Parents lying about kids having COVID? Some did to exercise ‘freedom,’ study says
Some parents have admitted they weren’t honest about whether their child had COVID-19 and allowed them to break quarantine guidelines in place at the time, a new study said.
While the U.S. parents surveyed gave different reasons for lying, a common motivation was the desire to “exercise personal freedom as a parent,” according to a study led by researchers at the University of Utah Health and published in the journal JAMA Network Open on March 6.
Out of 580 parents included in the study, 150, or over 25%, said they lied about their child’s COVID-19 status, didn’t follow disease prevention guidelines that were in place, lied about their child’s COVID-19 vaccination status or were otherwise dishonest or non-adherent in regards to at least one of the seven behaviors they were asked about, the research found.
The most common behavior reported was “not telling someone who was with their child that they thought or knew their child had COVID-19,” which 24% of parents “who thought or knew their child had COVID-19” admitted to, according to the study.
Of this group, more than 50% said they wanted the freedom to make their own choices for their child.
More reasons parents gave for misleading others about their child having COVID-19 include how 46% wanted a sense of normalcy for their children, nearly 43% didn’t want their children to miss school to quarantine and nearly 35% reported they were unable to miss work and care for their sick child, the study found.
Lying about a child’s COVID-19 status or not following disease prevention guidelines could have resulted in spreading the virus further, senior study author Dr. Angela Fagerlin, the chair of the Department of Population Health Sciences at the University of Utah Health, said in a news release.
“Based on our study, it appears that many parents were concerned about their children missing school, and as a parent of three school-aged kids, I can understand that,” Fagerlin said. “Yet, at the same time, they’re potentially exposing other kids to a serious illness. So, it’s tricky because what you might think is best for your child might not be best for other children in the classroom.”
The 21% of parents who reported allowing their child to break quarantine rules despite being told to quarantine gave varying reasons in addition to wanting to exercise freedom, which 48% of parents in this category cited, according to the study.
Roughly 45% of parents answered they felt it was “no one else’s business,” about 42% of parents said their child didn’t feel too sick and about 42% didn’t believe their child actually had COVID-19, the study said.
Meanwhile, other parents surveyed reported they lied about their child when it came to COVID-19 vaccination.
The parents who were surveyed from Dec. 8 to 23 in 2021 had children younger than 18 living with them at the time. The study’s authors reported receiving funding from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and the National Institute on Aging.
Some parents lied about whether their child was vaccinated or not
Out of the roughly 10% of parents who said their child was vaccinated when they weren’t, roughly 60% said they lied about their child being vaccinated against COVID-19 so they could participate in activity requiring vaccination, according to the study.
One activity example was gathering with family or friends who all received a COVID-19 vaccine.
In contrast, about 56% of parents out of 12% of parents who said they lied about their vaccinated child being unvaccinated did so out of fear of being judged by someone else, the study found.
Additionally, 9.7% of parents said they lied about their younger child being older so they could get a COVID-19 vaccine. Of those, about 66% cite their desire to exercise their freedom in making that decision as a parent, according to the research.
The study authors wrote that it’s possible that the participants surveyed underreported untruthful behaviors in relation to their children and COVID-19, which is noted as a study limitation.
The average age of the study participants was 35.9 and 70% were women.
“We need to do a better job of providing support mechanisms like paid sick leave for family illness so that parents don’t feel like their only option is to engage in misrepresentation or non-adherence to public health guidelines during a future infectious disease outbreak that matches or exceeds the magnitude of COVID-19,” study co-author Dr. Andrea Gurmankin Levy, a social sciences professor at Middlesex Community College in Connecticut, said in a statement.
This story was originally published March 6, 2023 at 11:25 AM with the headline "Parents lying about kids having COVID? Some did to exercise ‘freedom,’ study says."
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