (Ferreira van Leer et al., 2021; Usdansky & Wolf, 2008), or even in a parent leaving or losing employment (Miller, 2006). There is less research examining how work disruptions impact family and child well-being. Nonetheless, scholars have increasingly explored the mechanisms through which changes to employment impact children’s development. The Family Stress model posits changes to employment influences parental stress, resulting in more negative parenting and parent-child interactions (Conger et al., 2000). Additional evidence suggests unstable work schedules are associated with decreased parent well-being (Ananat & Gassman-Pines, 2021) and lower-quality parent-child interactions (Henly et al., 2006). Together, research suggests that the types of disruptions resulting from the pandemic – school closures and employment changes – are likely among the most consequential disruptions for families, potentially resulting in parental stress, loss of income, and less access to positive learning environments for children (Chen et al., 2021; Hanno et al., 2022; Patrick et al., 2020; Waxman & Gupta, 2021).

Disruptions During COVID-19

Widespread closures of schools and childcare programs at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020 resulted in childcare disruptions for almost all families in the U.S. (Lee & Parolin, 2021). These nearly universal disruptions had implications for families’ work schedules, resources, and well-being (e.g. Chen et al., 2021; Hanno et al., 2022; Patrick et al., 2020; Waxman & Gupta, 2021). Research that examined children and parents’ well-being between March 2020 and June 2020 in households with children under 18 found that 24% reported regular loss of childcare, 27% worse mental health for themselves, and 14% reported more behavioral issues for their children (Patrick et al., 2020), with potentially higher rates for families with young children. Using longitudinal data on families with young children in Massachusetts, Hanno and colleagues (2022) (2021) found significant increases in children’s behavioral challenges, parental mental health issues, parental stress, household chaos, and parent-child conflict after the March 2020 shutdowns compared to the same sample at two earlier time points.

As schools and programs made different decisions about reopening based on federal, state, and local guidance and community positivity rates, families continued to face disruptions and had to make urgent decisions about the types of care to use, their work schedules, and their comfort levels with various risk factors. An analysis of mobile phone data across the United States throughout the pandemic found that two-thirds of child care centers closed in April 2020 (Lee & Parolin, 2021). In December 2020, an analysis of national survey data found that nine months into the pandemic, one out of five adults were working fewer hours than they wanted due to childcare responsibilities (Waxman & Gupta, 2021). In April 2021, one year into the pandemic, Lee and Parolin (2021) found that one-third of child care centers continued to be closed. An analysis of the U.S. Census’s Household Pulse Survey between April and June 2021 found that approximately 1 in 5 households with children reported a child care disruption due to COVID-19 (Chen et al., 2021). These families often reported leaving or losing a job, cutting work hours, supervising children while working, or using paid leave as a result of this disruption.

Accommodation Model

This study is guided by the accommodation model (Chaudry et al., 2010; Meyers & Jordan, 2006) as a framework to understand families’ dynamic childcare decision-making processes. The accommodation model, first outlined by Meyers and Jordan (2006), synthesizes predominant theoretical models of decision-making across the behavioral sciences to better describe how families make decisions about ECE. First, the model draws on the economic consumer choice framework which theorizes that individuals utilize the information at their disposal to make rational, discrete decisions to meet their preferences. Second, the model draws on heuristics and biases frameworks from behavioral psychology (Kahneman & Tversky, 1979). These frameworks posit that individuals utilize heuristics – mental shortcuts or generalizations – to more quickly understand their environments and make decisions. Third, the accommodation model leverages sociological network theory which posits that social interactions with others shape individual decisions (Pescosolido, 1992). This theoretical perspective emphasizes the role of the social network and interpersonal ties. Lastly, Chaundry & colleagues (2010) further refined the accommodation model by grounding it in the life course model of family adaptive strategies (Moen & Wethington, 1992). Life course models center families, rather than individuals, as the locus of decision-making. Through a lens of the family, the life course model asks researchers to attend to the entire family unit, accounting for factors such as whether siblings are present, the birth order of children, children’s ages, and parent’s life and career trajectories when examining the decisions such as childcare. Thus, the temporal dimension of family decisions, a tenet of the life course model, is an important consideration for the accommodation model.

