The global COVID-19 crisis has affected almost all aspects of everyday life and caused considerable changes in the educational context. As a direct result of the early stage of the pandemic, schools, kindergartens and day-care centres went into lockdown and learning and teaching became virtual almost overnight. In addition to the closure of educational and childcare institutions, social contact and the use of playgrounds were also restricted in order to stem the virus. As a consequence of the lockdown, important learning and development areas for children were subject to limited availability and relevant experiences in early childhood development were vastly impaired.

These massive changes affected children’s well-being to a greater or lesser extent. Oppositional symptoms,crying, sleep problems and sadness increased in more than 20% of pre-schoolers (Schmidt et al., 2021, p. 6). Moreover, children’s quality of life and mental health were also influenced by the social distancing and closures. In various studies, it was found that up to two-thirds of children and adolescents aged seven to 17 reported feeling stressed by the COVID-19 pandemic, while the proportion of children who suffered from mental health problems and who experienced anxiety increased sharply (Ravens‑Sieberer et al., 2021, pp. 3–5).

While there are numerous international studies on how primary school children and adolescents experience the pandemic, the area of early childhood seems to be underrepresented. In our workshop, we focus on children under six years of age and ask how children's well-being changed during the pandemic and how the children themselves, their families and social and institutional contexts dealt with the challenges of everyday life and the uncertain situation. In line with Ben-Arieh et al. (2014, p. 1), we understand well-being as a “multifaceted concept” that “refers to both subjective feelings and experiences as well as to living conditions”, and in this sense we look at the entire lifeworld of children and young people. In the workshop, we focus on four levels that are crucial for well-being: (1) children's social relations, (2) their emotions, (3) their spaces and (4) their play opportunities. These four areas should not be discussed independently of each other, but rather in an interconnected way. Several studies have shown that children integrate pandemic-related themes into their play and that this can help them to express their emotions such as fears and worries in a quasi-playful way and – by means of a safe and self-controlled spatial and social context of play – to cope with challenging situations (Bateman et al., 2013; Cray, 2020; Russ, 2004; Thibodeau-Nielson et al., 2021).

Our analyses are based on two projects in the early childhood education field that focused on children’s well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic in Switzerland. The first study (Krompák & Schubiger) addresses the questions of how kindergarten children experience the lockdown, how they cope with this challenging situation and what role play and peers play in children’s well-being. The second study (Magyar-Haas) was conducted at the time of the second wave of the pandemic. This study was not explicitly about the experience of the pandemic, but rather focused on the subjective well-being and participation of the youngest children aged two to five years, from their perspective. The question was how children are doing in general and when, where and with whom they feel well. The majority of the interviews were conducted at the children’s homes – respecting all health, precautionary and protective measures. Disinfecting hands, wearing masks and keeping a distance brought awareness of the pandemic into the interview situation in an explicit way. Thus, the pandemic was the central context and shaped both the setting and the topics that came up.

The data collected from the first study include ex post facto (Cohen et al., 2007) multimodal data such as WhatsApp written and audio messages, videos and photos, as well as interviews with 13 children and their parents. To analyse the multimodal data, a conversational analysis approach (Sidnell, 2010) and Bohnsack’s (2011) documentary method were used. The interpretation of the interviews was carried out using Charmaz’s (2006) grounded theory. The second study used guided individual interviews with the children. These were roughly based on the guidelines provided for interviews with children aged eight to 12 by the transdisciplinary and transnational network “Children's Understandings of Well-being” (Fattore et al., 2019), in which the study author, Magyar-Haas, is also located. However, these have been considerably adapted, based on developmental psychology, language theory and methodological literature (cf. Coyne et al., 2021; Delfos, 2015; Fuhs, 2012) on interviewing children in early childhood. The analysis of the collected and transcribed interview data was also carried out with grounded theory, but some sequences were analysed more intensively with a sequence analysis method.

The results of both studies indicate that fear, lack of social contact with peers and extended family members, and thus boredom and loneliness, affect the well-being of children. In the workshop, we will discuss both the challenges of the pandemic and the reconstructed coping strategies of the children, the families and the educational institutions on the basis of different empirical materials from the two qualitative research projects, as well as on the basis of the four aspects: social contexts, emotions, space and play.

Bateman, A., Danby, S., & Howard, J. (2013). Living in a broken world: how young children's well-being is supported through playing out their earthquake experiences. International Journal of Play, 2(3), 202–219. http://doi.org/10.1080/21594937.2013.860270 Ben-Arieh, A., Casas, F., Frønes, I. & Korbin, J.E. (2014). Multifaceted concept of child well-being. In Ben-Arieh, A., Casas, F., Frønes, I., & Korbin, J. E. (Eds.), Handbook of child well-being (pp. 1–27). Springer Science+Business. Bohnsack, R. (2011). Qualitative Bild-und Videointerpretation: Die dokumentarische Methode. Budrich. Charmaz, K. (2006). Constructing grounded theory. A practical guide through qualitative analysis. Sage. Cohen, L., Manion, L., & Morrison, K. (2007). Research methods in education (6th ed.). Routledge. Coyne, I., Mallon, D., & Chubb, E. (2021). Research with young children: Exploring the methodological advantages and challenges of using hand puppets and draw and tell. Children & Society, 0(0), 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1111/chso.12452 Cray, K. (2022, January 21). How the coronavirus is influencing children’s play. https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2020/04/coronavirustag-and-other-games-kids-play-during-a-pandemic/609253/ Delfos, M. F. (2015). «Sag mir mal ..» Gesprächsführung mit Kindern. 4–12 Jahre. Beltz. Fattore, T., Fegter, S., & Hunner-Kreisel, C. (2019). Children’s understandings of well-being in global and local contexts: Theoretical and methodological considerations for a multinational qualitative study. Child Indicators Research, 12, 385–407. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12187-018-9594-8 Fuhs, B. (2012). Kinder im qualitativen Interview: Zur Erforschung subjektiver kindlicher Lebenswelten. In Heinzel, F. (Hg.), Methoden der Kindheitsforschung. Ein Überblick über Forschungszugänge zur kindlichen Perspektive (S. 80–103). Beltz Juventa. Huber, S. G., Günther, P. S., Schneider, N., Helm, G., Schwander, J. A., & Pruitt, J. (2020). COVID-19 – aktuelle Herausforderungen in Schule und Bildung: Erste Befunde des Schul-Barometers in Deutschland, Österreich und der Schweiz. Waxmann. Ravens-Sieberer, U., Kaman, A., Erhart, M., Devine, J., Schlack, R., & Otto, C. (2021). Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on quality of life and mental health in children and adolescents in Germany. European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00787-021-01726-5 Russ, S. W. (2004). Play in child development and psychotherapy: Toward empirically supported practice. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781410609397 Sidnell, J. (2010). Conversation analysis: An introduction. Wiley-Blackwell. Schmidt, S. J., Barblan, L. P., Lory, I., & Landolt, M. A. (2021). Age-related effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on mental health of children and adolescents. European Journal of Psychotraumatology, 12(1), 1901407. https://doi.org/10.1080/20008198.2021.1901407 Thibodeau-Nielsen, R. B., Palermo, F., White, R. E., Wilson, A., & Dier, S. (2021). Child adjustment during COVID-19: The role of economic hardship, caregiver stress, and pandemic play. Frontiers in Psychology, 12, 716651. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.716651