Locked down during the COVID-19 pandemic: the experience of mothers living alongside their child with social, emotional and mental health (SEMH) special educational needs, a psychosocial approach

Between March and September, 2020, the U.K. government enforced a nationwide lockdown to protect citizens against Covid-19. Children with social, emotional and mental health (SEMH) special educational needs and their parents stayed at home, and parents were responsible for home schooling their children with variable support from the schools they attended. Emerging global qualitative research and articles from news outlets in the U.K. reported the significant negative impact the lockdown was having on family dynamics, including rises in mental health difficulties. Orientated to psychoanalytic theories of SEMH needs, an impetus developed for exploring the impact of lockdown on the relational dynamics between mother and child. A review of literature found a gap in research exploring experiences of parents home educating primary aged children with SEMH needs as separate case studies. A psychosocial methodological approach was taken, orientated in psychosocial ontological and epistemological positions. Three mothers were recruited from a specialist primary SEMH provision where their son attended, and they were interviewed using Free Association Narrative Interviewing (Hollway and Jefferson, 2013) on two occasions. Participant experiences were analysed using thematic and psychosocial analysis. Findings suggested the mothers experienced the lockdown as emotionally straining to lesser or greater extents according to their personal circumstances and past experiences. All mothers struggled to home-school their sons, feeling anxiety for differing reasons. The relational dynamics between the mother-child dyads intensified due to being forced together with limited breaks from each other, leading to emotional challenges and several unconscious processes to be enacted, including splitting, projection, rationalisation, and humour. The research was justified as useful for educational psychologist (EP) practice as it elucidated the experiences of parents of SEMH needs, the relationship dynamic within families during lockdowns, and insight for EPs working with parents who are forced to home educate their children in the future.