Rather than framing the childcare decision-making process as a static, individual choice, the accommodation model frames the ongoing selection of ECE as an accommodation of competing demands and expectations at multiple levels. For example, parents may hold a preference for a certain type of care arrangement, but their work and family schedules may dictate the types of care that are feasible for them. One of the potential consequences of these constrained choices is that parents may be forced to rely on a care arrangement that works for their families in the short term, but may not be a stable form of care in the long term, making disruptions evitable. The accommodation model is particularly salient when considering the complexity of decision-making during a pandemic, when choices were constrained by both contextual factors based on availability of open programs in a community, lack of information and changing information based on local public health guidelines, and individual family needs based on flexibility (or lack of flexibility) of work schedules, tolerance for health and safety risks, back up care options for disruptions, and overall family needs and preferences.

Present Study

Within the context of a research-practice partnership in a small northeastern United States city, this study used a mixed methods design to provide a descriptive look at patterns of children’s ECE settings from the year prior to kindergarten and into the kindergarten year. The study includes data collection about ECE use during a time of multiple disruptions for families: Fall 2019 through Spring 2021, inclusive of a period when all formal ECE arrangements were closed in the city (March-June 2020) and when the school district was fully remote for kindergarten (September 2020-April 2021). The data was collected in Spring and Summer 2021 providing a prospective look at ECE use during this time period and a retrospective look from Fall 2019-Spring 2021. This study addressed the following descriptive questions:

1. What are the patterns of ECE arrangements and disruptions for families over the year before and during kindergarten, including the COVID-19 pandemic?

2. How did families manage and adapt to disruptions in ECE?

Method

This study used an explanatory-sequential mixed methods design (Creswell & Plano Clark, 2017), with a quantitative survey phase first and an open-ended interview phase second. This method allowed for a deeper descriptive look at family patterns of ECE and the ways families experienced disruptions. Using multiple data methods allowed us to gain a better understanding of challenges faced by families beyond what either data source could show alone.

Instruments & Procedures

An online survey asking a series of questions about ECE arrangements from September 2019 through spring 2020 was sent to all kindergarten families (approximately 380) in a mid-sized school district in the northeastern United States in Spring 2021 as part of a larger study on ECE decision-making. One hundred and fifty-five participants responded to the survey. Questions specific to COVID-19 were included at the end of the survey and some participants did not respond to these questions. Since this study focuses specifically on COVID-19, the analytic sample includes survey participants who responded to at least 45% of survey questions and had a child who was in non-parental care for more than 5 h per week in the fall before their kindergarten year (N = 121).

Survey response data were linked to child and family demographic information from district administrative data to minimize the burden on survey participants. Following survey data collection, we followed up with a subsample of families for virtual, one-hour interviews (n = 25) in Summer 2021. The survey and interview protocol were developed by the research team with input from community partners, and were institutional review board (IRB) approved. All interview participants received a $20.00 gift card and survey participants were entered into a drawing to win one of two $50.00 gift cards. All participants gave written consent for the survey and interview.

Survey

The survey consisted of approximately 40 closed-ended questions, with modules on household information, ECE and work arrangements from September 2019-March 2020 (pre-pandemic), ECE arrangements from March 2020-August 2020 (during the pandemic), changes in family work arrangements in March 2020 and the experience of transitioning into kindergarten in Fall 2020. The survey was available in English, Spanish, Portuguese, and Haitian-Creole.

Interview

The interview protocol aimed to build on the survey and gain a rich description of ECE decision-making prior to the pandemic and the changes following the onset of COVID-19 through the end of the child’s kindergarten year. Interviews were conducted in English or Spanish. Unlike the survey, the interviews also asked questions about child care needs during the kindergarten school year when the school district remained in virtual learning.

Sample

Survey

Survey respondents were primarily mothers (83%), with a smaller number of fathers (15%) or other caregivers (2%). Families who participated in the survey were 75% white, 8% Asian, 4% Black, and 12% multiple or another race. 17% of families identified as Latinx. Families spoke multiple languages at home with 67% speaking English as their home language, 13% Spanish, 6% Portuguese, and 16% other (other included 15 different languages reported by 3 or less respondents). 91% of participants completed the survey in English, 5% in Spanish, and 4% in Portuguese. Children whose parents completed the survey were 5.85 years old on average as of January of their kindergarten year, 48% were female, 21% were eligible for free/reduced priced lunch, and 14% were eligible for special education services.

