The Continued Negative Impact of COVID-19 on our Teens
written by Dr. Liz Matheis, published on Psychology Today
KEY POINTS
- The last two years have had a strong negative impact on adolescents’ mental health.
- Parents may feel that their children are the only ones who are having a hard time, but they should know that they are definitely not alone.
- Listen, validate, check in, and seek help if you are not sure how to navigate your child’s struggles.
Moriah Ballingit wrote, “The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is warning of an accelerating mental health crisis among adolescents, with more than 4 in 10 teens reporting that they feel ‘persistently sad or hopeless,’ and 1 in 5 saying they have contemplated suicide, according to the results of a survey published Thursday” (The Washington Post, April 1, 2022).
These are staggering statistics and truly speak to the negative impact of the COVID-19 pandemic that led to the world shutting down and closing for so long. This has been a two-year process of managing a virus that has created immediate, short-term, and long-term effects that we could have never anticipated. As the mandates are lessening and our “world” is “opening up,” our children are more confused, anxious, and depressed than ever.