COVID's Toll on Kids Was Milder Than Predicted, Six-Country Study Finds

Six years after COVID-19 disrupted childhood around the world, new research following the same children from before the pandemic through today finds that the damage was far less widespread than early warnings predicted. A Special Section in the journal Child Development, co-edited by Gabriela Livas at The University of Texas at Austin and synthesizing 17 long-term studies across six countries, finds that most children's health, learning, social development and wellbeing recovered substantially. Setbacks that persisted were concentrated among children who already faced other risks before the pandemic began.

Early studies of COVID-19, based on short-term data collected during the pandemic itself, warned of widespread and lasting harm to child development. This new research, tracking children over a longer period, tells a different story: pandemic impacts were real and wide-ranging, but not as severe as initially feared, and many effects weakened over time. The children who fared worst and recovered more slowly were disproportionately those shaped by pre-existing risks—not the pandemic alone.

“This means children’s resilience ensured the pandemic’s consequences were not universally catastrophic, and they weren’t uniform either, which is a cause for optimism,” said Livas, professor and chair of the Department of Human Development and Family Sciences at UT. “In fact, children, including some of the most vulnerable kids, weathered the experience in a variety of ways, and there were many factors beyond the pandemic that affected their trajectory in the years before and after COVID-related shutdowns.”

These findings are featured in the Society for Research in Child Development's flagship journal, Child Development, in a special section on COVID-19 titled "Children's Developmental Trajectories in the Long Shadow of COVID-19." The special section is led by co-editors Livas, Anna D. Johnson (Georgetown University) and Seth Pollak (University of Wisconsin-Madison).

Livas co-authored one of the 17 studies published in the special section, focusing on children from low-income families in three U.S. cities. She looked specifically at vulnerable children in Tulsa, Oklahoma who had participated in early childhood programs prior to when the pandemic struck in these children's elementary school-going years. She and her team found that teachers there reported most behavioral issues staying about the same for children before and after the pandemic, with no worse attention issues or signs of aggression, and only a moderate decline in prosocial skills like sharing, cooperating, showing empathy or demonstrating an understanding of others’ emotions. The researchers concluded that early reports about the pandemic’s effects on children may have been overly pessimistic.

It was a common theme that emerged across the various studies.

"Overall, the evidence in this special section challenges dominant narratives of universal 'learning loss,' suggesting instead that COVID-19 interacted with existing inequalities," said co-editor Anna Johnson from Georgetown University. "The research highlights the resilience in children and shows the importance of context in shaping their physical, cognitive and emotional skills over time."

Adapted from a press release by the Society for Research in Child Development.