Recovering from the Pandemic: What's the New Normal for Teens and How Can We Help?

June 27, 2023

Coming of age in the pandemic has been rough on a generation of teens. The pre-existing mental health crisis, intrusive social media, and real existential threats like gun violence and climate change, on top of normal developmental processes, have made for a perfect storm. How are teens faring, and how can they be supported in this new milieu? New guidance is emerging from science, practice, and policies.

WHAT DO WE KNOW?

The pandemic touched every area of life.

The impact of the pandemic affected every important area of young people’s lives across the age spectrum, according to a March 2023 report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.[1]

Academic achievement suffered, especially in reading- and math- related subjects. School engagement was often difficult: Enrollment declined, absenteeism increased, and some children lacked access to virtual education. Parents, who under normal circumstances would have supported children’s learning, were themselves deeply stressed, especially those with young children, and some families were overwhelmed by financial hardship, food/housing insecurity, illness and loss. Many educators met the moment with ingenuity and passion, but others suffered high rates of anxiety and burnout, and many left the profession.

Young people’s physical health suffered, too. Though children were less likely to experience severe COVID-19 disease, a meta-analysis confirmed that they had increased risk for multisystem inflammatory symptoms, and 25% of children and teens who were infected with the virus got long COVID—namely prolonged mood disturbances, fatigue and shortness of breath, sleep disorders, loss of smell and taste, and fevers. Infected children’s rates of diabetes increased, and children’s health was more generally undermined by interrupted preventative care: Kids missed routine vaccinations, blood lead screenings, vision screenings, and dental care.

The pandemic’s toll on young people’s psychological wellbeing was uneven, but where it had an impact, it was intense and sometimes devastating. More than 265,000 young people lost a parent or caregiver to Covid-19, with Native American, Black, and Latinx children being two to four times more likely to lose a primary caregiver than white children. On almost any measure, impacts of all kinds were more acute for ethnic minority youth, low-income youth, LGBTQAI+ youth, and special education students, with their symptoms continuing to persist at higher rates.

Psychological impact varied by developmental period.

Stress affects children and teens differently depending on their developmental status and what they need from their environment. Those differences can be seen in the way the pandemic impacted young people:

Babies. Studies of babies born during the pandemic showed that while they didn’t seem to be harmed by exposure to the virus in utero, exposed and unexposed babies alike showed developmental delays by six months, especially in areas of gross motor, fine motor, and social and emotional development. Why? Babies need responsive and attuned attention, with a serve-and-return style of interaction. During the pandemic, rates of anxiety and depression in parents and caregivers nearly quadrupled, making it difficult to provide the normal emotional “nutrition” babies need to develop well. Early intervention can easily recover these lags, but ignoring the impact can have lifelong consequences.

Young children. A report synthesizing the findings of 76 high-quality studies on the pandemic and early childhood showed that preschool enrollment declined, and early learning in pre-literacy, math, and social-emotional skills declined with it. Nearly half of parents of children under five said they were worried about their children’s isolation and restricted social development during lockdown. This is a valid concern, since peer engagement helps children develop social coordination, communication, and peer play. Parents reported higher rates of behavior problems, hyperactivity, and peer problems in their young children, compared to reports from previous years. The problems were more intense in families with more hardships, and on days when school or care was disrupted, highlighting the need for stability and routine.

During the pandemic, anxiety and depression rose in school-age children, along with increased rates of ADHD, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and tics. Children ages six to 12 were more emotionally dysregulated; they exhibited more “internalizing” issues (e.g., withdrawal, low self-esteem, eating disturbances) and “externalizing” behaviors (e.g., agitation, conduct problems) compared to pre-pandemic rates.

In private conversations, several educators estimated to me that children are about two years behind in in their social skills; among other things, they’re having difficulty managing themselves and their emotions with their peers on the playground. Bay Area therapist Sheri Glucoft Wong reported that families are having a harder time organizing and coordinating themselves and making transitions as schedules fill up once again, a kind of real-world wayfinding problem seen in college students, too.