On average, families reported using between 1 and 3 arrangements for their child the year before kindergarten prior to the COVID-19 pandemic (September 2019-March 2020), with an average of just over one (M = 1.37; SD = 0.58). Families reported multiple arrangements, including public school prekindergarten, local center-based care, Head Start, family childcare programs, and family/friend/neighbor care. The most common arrangements included: the district’s public-school prekindergarten program (45%), local center-based care (35%), and family/friend/neighbor care (28%; see Table 1).

Table 1.

Characteristics of survey participants

Characteristic	Mean (SD)	%
Primary ECE Use: Spring 2020 prior to COVID
Public School Prekindergarten Program		45
Center-based care or Family Child Care Program		37
Head Start		12
Family, Friend and/or Neighbor Care		28
Child Age (years) at start of kindergarten	5.85 (0.26)
Number of adults in household	2.24 (0.87)
Number of children in household	1.86 (0.63)
Female		48%
Race/Ethnicity White Black Asian Multiple or Other		76% 4% 8% 12%
Latinx		17%
Home Language English Spanish Portuguese Other		67% 13% 5% 16%
Preferred Language for School Communication English Spanish Other		91% 4% 6%
Free/reduced lunch eligible		21%
Special education eligible		14%

Note. N = 121 for primary ECE type and N = 120 for all other variables. Some participants used more than one ECE type. Rounding may also result in columns not equal to 100%

Interviews

Interview participants were recruited from the survey sample with outreach from the research team and the school district. Purposive sampling enabled us to maximize inclusion of non-English speaking households and variation in the types of ECE settings. Outreach was conducted in English, Spanish, Portuguese, and Haitian-Creole with additional outreach efforts to recruit families with low-incomes and families who spoke a language other than English at home. Of the 25 interview participants, 7 were fathers, two were single parents, two had multi-generational households with more than two adults, and one was part of a same-sex parented household. Interviewees utilized center-based care outside of the city (32%), the district’s public school preschool program (28%), center-based care or a family child care program in the city (28%), and Head Start (12%) in the year before kindergarten (up to March 2020). The majority of families who participated reported speaking English at home. Families also spoke Spanish, Portuguese, and Nepali, and other languages. Households were racially and ethnically diverse with seven families who identified as Latinx or discussed one parent with origins from Latin America, four families identified as Asian and white, and two families identified as white and another race/ethnicity. Five households reported their child was eligible for special education and four reported they were eligible for free/reduced lunch (Table 2).

Table 2.

Characteristics of interview participants

Characteristic	n
Primary ECE Use: Fall 2019
Public School Prekindergarten Program	7
Center-based care or Family Child Care Program in city	7
Center-based care in nearby town	8
Head Start	3
Reported home Language
English	16
Spanish	5
Other	5
Race/Ethnicity
White	23
Other	2
Asian	5
Latinx	7
Free/reduced lunch eligible	4
Special education eligible	5

Note. n = 25. Administrative and interview data used. One interview participant missing from administrative. Other is included under race/ethnicity for participant privacy. Families could be represented under more than one race/ethnicity or language therefore numbers may not add up to 25.

Analytic Plan

To address our research questions, we conducted descriptive analyses of survey data and linked school district administrative data to present demographic means, standard deviations, percentages and cross-tabulations. Qualitative data was transcribed by three members of the research team, two whom are bilingual Spanish-English speakers. Two members of the research team analyzed the data utilizing a modified social constructivist grounded theory analysis approach (Charmaz, 2006). This began with inductive, line-by-line open coding. In this stage, researchers labeled each line of text in the transcript to describe, summarize, or briefly interpret the content. For example, a line of a transcript stating, “my manager is cool and everything. And he knew I was struggling and doing the best I could, but it was clear in meetings – I’m talking to various people and then have to go, ‘I’m sorry, emergency’ and leave the zoom due to [the] kids,” was coded as “having an understanding manager” and “needing to leave meetings for child.” Half of the interviews were separately coded by both researchers who then met to discuss the coding to ensure shared understanding across codes.

