Parents are experiencing more stress than anyone right now, particularly due to the coronavirus pandemic and the government’s response to it, as well as the recent Russian invasion of Ukraine, according to a new poll.
More than 70% of parents reported that stress from the pandemic and its consequences affected their child’s social life or development, academic development, and emotional health or development, according to the American Psychological Association’s annual “Stress in America” poll.
More than half of the parent respondents also said they fear the effect the pandemic has had on their child’s cognitive development and physical health and development.
Parents were more likely than other adults to list money, the economy, and housing costs as stressors.
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The poll revealed that 87% of people are concerned about the cost of necessary goods paired with the threat of inflation, making it the largest “proportion of adults seen across all stressors asked about in the history of the Stress in America survey.”
Additionally, stress about money is at its highest since 2015.
Eighty-seven percent of adults also said their mental health has been affected by what seems to be a “constant stream of crises without a break over the last two years.”
The Russian invasion of Ukraine, inflation, global uncertainty, the threat of retaliation from Russia, and supply chain problems were all listed by 80% of respondents as significant sources of stress. This is remarkable, according to clinical psychologist Lynn Bufka, the APA’s associate chief for practice transformation, because “we don’t usually see 80% of people telling us that a particular stressor is stressful for that many individuals.”
Calling it “terrifying to watch,” 67% of respondents said they believe the invasion of Ukraine may mean the beginning of World War III.
“The number of people who say they’re significantly stressed about these most recent events is stunning relative to what we’ve seen since we began the survey in 2007,” said Dr. Arthur C. Evans Jr., APA’s CEO. “Living through historic threats like these often has a lasting, traumatic impact on generations.”
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is expected to sign a parental rights bill that recently passed in the Senate, giving parents more control over what their young children have access to in schools.
“We’re going to make sure that parents are able to send their kid to kindergarten without having some of this stuff injected into their school curriculum,” he said of the bill in a recent press conference.
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Across the country, democratic activists have falsely labeled the legislation the “Don’t Say Gay” bill. DeSantis slammed these mischaracterizations as “false narratives.”