Teens. The pandemic poured fuel on the fire of the youth mental health crisis that’s been brewing for over a decade. Last fall, medical experts recommended that all children eight and older get screened for anxiety and that all teens get screened for depression. In March, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a report showing that youth mental health was still worsening, particularly for female, LGBTQAI+, and Black students, all of whom are experiencing more violence, distress, and suicidality. Six in ten female-identified students reported feeling “persistently sad or hopeless,” and sexual assault rates rose, especially for female students, LGBTQAI+ students, and American Indian and Alaska Native students.

Children and teens worry about real events that are going on their lives, and the content differs by life stage. Young teens report in surveys that they worry most about their immediate experiences—e.g., school and friendships—while older teens worry about their future and the world they will enter. For about a decade, teens’ top worries have been gun violence and climate change. Many young people feel lonely and isolated; they feel that no one notices when they’re worried and that there’s no one to turn to for support.

Emily Frost and Quetzal François facilitate Bay Area mentoring and rites of passage program Love Your Nature for girls ages 10-20, nearly half of whom are BIPOC and/or queer- or nonbinary-identifying. I spoke with them about what they’re seeing in teens.

First, younger teens are worrying about their parents in new ways. “They’ve always been aware of their parents’ yelling or fighting,” Frost told me. “But now they’re overhearing their parents on the phone, late at night, discussing serious life decisions and struggles. Parents are stressed, so they’re less filtered, and teens feel scared about what they’re hearing. They’re also afraid to turn to their parents with their own problems because they don’t want to be an extra burden.”

In normal circumstances, young teens would begin individuating, i.e., seeking greater psychological autonomy while maintaining their connections. In typical individuation, young teens need to take their parents’ availability and stability for granted in order to push out; they might even create more conflict in order to practice gaining a separate mind. But it’s very challenging to individuate from someone you’re worried about, or have to take care of. And in lockdown, not only were young teens stuck in the same physical space as the adults from whom they were individuating; they were also cut off from access to the non-parental people—primarily their peers, but also mentors, teachers, and coaches—they needed in order to individuate.

Older teens in Frost and François’ groups, who are poised to launch into adulthood, express an acute sense that their future is uncertain. In stable situations, adolescents are designed to rush into the future—they’re creative risk-takers who excitedly move with their peers, their generation, toward what’s new and interesting. But these teens have deeply experienced losses of things they’d taken for granted—loved ones dying from COVID-19, school closures and the elimination of their educational and social worlds, and even disappointing college admissions that seem to be increasingly selective. Add to that a sense of impending doom about the climate crisis, gun violence, and health concerns, and teens don’t have access to the embodied feeling of confidence they need in order to launch.

What’s more, these dynamics create chronic stress that burden the nervous system and teens’ development.

“The cellular experience of young people,” Frost said, “is, ‘I’m not safe, this is not safe, and I don’t know what to do about it.’”

A 2022 Stanford University study bears this out: Neuroimaging of brains of 163 young teens before and during the pandemic showed accelerated brain aging due to the pandemic. Areas affected include memory formation, emotion management, and executive function. The changes are similar to those resulting from chronic adversity like violence, neglect, or severe family dysfunction.

Parents’ ability to help regulate kids’ stress decreases at adolescence, creating more vulnerability.

It’s a feature of development that children’s bodies are keenly attuned to signals of stress in their environment, as though they’re “emotional Geiger counters.” Beginning in-utero, signals of stress cross the placenta, causing epigenetic changes that direct a cascade of hormonal, endocrine, and neurological reactions that comprise the body’s hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical (HPA) system, also known as the stress regulation system.

I spoke with developmental scientist Megan Gunnar at the Institute of Child Development at the University of Minnesota, who’s been studying the impact of stress on children—and how the body regulates it—for 45 years. “The stress system is very plastic [modifiable] for the first 18-24 months, and then it’s set for awhile,” she explains. “Then puberty helps to reopen it, and adolescence becomes another period of heightened plasticity—for good or for ill.”

About a year before signs of puberty are visible, the sex steroids begin to remodel the brain in preparation for adulthood. An over-blooming of synaptic connections between neurons allows for creative potential, and synaptic pruning eliminates unused connections. As a result, the influences in teens’ lives at that time carry inordinate importance. Teens also become highly sensitive to others, especially their peers. Their reward circuitry is remodeled, boosting their desire to explore their world—and outpacing their “braking system” which takes longer to develop and will make them more cautious, especially in the presence of peers. Some evidence shows that part of the plasticity taking place may involve some alterations to the stress regulation system.

