For a teenager (or up to mid-20s), this pandemic is the first really shocking world-wide historic tragedy to affect them. They wouldn’t have much memory of the World Trade Center bombings. Do you think this will have a long-lasting impact on them psychologically? Like maybe a tendency to not want to gather in large groups, but to prefer more small, intimate gatherings, or maybe a tendency to hoard durable goods, or something else?
It really depends on their circumstances. Some are under enormous financial pressure. For others it’s just a long vacation spending time on the internet and parties.
I don’t know… my niece and nephew are teenagers (18 and 16), and they seem to be relatively unaffected relative to where I’d have been had this hit in 1988-1990. I suspect this is mostly because their social lives are different than mine were; they are very connected to their friends electronically- texting and social media are one of their chief ways of communicating… to the point where their parents have had to nudge them to get drivers’ licenses.
Of course, neither of them are out of high school yet(although my nephew graduates in a month or so), so financial concerns aren’t really front and center for them yet. So far, I suspect my niece is mostly bored, and my nephew is still working his Starbucks drive-through job several days a week. (not going to opine about the wisdom of that).
I suspect that this’ll just be a sort of collective experience for all of them- not a point-in-time thing like 9/11 was for us, Kennedy’s assassination was for our parents, or Pearl Harbor was for our grandparents, but rather more like say… living through the Cold War, just on a shorter scale.
I am a bit worried about this for my 18 yo son who is doing a virtual graduation without all his friends he grew-up with. Also for my 21 yo daughter in the middle of college and now having to live at home and do virtual classes for the foreseeable future. I am worried they are both going to give-up. Presently they both spend excessive time in their rooms (more so my son - around 23 hours/day) sleeping most of the day away. Both were athletes in HS and both are gaining weight and falling out of shape (physically and mentally). It seems like the both of them have just said “fuck it” and are just hibernating and waiting for life to return to the way it was. But it wont.
I am not sure what to do to encourage them. I am staying positive, but they are young and their longview of the world is not so long at this point. I have to remind them both about their futures - the ones they thought they were going to have, which are still very possible and very probable.
I have to presume the term ‘bombing’ was an accident, unless you really were referring to 1993 (or are a 9/11 truther).
I didn’t mean bombing. Crashes, explosions, destruction.
I have 4 kids from the ages of 16 to 22. The thing I think they are having the hardest time with is the uncertainty of it all. One wants to do a study abroad next fall, will that be possible? One had a job this summer life guarding, will the pools be open? The answers to these, and a thousand more questions is, “No one knows.” This is not satisfying to them
A lot depends on how long the lock down situation lasts.
Every child that loses a parent is going to be affected by this, maybe in a some unique way, or more like in a war situation perhaps.
My daughter’s family moved from a San Francisco pedestrian-hostile home to mountain acreage. My grandkids (9 and 11) have a wild kingdom to play in and are WiFi-wired to their friends. Their folks work at and from home so the mom handles homeschooling between online work sessions. My grandkids will likely recall this as a strange but not frightening adventure time but they’ll miss seeing Gramp and Gram for awhile.
I lived a calm suburban life till my parents divorced when I was 15 and I was shuttled back and forth between their shifting locales. The instability tore me up and likely led to a rather chaotic young adulthood, as well as pushing my sisters into therapy later. I suspect chaos in adolescence will drive chaotic lives. My parents were 4 and 10 when the Hoover Depression started; their families were stable and not desperately poor so they became only minor hoarders.
What will COVID-10 bring? Expect strange, society-twisting counter-cultures of survivors.
Help them develop backup plans.
I’ve said before here: My fourth grader son is not taking this well at all. Almost every day he has a crying fit about how he misses school and all his friends.
We do set up virtual meetings with his friends, but it’s not the same. He’s normally a very active, extroverted boy who loves physical play.
I wish I knew what to do for him.
They will probably have slight hoarding tendencies, possibly a tendancy towards not wanting to touch strangers, a touch of agoraphobia, and a panic at getting ill.
No kids, but found this Wired article interesting.
I think it definitely shapes up the line where Millennial ends and Gen Y begins. I’d say people who are 5-22 now will be that gen. That is, people who had their school year disrupted. I’ve heard it jokingly referred to as “Quaran-teens” but that’s not a good name for them in like 60 years when they’re 70-80.
The best thing I can say is that they’re ALL going through it together. Even the previously homeschooled kids are affected. I saw some parents freaking out about their HS juniors’ classes in how it’s going to affect them next year for college purposes, but it’s ALL HS juniors. Not just my district. That helps take the edge off of test scores and best grades RIGHT NOW panic.
I think the gaps in education are going to be pretty severe but hopefully can be fixed. Not just poor and rich but an only child of parents who are native English speakers who are tech savvy has a huge advantage over a bunch of kids in an ESL household with one shared device and shitty internet. And there are abuse issues and nutrition issues. At least teen pregnancy and STIs should hopefully decrease.
A lot is going to depend on what happens next. A few months off for EVERYONE shouldn’t be too terrible for all but the most vulnerable (not that that isn’t a huge problem, but every vacation is for them too). But if things don’t safely open up this summer? If schools stay shut down this fall? I think that’ll be when the damage starts to have a multiplier effect.