How to help teens stuck at home

Flexibility and empathy are crucial

Children are once again bearing the brunt of the pandemic, with many schools closed to or restricting in-person classes and other interactions reduced. Which means children are also being kept away from friends.

Everyone is enduring the stress of isolation, but I believe teenagers are suffering most. It's only by spending time with peers that they can move from being a child, a dependent family member, to being an independent adult.

Harvard psychologist Erik Erikson described the teenage years as the time we discover and consolidate our identity, both through belongingness — with which groups we identify — and personal identity, how we're unique within our chosen groups. This stage is critical as a preparation for adulthood, for being able to maintain intimacy and become a partner and perhaps a parent, and for choosing a career path as a way of contributing to society.

Erikson says identity formation requires extensive peer interaction. Sadly, this is something teenagers have missed, or at least had to limit, for 10 months.

Fortunately, psychosocial development follows an invariant ordering but doesn't move forward at any set speed. That's good news — it means once teenagers can socialize freely, their psychosocial development should resume its normal trajectory. In the meantime, here are ways parents can make it easier for teenagers to cope with being cooped up at home yet again:

Create structure, but not too much. You'll want to show trust and encourage independence, but at the same time keep an eye on their mood state and make sure they're getting good nutrition and enough rest. The best way is to check in daily but unobtrusively, for example by prioritizing family meal times.

Exercise is important for emotional regulation, but you need to make it appealing. Offer to pay for a personal trainer online, or buy some gym equipment.

If they're schooling online, let them choose their optimal study times, but make sure they keep to them — even though you may not feel appreciated at the time.

Encourage a regular bedtime, but let them get up later than other family members. During adolescence, body clocks move forward, which means teenagers naturally want to wake up and fall asleep later.

Offer the right kind of availability. They need time on their own, but they also need to know you're willing to listen if and when they wish to talk. Allow them to express sadness and grief — for they are grieving the loss of a normal year — but never say you know how they feel. You don't.

Finally, believe in them and in their resilience, and let them know it. Often.