After completing open-coding, researchers reviewed all the codes generated and began grouping them into axial codes or themes. In this process we reviewed codes for informational redundancy and scope, identifying patterns in the data that provided inferences related to our research questions. For example, the aforementioned codes were grouped with others into an initial theme, “online school and working from home was a hard balance for parents.” These initial themes were used to go back to the data, where axial codes were applied as labels to the transcripts to ensure that they were grounded in the data. This process allowed researchers to compare data across interviews, better identify the diverse examples captured, and ensure the themes were cohesive in their description and characteristics. This was further explored through conceptual memos researchers wrote throughout the process where they elaborated on the data they labeled with the axial codes to begin describing the themes and their characteristics as they related to the interviews. This resulted in axial codes being modified to better represent the data. Continuing the example, as we applied the label, “online school and working from home was a hard balance for parents” we identified greater number of examples of participants sharing similar sentiments between managing their work, child’s schooling, and care. Thus, the theme was modified and entitled, “Juggling Employment Arrangements with Children’s Education and Care Needs,” to better represent this ongoing dynamic throughout the pandemic. Iterative cycles of coding and conceptual memoing were used to finalize the set of themes that emerged from the data (presented below). The themes were then integrated alongside quantitative findings and examined side-by-side for congruity. The qualitative data and quantitative data were used to triangulate the findings for this study to develop a holistic understanding (Anfara et al., 2002) of how families in this sample navigated ECE disruptions during the pandemic. The research findings from both data sources were integrated and presented together in the results, including a joint display (Fig. 1), commonly used in mixed methods research to integrate and present findings from quantitative and qualitative data (Creswell & Plano Clark, 2017).

Fig. 1.

Joint Display of Integrated Results

Results

Across the quantitative and qualitative data, we found that the overarching theme was that child care disruptions were experienced by all families, making them universal, and families made continual accommodations as their needs changed. This finding was the core concern identified by participants and a theme across survey and interview findings. Throughout the pandemic, participants experienced multiple disruptions to their work and child care arrangements. An examination of the interviews revealed specific patterns about the timing of disruptions for families. Some of these disruptions were anticipated, such as the transition to kindergarten in fall 2020. In contrast, other disruptions, such as extended closures of child care centers and remote learning, were unexpected and more difficult to accommodate.

Below we detail the specific factors that shaped families’ child care strategies during the pandemic and the four themes that emerged. For a summary of findings and evidence to support them see Fig. 1.

Theme 1: Families Faced Multiple Disruptions

Responses from surveys paint a picture of the almost universal nature of disruptions at the start of the pandemic. The vast majority (95%) of survey respondents reported that their primary ECE setting for their child closed in March 2020. Formal programs and schools in the city were mandated to close from March-June 2020, with separate programs open only to children of essential workers. Participants reporting that their program did not close included a small percentage of families using private centers and Head Start programs outside of the city.

We found that in addition to this initial disruption at the onset of the pandemic in March 2020, disruptions were common during the following periods: the summer of 2020, the start of the kindergarten year in fall 2020, the winter of 2020–2021, and the resumption of in-person learning within the public school district in spring 2021. These specific time periods often yielded new disruptions which families adapted to through shifts in existing arrangements or by creating new arrangements.

Many interview participants reported that they managed childcare themselves at home during the summer of 2020. Families described uncertainty regarding the pandemic and concerns regarding health and keeping their children at home. For many families, needs changed again in September 2020 when kindergarten began fully remotely. After multiple months of caring for children at home, many parents described attempting a variety of ECE arrangements and strategies as children began their remote year of kindergarten, with varying success. Families described hiring babysitters and “tutors” to support their children with virtual learning, or enrolling their children in limited outdoor programs to support their socialization. We saw a pattern of multiple disruptions and childcare instability as a result of the pandemic during the first five months that began to stabilize in the fall. However, dates for the return to in-person learning for kindergarteners were delayed multiple times and most children did not return to full-time in-person learning until April 2021.

