Photo by Mark Harrington
Covid 19: How are our teens coping?
Are you a teen sitting at home wondering what this is all about? Trying to understand what is happening to you and your friends. All these rules and warnings and the urgency and hype around Covid 19.
Does it even exist? No one in your circle got sick and so is this all even real?
- You want to go out!
- You want to live your life as you are used to!
- Where is the problem and how does my future even look with all this going on?
Enough that life and school have changed profoundly and nothing is like it was just yesterday, now what are you supposed to do with all this?
Teens and college students are trying to make sense of their new reality – understanding the immediate impacts on their personal lives, school, studies. How will their professional future and overall existence look going forward?
Many young people had Covid themselves and are now suffering from exhausting fatigue, depression and anxiety.
Not easy for a young generation to be caught up in such a Sci-fi scenario which mainly the parent generation is familiar with from their movie nights. The film ‘Outbreak‘ with Dustin Hoffman is still a vivid memory for some parents whereas now we all have to live it in reality including our offspring.
What has happened and how do we cope? Most importantly how do teens manage who are in the process of leaving their nests to start living on their own. Dreams, lives are on hold, an emotional vacuum, anger and disbelief are a daily rollercoaster our youngsters are finding themselves on.
Every teen is dealing with this extraordinary situation differently.
Some decide to make the best out of their situation by launching online businesses, tutoring younger students, creating mental health support groups, money investments groups, community support groups and other and are creating possibilities for themselves looking ahead and laying the foundation for their future without Covid.
Some teens are shocked and paralyzed and retrieve into their rooms and inner worlds. Some don’t know what to do with themselves and escape in the world of nonstop gaming and smartphone overuse due to lack of socializing with friends, stimulation, outdoor activities and sports. Many struggle in school lacking the structure with online schooling.
No matter how challenging and complex the current Covid situation is, we must work together as a community of parents, children, educators, doctors and politicians in order to keep our youngsters safe physically and emotionally to sail through this pandemic together as unharmed as possible and release our young generations back into the world not destroyed, scared and handicapped, but empowered, resilient and looking forward into the future with great positivity and potential for change and a new beginning.