How the pandemic has shaped the way young teens think and act
By Deborah Jeanne Sergeant
During the pre-teen years, young people tend to develop much of their sense of self as they begin to identify less with their family and more with peers.
Youth who are young teen now had a stunted transition into their teen years as the pandemic curtailed many typical opportunities to interact with peers or else made them virtual experiences.
It’s unclear exactly how this different development will translate into how they relate to others in the future, but at this point, coming of age during the pandemic appears to mean many teens feel socially awkward at best.
“What I’ve seen from my clinical perspective so far is that teenagers, like all of us, are social beings,” said Amy Mack, a licensed clinical social worker and registered play therapist affiliated with Paths to Recovery Mental Health Counseling in Manlius. “Connecting is a biological imperative. I’ve had many teens express that they fell out of their social connections and fell out of their social groups. That has affected jumping back into that social scene. They’re finding their identity in their group and peers.”
She noted that in May 2023, the US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy named “loneliness, isolation and the lack of connection” as a “public health crisis.”
The general surgeorn has also called social media as a “driving force behind the surge in children’s mental health challenges” in a statement in April 2023.
During the pandemic, many facets of children’s lives shifted to the virtual world, from school, to social to recreational. Mack has observed that many children are still relying on screens and the effects of this transition are not good.
“So many children are coming in with more anxiety and difficulty managing social situations,” Mack said. “It’s led to more children latching onto social media culture. A lot don’t have the ability to regulate how they respond when people aren’t invited to events or they see things online that they don’t measure up to.”
With few chances to practice interpersonal skills in normal settings, these young people feel less sure of themselves and less confident in their ability to navigate social situations. While teens are better able to access mental health services thanks to virtual therapy, the pandemic’s outcomes also mean that teens need more help. Many youth worry more about death, divorce, their future and frightening world events.
Teens’ comfort with virtual interactions can help them operate effectively in an increasingly virtual world, where remote work and remote sessions become more mainstream; however, in-person skills are also important.
“They need to find their way and who they are within their social settings,” Mack said. “It’s been harder for young people to advocate for themselves and manage stressful situations. It may feel easier to send a text versus one-on-one talking with someone face to face. I have run into a lot of younger people struggling to tell a teacher they’re having a hard time in class. They’d rather email or not tell them at all.”
Mack encourages parents to support their children in spending time with friends, engaging in sports and enjoying activities.
It also helps if parents help teens identify and validate their emotional experience.
“If we name things, we can better control them,” Mack said. “Tell your kids what you’ve been noticing. Validate their feelings. ‘How do you feel when you talk with Mr. White?’ Roleplay as to how they might speak with someone. Validate it. Just saying ‘You’re fine’ can invalidate them. We need social connection. It’s a biological imperative.”
Another possible effect of the pandemic on teens is that fewer teens are having sex than before.
Naturally, during the quarantine, hookups among teens weren’t possible. And children remaining home from school curtailed meeting other teens and developing romantic connections. But it is not clear if less sex is related to the pandemic or overall shifts in teens’ mindset.
“I can see the connection; it’s more difficult to connect or ‘hook up’ as they don’t know how to talk with one another,” said Beth Hurny-Fricano, licensed master social worker and director of clinical services at Arise Child and Family Services
in Syracuse.
She added that more people are “sexting,” sending text messages about sex, which may be edging out physical intercourse among teens.
“There could be several factors involved but communication is a huge piece,” Hurny-Fricano said.
It appears that communication difficulties among teens are long-term issues. As a professor at Onondaga Community College, Hurny-Fricano has noticed that freshmen “have great difficulty in engaging with each other. These are long-term communication issues if parents aren’t trying to break that cycle and encourage them to put their phones down.”
She encourages parents to engage their teens in conversation without phones present for 20 minutes at a time. Consistently taking that time can help them build interpersonal skills in a safe context. Practicing communication at home can lead to better skills among others.
“Parents need to be patient with their kids,” Hurny-Fricano said. “If they can start with five minutes, that’s a win. Try doing it in the car when there’s a captive audience.”