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  • "Wearing a High Heel and a House Shoe at the Same Time": Parents' Information Needs While Navigating Change in their Child's Behavioral Care
Title: "Wearing a High Heel and a House Shoe at the Same Time": Parents' Information Needs While Navigating Change in their Child's Behavioral Care
Change is an inevitable part of a parent's role, whether due to their child's development, family life, or external events. To understand the information needs of parents navigating change, we studied the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic as a widely experienced disruption in the lives of parents and children. We interviewed 16 parents about their caregiving experience as the COVID-19 pandemic collapsed boundaries between home, school, and work. In particular, we asked about adjustments to behavioral care, or the social learning, supports, and interventions through which children develop social and emotional skills. We focused on parents of children already receiving accommodations and behavioral support from their school, to understand how disruptions in these services affected the role of the parent in meeting their child's individual needs. Applying role theory and the Kübler-Ross change curve, we describe the coping mechanisms that parents used to navigate the stages of change, as well as the information needs that remained unmet, despite their efforts. We discuss how practitioner-initiated and parent-centered supports can be designed around the lived experience of change, by accommodating a parent's capacity to accept and use help at different stages.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
1816319
PAR ID:
10419356
Author(s) / Creator(s):
; ; ;
Date Published:
Journal Name:
Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction
Volume:
6
Issue:
CSCW2
ISSN:
2573-0142
Page Range / eLocation ID:
1 to 32
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
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