Theme 2: Lack of Availability & Lack of Information

Across interviews parents shared how a lack of easily accessible information and insufficient external child care resources made navigating potential care and education options difficult throughout the pandemic. After the initial shutdowns in March 2020, families began to recognize that the closures may not be brief and began considering new arrangements for work and care. Families described difficulty in finding information such as opening dates, hours and cost, and child eligibility. This included information about child care centers, summer camps, and the public elementary school system. Specifically, parents who searched for center-based child care options or summer programming throughout the pandemic cited difficulty in finding information regarding whether programs planned to reopen. Similarly, families cited lack of information regarding potential reopening from the school district at various points which hindered future planning. One interviewee shared, “They didn’t tell us anything. Everybody’s asking what’s going to happen….When you can open the school? ‘We don’t know. We don’t know. We don’t know’ is what we were told.” Citing anxiety regarding the lack of information by the public school system, a small number of families moved to other school districts or private schools. Another parent shared,

We thought it was going to last a few weeks, then we thought it would be three months, the amount of craziness going on in our district with politics. This thing could go on through next school year, right? What if, right, what if we’re in September 2021 and we’re still dealing with this garbage? What is our backup plan? We’re not going to move, so let’s apply to a private school. So, we applied to a few private schools, it was just a backup plan.

While parents understood the difficult circumstances and unforeseeable future, they expressed frustration with the lack of information and described how it hampered their ability to make decisions and multiple disruptions to their work and care arrangements arose.

Parents engaged in trying to find information in various ways. Interviewees discussed checking websites, calling providers, utilizing resources provided by their employer, talking with personal networks, and utilizing social media. Multiple interviewees discussed specific Facebook or WhatsApp groups for parents in the town where information about school closures and openings, and child care availability was shared. Many parents expressed the need for a directory on all of the care options in the area that would include details such as reopening dates, availability, schedule, COVID-19 safety protocols, and cost. A parent expressed:

I’m not sure if the hours were universally available, either, across daycares. So there’s a bit of legwork picking up the phone or emailing and gathering the information to make a reasoned choice. That is challenging…Asking for better visibility into what the expected hours are, in the winter, and spring, because right now they’re COVID hours at some of the places, so limited hours.

Alongside the lack of information, parents consistently described a scarcity of available ECE options during the pandemic. Programs were often closed, had reduced availability, or limited schedules. This was most acute for parents of children with special needs, many of whom described limited services that met their children’s specific needs. Multiple parents also described programs reducing or stopping services altogether. One parent shared, “I see other families being able to do these programs. But if your kid has a disability, and a behavioral disability, it’s like there’s nothing for you. There’s no safety net.” Furthermore, they found it difficult to find information regarding available options that were appropriate for their children.

Theme 3: Juggling Employment Arrangements with Children’s Education and Care Needs

A primary tension described by parents in managing disruptions were the ways employment arrangements and ECE decisions influenced each other. Families described changes to work arrangements including modality, schedules, and expectations. Some families described individual parents taking leave or stopping work. These changes in work were compounded by the initial child care and school closures at the onset of the pandemic. Together, families described how work and child care decisions influenced each other.

When reporting about the work situations of adults in the household at the onset of the pandemic, 94% of survey respondents reported at least one change in their work situation. When selecting all situations that applied to them, 70% of participants had at least one adult in their household who was working from home, and 16% had an adult in the household considered an essential worker. Other changes included having hours cut (11%), workplace closures (22%), and having lost or quit their job (20%). In interviews, parents described how remote learning shifted expectations of parents’ roles in their children’s education. Parents felt they were expected to give greater support and supervision during remote classes, including logging children into remote classes and ensuring children were participating appropriately. More than half (55%) of survey respondents reported that they needed some childcare in order to be able to work during the start of the pandemic. Together, shifting work and education expectations often led to the negotiation of competing demands.

Families adopted new strategies to accommodate these competing demands. To address household ECE needs at the onset of the pandemic, survey respondents turned to grandparents (19%), siblings (2%), other relatives (16%), child care centers for children of essential workers (2%), and paid nannies/babysitters (33%). Among the families that reported needing child care to work, 57% indicated that they cared for their child(ren) themselves while simultaneously working from home. Interviews with parents who had the opportunity to work remotely provide additional insight into the strategies that were used to accommodate work and care. Some two-parent families described dividing their work into shifts and taking turns to provide care or supervise remote learning. One parent shared:

My wife and I had split the day in half basically. So, I got to work in the morning, she got to work in the afternoons, and we didn’t have any weekends anymore. And we just like did that sort of seven days a week.

