Young children rapidly adapt to new social norms during the pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic had a major and sudden effect on all aspects of life, requiring children and their families to rapidly change their habits and adopt new behaviors to stay healthy.

New research from the University of Michigan shows that despite these challenges, young children understood the reasons for these novel norms and social practices aimed at promoting public health.

Researchers highlight the major findings from a series of recent studies on children’s responses to preventive health behaviors. The COVID-19 pandemic presented a unique opportunity for examining children’s emerging reasoning abilities in the face of rapidly changing norms and social practices, said Felix Warneken, U-M professor of psychology and the study’s lead author.

Studying how kids interpreted mask-wearing and other strategies for staying healthy during COVID-19 is important. It helps us figure out how to teach them about health behaviors in a way they understand. Because children make their own decisions and often interact with peers in unsupervised contexts, it is critical to ensure they comprehend the reasons behind preventive behaviors.”

Felix Warneken, U-M professor of psychology

Warneken and colleague Katherine McAuliffe, associate professor at Boston College, looked at how kids thought about new health habits. They found that even young kids think about these actions in terms of what makes sense for their well-being and that of others.

“Adults used to praise children for sharing their toys with others or giving comforting hugs to a friend—and suddenly during a pandemic these acts are the exact opposite of what you should do,” Warneken said. “We wanted to test whether this is confusing for kids.”

The researchers asked children what they thought they should do during a pandemic. School-aged children knew despite good intentions, the only help that doesn’t involve physical touch is helpful.

Their work further revealed that children consider it a moral obligation to adopt health behaviors that prevent others from harm.

“When we introduced children to completely novel health behaviors, children overwhelmingly thought individuals should adopt them to protect others,” Warneken said. “For these young children, the benefit to others’ health clearly outweighs the personal nuisance from doing things like wearing a mask.”

While kids understand the reason behind new rules and habits, the views of their families and communities—especially as they relate to the political environment—can influence what they think about these health behaviors, he said.

The research had some limitations, such as the children came from middle-class families in the United States with parents with college degrees.

‘Therefore, cultural and national differences in responses to pandemics and their potential influence on children’s experience must be considered as well,” Warneken said.

The review article appears in Current Directions in Psychological Science.