“Adolescents are interested in new experiences, novelty-seeking, especially with their peers,” Gunnar says. “In normal circumstances it’s a wonderful, fabulous time of emotional development,” Gunnar said. But there’s also a feature of the plasticity that makes them more vulnerable. “In adolescence, the parents get ‘booted out’ of their hypothalamus.”

What does that mean? “In childhood,” she explained, “there’s a very powerful capacity of parents, especially in secure relationships, to buffer the child’s reactivity of the HPA axis. The child produces less cortisol (stress hormone) when they’re in the presence of their secure caregivers. But we find in our research that that goes away about the midpoint in puberty. At that time, the parent’s presence no longer automatically dampens the body’s stress response, and teens begin to regulate more on their own—at least in individualistic cultures. (This effect hasn’t been studied in other cultures.) Gunnar’s research is congruent with other research that shows, for example, that, unlike in earlier childhood, teens’ brains are more activated by unfamiliar voices than by their mothers’ voice, consistent with the biological drive to focus beyond the family.

Along with individuation and a greater peer orientation, the downgrade of parental stress regulation may be part of an evolutionary design that nudges young people away from the nest and drives them to form new communities. “Later, when they form an attachment to an adult romantic partner, that partner is ‘let into’ the nervous system,” Gunnar says, “and they will be able to help buffer stress. But in the meanwhile, adolescents are vulnerable.”

Still, Gunnar says, parents can continue to be a regulatory source, helping their teens figure out how to regulate themselves in other ways. “We see in our research that when parents help with emotion coaching, teens are better able to regulate their cortisol response than kids whose parents don’t.”

Teens are extra sensitive to social evaluation.

Is the teen brain biologically disposed to increased stress? “There is some evidence that there may be a heightened level of cortisol production, overall, in adolescence, but we’re not exactly clear on the mechanisms of that yet,” Gunnar told me. “But work in the Netherlands has shown that there is a heightened level of cortisol production in particular to social evaluative stressors. Adolescents are freaked out by social evaluation, and girls become more sensitive to it before boys.”

In the lockdown, virtual access to others was vital; kids connected with friends and supportive communities across the internet, including on social media and gaming platforms. But some of the interactions may have harmed some of them. In May, the U.S. Surgeon General issued a bracing advisory about the risks of social media to young people’s mental health. It cautioned parents to set limits around social media use, and urged greater regulation and oversight of social media technology companies. One provocative—but nonscientific—global survey suggests that the later a child accesses a smart phone, the better their mental health as adults, especially their self-confidence and social life. Another study shows that lower media use increases teens’ prosocial behavior and self-regulation. Some research blames social media for the mental health crisis, while other research documents individual variation—i.e., some kids feel better using it, and some feel worse.

Regardless, there’s a growing skepticism about smart-phone access and social media use. Therapist Glucoft Wong said she’s seeing more families grappling with recalibrating screen time in their households.

WHAT HELPS?

For parents:

Some kids are fine. The impact of the pandemic was not universally adverse. At scale, the mental health crisis—and shortage of professional help—is alarming. Still, depending on the measure used, statistically one quarter, one third, or half of kids may be alright. Some kids even benefitted. Shy and socially anxious teens, and teens who were experiencing low-grade trauma at school, were relieved by the break. Extra care needs to be taken to reintegrate and support them.

Remember the basics. Sleep, nutrition, exercise and friendships are foundational to all other functioning. One Stanford neuroscientist emphasizes sleep and deep rest above all for wellbeing, and teens are notoriously short on it. Studies show more sleep for teens improves many measures of wellbeing and achievement. Challengesuccess.org offers simple tools to help make conscious choices about time use around the clock.

Focus on psychological wellbeing and emotional skills. All the professionals I spoke with for this article agreed that support for healthy psychological skills is as important as—and perhaps more important than—academic skills. Focus on relationships and emotional health, they advise. This guidance echoes 75 years of research on resilience. Lisa Damour’s book, The Emotional Lives of Teenagers is an excellent place to learn more about how to do that.

