Grow Through What You Go Through: How to Help Your Teen Thrive Amidst a Pandemic
As teens prepare to go back to school this fall, many parents are left wondering about the long-term effects of the pandemic. Will my child be behind? Will they be able to transition back to school? Will they be able to cope with the hardship they experienced over the past year and a half? These days, it seems like there are endless reasons to worry about our loved ones, and yet, research offers us a reason for hope.
Studies suggest that between 30 and 70 percent of people who experience adversity demonstrate significant growth in the subsequent months and years—a psychological phenomenon called “post-traumatic growth.” While people experience post-traumatic growth in a variety of ways, scientists have identified seven areas in which people tend to experience significant benefits from the difficulties they face, including:
Greater appreciation for life
Greater appreciation for close relationships and strengthening of those relationships
Increased compassion and altruism
Greater awareness of personal strengths and increased use of them in everyday life
The identification of new possibilities and an increased sense of purpose in life
Enhanced spiritual development
Creative growth
Notably, post-traumatic growth does not occur by happenstance: it can be intentionally cultivated. As your teen transitions back to school, consider taking time to reflect with them on how they’ve been impacted by the pandemic and where they can go from here.
Here are five concrete ways you can help your teen process the difficulties they’ve faced and help them grow from the experience:
Savor the good: According to Rick Hanson, psychologist and co-founder of the Wellspring Institute for Neuroscience and Contemplative Wisdom, “the brain is an organ that learns, so it is designed to be changed by your experiences.” This process is “turbo-charged” by conscious awareness; in other words, “what you pay attention to—what you rest your mind on—is the primary shaper of your brain.”
For many, the pandemic brought with it harrowing news stories, heightened levels of fear and anxiety, and extraordinary personal loss. It also brought moments of profound human connection: Italians quarantined inside their homes broke into spontaneous song, while New Yorkers clapped for front-line workers every evening. Closer to home, many of us shared precious moments with family that might otherwise have been lost in the hustle and bustle of the day.
Taking time to intentionally recall positive moments like these with your teen (ideally for at least twenty seconds at a time) will help them train their brain to more readily notice and savor the happy moments they experience. It can also increase their optimism and resilience—both critical components of post-traumatic growth.
Make space for difficult emotions: While turning our attention to the positive moments we experience each day is critical to our wellbeing, it’s also important to acknowledge and attend to the difficulties we’ve experienced as a result of the pandemic. Young people everywhere have suffered. In a survey conducted by the CDC, 62.9 percent of young adults reported increased levels of depression and/or anxiety during the pandemic, while 25.5 percent of young adults reported seriously considering suicide. Helping young people cope with difficult emotions is now more important than ever.
Many of the young people we work with are surprised to learn that when they try to avoid, reduce, and/or suppress uncomfortable emotions, they actually do the opposite: they increase them. Shifting difficult emotions requires us to turn toward discomfort rather than away from it. In fact, research shows that difficult emotions only begin to change when we acknowledge them from a space of openness and curiosity.
As your teen prepares to go back to school, invite them to talk about the negative emotions they experience. If possible, avoid trying to change their narrative in any way. Instead, simply allow them to state what they’re experiencing. Not only will you model what it looks like to approach difficult experiences with openness and curiosity, you’ll also help the emotions dissipate more quickly.
Make meaning: Helping your teen make meaning of their experiences during the pandemic is another wonderful way to support their growth. Meaning-making refers to the process through which we understand and make sense of our life experiences. Meaning-making helps us integrate discrete events into a broader worldview and thus, it is a critical component of how we develop core beliefs about ourselves and the world. Notably, when we take time to make sense of hardship, we’re less likely to experience ongoing stress responses. So take time to reflect on the last year with your teen. Ask them, How has this experience changed you? What have you learned? Who are you now? What’s your role in all of this?
Take stock: As you reflect, it’s also worth considering what you and your family learned over the past year about your pre-pandemic lifestyle. For many of us, the pandemic was an unwelcome disruption of daily life. But, as the shutdown stretched from weeks to months, many of us settled into a new rhythm of life. Suddenly, the calendar was open and we had time to explore new ways of being. Now that life is opening up again, many people are expressing concern over a return to the fast-paced life they lived before the pandemic.
As we return to some of our previous activities, it’s worth taking time to reflect on what our lives would look like if we were more intentional about how we use our time and attention. Help your teen consider this by asking them questions like, Moving forward, what aspects of your lifestyle during the shut-down would you like to keep? What would you like to change? What new insights do you have about yourself? About those close to you?
Make a plan: Once your teen has a sense of what aspects of their current lifestyle they’d like to keep and what they’d like to change, it’s time to make a plan. As anyone who’s ever made a New Year’s resolution will tell you, making a plan and sticking to it is critical for success. Ask your teen, What calls to you? Family dinner? Time with friends? Creative endeavors? Down-time? And then, put it on the calendar. Not only will scheduling your teen’s breaks ensure that they take time to slow down and engage in the activities they most value, it will also help your teen be more productive when it’s time to turn to things like schoolwork and test prep.
Supporting teens through a pandemic is difficult work. If you or your teen could use some extra help, please don’t hesitate to reach out—that’s what we’re here for! In the meantime, check out The Handbook of Post-Traumatic Growth to learn more ways you can help your teen thrive.