Kids coming of age in the 2020s are living in a reality different from previous generations in almost every important way.
Consider the average tween or teen. Let’s take my kid, Desmond, for instance. Halfway through third grade, school just stopped. It was March 2020, the early days of the pandemic. School systems in our area opted to shut down versus keeping kids in close quarters. There were no vaccines. We were told to keep six feet away from each other; the guidance on mask usage was months from being actual policy.
It would similarly take months for school systems to figure out the technology and the curricula to support remote learning. While all that was happening, many kids ended up with uneven and imperfect access — not just to education, but to social support and even nutrition. There are long-lasting effects. An NIH paper synthesizing data from a range of studies and articles found:
- Psychological problems, including anxiety, sadness, depression, and guilt, were raised as direct consequences of confinement.
- Experience of a quarantine increases the incidence of worry, helplessness, fear, and nervousness.
- Kids who have been isolated or quarantined are 30 percent more likely to experience PTSD.
- Children with a very high level of social isolation are more likely to become depressed adults and have a higher risk of developing metabolic diseases like obesity, hypertension, and diabetes.
Since that first year of the pandemic, Desmond went through a fully remote fourth grade and an in-person, masked fifth grade. (Sadly, and relatedly, he wasn’t back in school long before school shootings added another layer of anxiety and a disinclination to trust in the safety of public spaces.)
Still, no matter how committed I am to a remote-first work culture for adults, I see huge tangible and intangible values of IRL socialization for Desmond and his pals. That’s why, despite my anxiety about his safety, I’ve been all for a return to the classroom.
It has paid off. In fifth grade, he found a crew of friends. They hang out at each other’s houses, have in-jokes, and are finally doing the things young people do together: mainly goof around and talk about things we parent types could never understand because we are not cool.
But I do see how these years of pandemic isolation have netted out into a different kind of intellectual and emotional development. It’s not so much arrested development as alternate development. Even though Desmond has friends, he is extremely comfortable with being alone and will happily spend hours with his computer or Nintendo Switch. He’s not super at ease in social situations, especially crowds. He clings to his mask like a psychological safety blanket; many of his peers do, too, in a way that is likely more about feeling comforted and hidden than protected from a virus.
It’s important to consider how we support and nudge them toward each other and communal interactions. This isn’t to say we should force budding introverts into over-stimulating situations, but we know too much isolation can lead to mental health risks. And, heck, I want him to get out and have fun in the real world. He’s just starting to make his own plans and I’m so much more comfortable with him pulling away from me toward other kids versus him pulling away toward his room and the Nintendo.
I’d love to hear how you’re dealing with socialization for your kids. What are your strategies for encouraging them to get out into the world? And what do you do when they’re reluctant to put themselves out there? Write me at liz@vox.com.