Some interviewees recounted how work expectations remained consistent with pre-pandemic levels and struggling to keep up with the expectations alongside increased child care responsibilities. This tension resulted in the adoption of new strategies such as finding nonparental care (e.g., tutors or nannies) or reducing their job responsibilities (e.g., cutting hours). This is exemplified by a parent who explained:

We tried to manage it between the two of us and try to keep up with the demands of work. I think by the end of April, we realized it wasn’t working. And we ended up hiring a nanny to take care of the two kids.

Parents also described relying on television or other multimedia to occupy children while they were working. These strategies changed over the course of the pandemic as families wrestled with the long-term nature of remote school and work and new needs to support remote learning when kindergarten started.

Other families continued to work in-person and also adopted new strategies to juggle work and care needs. Some of these parents brought their children to work, asked coworkers to watch children, or made requests of family members to care for their children. One parent turned to her oldest daughter to watch her younger daughter:

My oldest, she’s my lifesaver. During her lunch break, because she was doing remote as well, she would run with my little one, her sister, to the daycare program, drop her off, because I think it was at 12:30. So she would drop her off and then run back to start her class. She would literally miss her lunch.

Some of these parents discussed strategically using sick days to take care of their children when arrangements fell through. One parent described taking family medical leave to care for children when it was made available but returned to work in the spring of 2021.

Theme 4: Concerns About Children’s Development Drove some Decisions

Although 95% of survey respondents reported that their primary ECE arrangement closed in March 2020, our interviews indicate that even for families whose programs did not close, many decided to pause use of the program/provider based on health and safety concerns, suggesting that disruptions were nearly universal. About one quarter of the interview sample had a child who was attending the city’s public school prekindergarten program and approximately half attended a center-based program or Head Start. 76% of survey respondents reported that online learning was offered to them during spring 2020.

However, only 31% of survey respondents reported that their child always participated in online learning (30% never and 37% sometimes) during the start of remote learning in March-June 2020. In interviews, parents expressed concern about the quality of learning during remote classes. Parents noted shorter class sessions, limited attention spans, greater distractions, and changes in pedagogy due to the virtual format. Interviews with parents detailed mixed levels of engagement across children through the following school year (2020–2021) during the period of remote kindergarten. Many interviewees felt that their children needed greater supervision from parents or other adults during the remote classes. One interviewee shared, “She’s fidgeting a lot. And you know, she needed a strong hand. Because if you don’t do that, then she’s going to go and watch TV, she’s going to go into dreamworld… she’s not going to focus.” Many parents worried that the changes in learning due to the virtual format negatively influenced their children’s education compared to in-person learning and particularly pointed to their beliefs regarding kindergarten as a critical age for development.

In contrast, some parents interviewed did not express concern over the perceived lack of learning, citing their beliefs that kindergarten was not an academically crucial time or that their children were sufficiently prepared by previous educational experiences. Some also felt that their child received “secondhand kindergarten” from older siblings. While academic learning was the subject of many parents’ discussions, they often noted the speed at which their children mastered new technologies and children’s resourcefulness with virtual classes in interviews.

These considerations influenced child care arrangements. Interviews with families revealed that some families hired tutors or nannies to support children with remote schooling. This was the case with the aforementioned parent who continued, “So we needed to hold her, and I couldn’t do that because I have to work, right? So, I put the money in hiring someone.” Other families turned to older siblings or supplemented remote learning with their own educational activities to address their concerns.

Parents were also concerned about the lack of social interactions for children and themselves. They worried about their children’s social development as they remained at home and isolated from peers. Many interviewees pointed to their beliefs that the kindergarten years were crucial for building friendships and social development and were worried about the lack of relationships their children made. Driven by these concerns, some parents enrolled their children in city-run programming that allowed children to meet outdoors and engage in supervised activities. One illustrated her decision:

It was just a play-based thing... But it was just obvious this kid needed to play… And I’m desperate to see her play with other children. So that went really well. She enjoyed it. It was really for both of us.

Other families formed “pods” with other families, where they negotiated norms regarding visiting others and allowed their children to attend remote school and play together. Parents navigated these decisions while considering their perceptions of pandemic risks.

