Studies recently came to light showing that abuse cases in homes tripled for children ages five and older during the pandemic. Stressed parents led to harmful situations for young children.

  Recent studies had highlighted that child abuse has increased due to the pandemic. Because of the increased stress related to the pandemic, this could have put more parents on edge and put more pressure on already struggling parents.

  U.S News says, “stressful situations can be a trigger for poor judgment and impulsive reactions,” the article continued by saying “there was a great deal of economic stress, job insecurity, and loss of housing potential during this time frame along with the closing of schools, which can be a reprieve for parents and kids.”

     While many reports show that abusive tendencies increased, an article written by Tufts Now says, “we think that during the pandemic families were given enough support that they never got to that edge.” While that may be true, not enough was given to these struggling families.

     The people who were doing decent throughout the pandemic and had enough support from their jobs and other family members could still have struggled behind closed doors just as much. Just because they were given some support, it does not mean that they were not struggling.

     Tufts Now also said, “we have known for a long time that supports for families—food benefits, utility assistance, all those things—decrease child abuse.” And while helping these families can help decrease stress throughout challenging times, people could still have underlying issues making them more stressed than the average person, or people could be going through other things other than financial issues.

     With people going through other stressors unrelated to finances, the help given such as the things Tufts Now listed could have helped some people, but this does not mean their stress was always related to their financial difficulties. They could be dealing with loss, due to COVID-19 claiming many lives, feeling loneliness, and depressing feelings because of a lack of socialization and their regular routine being interrupted.

      The lack of children in school getting out of abusive homes could have been more difficult and there was no abuse being reported by teachers since they were not in school.

  Children and even teens were suffering from physical and emotional abuse that they most likely had no way of escaping. According to the New York Times 7705 high school students took a survey and “55.1 percent of teenage respondents said they suffered emotional abuse from a parent or another adult in their house in the preceding year, and 11.3 percent said they suffered physical abuse.” The New York Times said “in the survey, emotional abuse was defined as swearing, insulting or belittling; physical abuse was defined as hitting, beating, kicking or physically hurting.

     While the pandemic could have left many parents getting closer to their children due to their amount of free time, it could leave parents feeling frustrated with their kids and unable to discipline them in a healthy way.