**1. Introduction**

The COVID-19 pandemic, an infectious disease caused by the new coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, is a global health problem that has affected millions of people since January 2020 [1]. To limit COVID-19 transmission, national governments took precautionary actions, such as adopting careful personal hygiene, wearing masks and gloves, and implementing social distancing [2]. In particular, the Italian government adopted measures aimed at limiting social contacts, including the closure of public places (i.e., schools, offices, theatres, restaurants, bars, parts of public transport) and exhorting people to stay at home [3]. These measures of social distancing caused substantial changes in daily social life, affecting children's, adolescents', and parents' lifestyles. The use of smart-working and distance learning (DL) forced children and parents to spend a lot of time at home, in front of their computer and smartphone screens [3,4]. Moreover, the COVID-19 pandemic caused a

**Citation:** Maggio, M.G.; Stagnitti, M.C.; Calatozzo, P.; Cannavò, A.; Bruschetta, D.; Foti Cuzzola, M.; Manuli, A.; Pioggia, G.; Calabrò, R.S. What about the Consequences of the Use of Distance Learning during the COVID-19 Pandemic? A Survey on the Psychological Effects in Both Children and Parents. *Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health* **2021**, *18*, 12641. https://doi.org/10.3390/ ijerph182312641

Academic Editors: Paolo Roma, Merylin Monaro, Cristina Mazza and Paul B. Tchounwou

Received: 15 October 2021 Accepted: 29 November 2021 Published: 30 November 2021

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**Copyright:** © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/).

socio-economic crisis with job losses, financial insecurity, mental health problems, and lack of care services, including childcare services [5]. All these stressors had negative effects on the mental well-being of each family member [3]. In more detail, about one in four parents reported worsening mental health, and one in seven parents had worsening behavioral health for their children since the pandemic began. Of note, the worsening of parental mental health and children's behavioral health were at times intertwined, with nearly 1 in 10 families reporting worsening of both. This resulted in loss of childcare, delays in health care visits, and worsened food security.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization estimated that during the pandemic, 1.38 billion children have been out of school or childcare, without access to group activities, team sports, or playgrounds [6]. The closing of schools and lack of childcare services obligated parents to take greater responsibilities for their children's care and home education, supporting them during distance learning (DL) with online lessons and schoolwork [7–9], leading to negative impacts on the well-being of children and parents [4,5,7,8,10,11]. In more detail, it has been shown that the negative impact of the pandemic depends on how parents are able to adapt. According to Fegert et al., more flexible parents tend to see pandemic limitations in a positive way, due to the opportunity to spend more time in the family; on the other hand, for others, the pandemic represents a threat to family well-being and personnel, eliciting unresolved conflicts [12]. Indeed, there has been an increase in family violence, child abuse, and neglect during the pandemic [5,7–9,13]. What is more, parental emotional and physical burnout can be linked to other factors, such as the type of daily activities that involve children, and chronic and critical stresses, such as the presence of diseases [4,5,7]. Excessive parental exhaustion could cause a sense of fatigue in parenting activities with little emotional involvement and/or estrangement from children, which significantly affects the mental well-being of children [5,14]. Additionally, a survey found that another concern for parents is their children's mental and emotional health. Some authors have shown that closing school and home daily routines can be harmful to children, especially if they have a behavioral disorder [8,9,15]. Furthermore, children's cognitive and emotional regulation systems are immature and can be vulnerable to the psychological effects of the pandemic with negative outcomes. Some recent studies have found higher rates of anxiety and depression in children than adults [8–11,16]. DL could allow the maintenance of school routines and contact with peers, offering parents a chance to receive help from teachers. It uses technology to enable students to learn without being physically present in the classroom, thus individualizing the learning process [17]. However, few studies have investigated the psychological effects of the pandemic on parents and children while also considering the effect of DL.

Thus, the present study sought to investigate whether and to what extent the use of DL during the COVID-19 pandemic has affected the psychological well-being of a sample of Italian children and their parents.