Parents also felt that they, themselves, lacked social interactions with other parents. They noted the differences in community building that existed around their children during in-person school. One parent shared:

I remember, at the end of the [kindergarten] year, we were actually finally meeting some of the families and I was, you, you live literally a block away, I mean, counting the number of houses that we are from each other. And we just didn’t know that. Because we never had the opportunity to really do that.

As children returned to in-person learning in spring 2021, parents commented on the changes they noted in their children. They shared that they observed greater learning, excitement about school, and budding friendships. These observations were often used to bolster their concerns about the perceived loss of learning or social deprivation that occurred throughout the pandemic. This is encapsulated by one parent who shared the changes she saw in her daughter after they transitioned to in-person learning:

“I think she had tremendous academic growth the last two months of school, like she went from really not being able to read at all, to all of a sudden, like, reading really well. And I think her social, like the social relationships, after it really took off, like a lot, like a lot, the in-person was much better.

Moreover, parents shared that the transitions to in-person learning were largely smooth and appeared to be driven by children’s excitement to be around their peers in school. A smaller number of parents noted increased anxiety in their children as they returned to in-person school.

Discussion

Our study finds that families whose children entered kindergarten in fall 2020 experienced multiple and cascading disruptions in the year before and during kindergarten, which parents described as having implications for children’s learning and family stress. Across the two data sources, it was clear that families universally experienced child care disruptions, with all families in the study experiencing some disruptions during this time period. Families made continual accommodations as their needs changed. While there is hope that mass shutdowns of ECE programs will not happen again in the near future, disruptions for multiple reasons are regular challenges for families with young children. Although these findings focus on the specific experiences of a sample of families, they have implications for ways systems can provide wider universal supports to meet more family needs, while acknowledging the unique needs of individual families. Families faced challenges addressing these multiple disruptions as they balanced work and child development needs, lacked information and lacked availability of options that met their family needs. These challenges drove decisions and accommodations families made within this very constrained decision-making environment. Below we consider implications of these findings and how they fit with the existing literature.

Universal Disruptions but Unequal Consequences

While disruptions were universal, the effects were not always equal in that families who were not able to work remotely, families that did not have resources to hire babysitters and tutors, and families who had children with specific needs faced additional challenges. This is consistent with other research that has highlighted that the pandemic’s challenges have been experienced differently by families with different resources, needs, and preferences (Jalongo, 2021).

The abrupt school closures made it challenging for many young children to adjust from in-person learning to completely remote. This was especially true for children with special needs. Some families expressed their frustration with the lack of resources they had access to for their children with special needs. Averett (2021)’s research on remote learning for children with disabilities had similar findings and explained how it was a struggle for families to accommodate their children’s needs due to the inability of schools to provide services remotely. In addition, Shapiro & Bassok (2022) found that caregivers of children with disabilities had concerns about their children’s development and had a hard time finding programs that met their needs

Competing Demands of Work and Children’s Education

These challenges reverberated across different aspects of family life. The challenges of balancing working from home while supporting their child(ren)’s education has been consistently found in research across parents with various professions and work experiences (Bender et al., 2022; Garbe et al., 2020). For example, Bender et al., (2022) found that participants in their study explained the difficulty in having to establish new schedules that accommodated all family needs, with participants often using the word “chaotic” to describe conflicting needs and schedules. The stress families felt supporting remote learning has also emerged in other studies, with families feeling overwhelmed as they navigated competing demands (Garbe et al., 2020).

These disruptions were often a result of changing child care and education programming and parents’ employment. At the start of the pandemic, survey participants reporting making changes to their work to accommodate caring for their child. Similarly, other studies show that parents who experienced a disruption to child care due to COVID-19 often reported cutting hours at work, supervising children at home while working, and leaving or losing their job (Chen et al., 2021). We found that parents often had to sacrifice the time they were working in order to tend to their children’s academic needs.

Isolation for Children and Parents

Social isolation and remote education drove concerns about the lack of social interactions for children as well as adults, with additional concerns for their children’s academic preparation. The concerns about children’s lack of social interactions and academic preparation during the pandemic have been found in studies with other parents regarding education during the pandemic for young children (Garbe et al., 2020; Timmons et al., 2021). Similar to other studies, we found that the social isolation concerns went beyond children and were challenges parents reported about their own well-being (Egan et al., 2021).

