Illinois Action for Children partnered with the national RAPID survey at the Stanford Center on Early Childhood to conduct a quarterly survey where parents share information about their family, experiences, and challenges.
The goal of the panel is to gather essential and ongoing information from parents to inform the public and public officials about parent’s goals, experiences, and challenges in raising young children in Illinois. Our panel consists of 419 Illinois parents from over 34 Illinois counties who have children under age 6.
With our findings, we hope to inform the public and public officials about parents’ goals and challenges in raising young children in Illinois.
We asked parents open-ended questions about what their biggest challenges and concerns are, what is helping them the most, what makes them proud of their child, what are their hopes for their child, and what they want policymakers and elected officials to know.
Coming soon.
Parents are extremely proud of the many positive strengths of their children and have many hopes for them to live happy, healthy, successful lives. Yet many parents are also experiencing a spectrum of financial difficulties, their biggest challenges being the rising cost of living and inflation.
These have an impact far beyond providing for their family’s basic needs and are associated with parents’ and children’s emotional challenges.
44% of parents had difficulty paying for their basic needs (23% of parents had a hard or very hard time and 21% of parents had a somewhat hard time). Basic needs that were the hardest to meet were utilities, housing, baby supplies, and food.
21% percent of parents experienced emotional distress (such as stress, loneliness, anxiety, and./or depression) at least more than half the days in the past month.
37% percent of parents have a young child they feel is fussy or defiant; 15% of parents have a young child they feel is too anxious or fearful.
