I was drinking my Sunday morning coffee, enjoying the surprisingly cool morning breeze, as I tuned in the Mel Robbins podcast, one of my favourite podcasts of all times. This time, she was interviewing Dr. Lisa Damour, a clinical psychologist who specializes in dealing with emotional lives of adolescents. One of the things she said created a huge epiphany for me, as I now realized how and why friends of mine whose kids are teenagers in 2023 have such a difficult and distressing time with their kids. Comparing notes, like friends always do, I found out that their struggles, and the struggles of their kids were beyond anything I had experienced while my kids were growing up.
The operative word is Covid. Dr Damour said that in pre-Covid times, kids went to school which is a physical building. Changing classrooms or just taking out a notepad organized the kids as it required the kids to take certain actions because there was an impulse to do that. Taking the physical part of the school building out of the equation meant that the connection went missing. However, the good thing is that Dr Damour likes to see this as a delay in the progress of the child and not a loss. Kids who missed going to school for two years or more simply need a bit more time to catch up. We as parents and guides can only support them through this anxious period by understanding what Covid meant in the life of growing adolescents.
I would love to hear what challenges you are facing as parents of adolescents.
Love and light,
Ansua
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