When remote learning became a more long-term solution than originally anticipated, parents in our sample grew concerned for their child(ren)’s learning outcomes as they progressed through kindergarten. Some parents felt that it was important for their child(ren) to have the fundamental learning outcomes from kindergarten because it can construct the academic foundation that can aid their success. Consistent with other research, other parents felt fortunate that their child was only missing kindergarten, and not a higher grade that requires more attention and instruction, and which could potentially be harder to learn online (Timmons et al., 2021).

Strengths & Limitations

These findings shed light on a time in history where families faced universal and unprecedented disruptions and changes in ECE for their children, and work for themselves. A strength of this study is the ability to examine families’ experiences in one geographic area using multiple data sources at multiple time points. However, it is important to note some limitations. First, data was collected in spring (survey) and summer (interview) 2021 where families were asked to report on their experiences from fall 2019 though summer 2021. Given the nature of the COVID-19 pandemic, where global health situations, and individual family circumstances were changing rapidly, the timing of data collection may have altered families’ responses. For example, we may have collected different information from families in fall 2020 compared to spring 2021 even if we asked the same questions. In addition, while some aspects of the pandemic were universal, others were highly driven by local context. This study collected data from families with kindergarten children in 2020–2021, in a community that completely shut down all ECE programs in spring 2020 (with the exception of care for essential workers), and where the local school district only had remote learning for kindergarteners until April 2021. Experiences of families in other communities may have been very different. Despite these limitations, this study extends our understanding of how families face disruptions, and extends our understanding of the accommodation model to consider the greater role stability, health, safety and social interactions play in present time.

Implications

Our findings also reveal the difficulty that parents faced in accessing information about ECE options throughout the pandemic which made planning difficult. Findings from qualitative interviews with parents highlight the lack of information about available child care options and their struggle to assess the accuracy of information they did receive. This corresponds with previous research on information asymmetry between parents’ knowledge of child care options and the actual resources available to them (Akerlof, 2002; Chaundry et al., 2010). Although the ever-evolving nature of the pandemic in the first year and a half certainly exacerbated this issue, our findings support that the idea that parents often struggle to obtain full and accurate information about ECE. These barriers to information have implications for institutions that aim to increase access to formal child care programs, such as local municipalities, child care resource and referral agencies and individual programs. This study sheds light on the need for more supports for families as they navigate child care decision-making, such as centralized places to gain information, and different communication pathways for families. This may be particularly important now that the availability of child care options continues to be limited and disruptions continue (Chen et al., 2021).

The current study provides additional insights into the ongoing nature of work and child care disruptions for families and how families handle these disruptions. While the specific nature of COVID-19 disruptions described in the current study may be a unique phenomenon to this historical period, the effects of the pandemic continue to reverberate, such as with intermittent child care closures for child or staff quarantine needs. Disruptions to work and child care and their consequences for family well-being and parental employment are also likely to continue for pandemic and other unforeseen reasons. Policies that encourage workplace flexibility to allow families to better weather disruptions as well as increasing the availability of child care programs may allow families to better juggle between care and work obligations. Moreover, our findings identify heightened health and safety concerns as well as questions regarding the potential stability of child care arrangements that guided parental decision-making in child care. Such factors may become permanent considerations parents account for moving forward. Practitioners and policymakers must be aware of these new realities and aim to minimize disruptions in order to support families as they navigate child care decision-making.

Author Contributions

All authors contributed to the study in substantial ways. Kyle DeMeo Cook and Lisa Kuh led the conception and design of the study. Kyle DeMeo Cook and Kevin Ferreira van Leer led data collection efforts, analyzed and interpreted the data and drafted and edited the manuscript. Jill Gandhi and Carolina Ayala contributed to instrument development, data analysis, and writing and editing. Lisa Kuh contributed to instrument development, recruitment, and writing and editing. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Funding

This work was partially supported by a grant from the Education Research Service Project (ERSP) program of the American Educational Research Association (AERA) awarded to the first author.

Declarations

Ethics Approval

This study was approved by the St. John’s University Institutional Review Board (IRB) (FY2021-47 & FY2021-189). This study was performed in line with the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki.

Consent to Participate & Publish

All participants provided informed consent to participate and for anonymized information to be published.

Competing Interests

The authors have no relevant financial or non-financial interests to disclose.