Frost and François recommend sharing with teens what you’re learning about wellbeing. Leave materials out for them to read, finish the podcast you’re listening to while you get in the car together, etc. Casual and adjacent sharing helps support teens in a way that’s not didactic or face-to-face.

Make yourself prepared and available to have conversations about things that really matter, about topics that are relevant to your teen. “Teens are meaning-making machines,” Frost quips. “They care about how the world works and their place in it and they want to have conversations about important things.”

Have relationships, don’t just worry about them. “Being in the relationship is more important than the status check-ins of ‘How are you doing?’” Frost and François say. Have supportive family routines, a monthly café date, and be in the world together. “You’re planting seeds for their future and for the future of your relationship. It’s not one big thing, really, it’s how all the small actions day-to-day add up. Even if they balk at your suggestion, it’s worth persisting,” Frost says.

Gunnar concurs: “If I were the parent of a teenager right now, I would be working hard to have that child and the whole family have time when we’re just being a family and not in the media, on screens. Dinnertime, playing games, quieter, simpler things that provide that sense of grounding. And I would do a lot of listening and less talking.”

Clarify emotion language. Frost and François observe that since mental-health language has become more prevalent in our culture, more teens are using terms like “anxiety,” “panic attack,” or “dissociation.” It can be startling at first. Sometimes teens “front” with hyperbolic language; they’re trying it on, but it doesn’t always serve them. Have a growth mindset and see it as an opening for more learning, more talking. Ask gentle questions like, “What do you mean by that?” Tone is everything, says Frost.

In The Emotional Life of Teenagers, Damour reminds us that teens have big emotions in the best of times, and we can often help them understand and manage their feelings. It is when emotions become unmanageable or overwhelming that some professional help may be advised.

Help teens connect to something bigger than themselves. “Young people have a deep longing to feel connected to something bigger than themselves,” François said. “This includes nature, civic engagement, social justice, and volunteering. Getting to be part of a meaningful experience is so key.” Frost adds, “The impact on this generation of being the ‘turning point’ in the climate crisis is underestimated. Their relationship to nature is huge on many levels. And there’s a positive impact of spending time there, experiencing the mystery, the universe, and forces much greater than themselves.”

Reclaim exploration as a part of adolescence. In the 1960s, adolescence was seen as a period of exploration necessary to achieve a healthy identity. We seem to have lost that as we pressure teens to foreclose into decisions, identities, and careers, and as we reduce teens’ free time to be bored and mess around which is critical to developing their unique talents. “Allow kids to not know who they are and still feel valid,” Frost and François advise. Teens interpret even well-intentioned queries as pressure to have answers, and they feel they’re disappointing parents by not knowing.

Take care of yourselves. Teens can be encouraged to be kind and considerate, but they should not be their parents’ emotional caregivers. “Find your communities, find your regulation, your check points,” Frost advises parents, “so you don’t put so much on the teen to reassure you or to give you answers. Teens need to be free of their low-level anxiety about how you’re really doing.”

Connecting with other parents can also help set norms among peer groups, e.g., social media use.

Remember that you’re modeling self-care as well as becoming a better partner inside the relationship for your child to experience.

Resume collaboration with teachers. The three-way relationship among kids, parents, and teachers that has long been proven to support students broke down during the pandemic, Glucoft Wong observes. Parents, kids, and teachers missed out on the benefits of collaborative relationships and friendships and the seamless sharing of information that happens when campuses are open and people interact in person. Reach out to teachers—and other parents—to resume that communication and learn how to best support your students.

Set social media guidelines. A young teen’s brain is very different from that of an older adolescent. In The Emotional Lives of Teenagers, Damour recommends keeping phones out of bedrooms at night and putting age-appropriate brakes on tech access, for example, starting with a phone that can send and receive texts but not access social media. Common Sense Media also has helpful guidelines. But make this a partnership; one study found that excessive restrictions in the absence of communication made teens more secretive and more relationally aggressive.

For educators:

Set later start times and minimize homework. A later school start time for teens is linked to better mental health, and many teens are pressured for time due to too much homework (which isn’t linked positive outcomes).

Acknowledge emotions wisely. Most educators know the importance of a social and emotional education; the challenge is making time for it and embedding it in the school ecology. When emotions are normalized and the school community becomes more skillful, relationships will be deepened and people more skillfully authentic. For ten years now, meta-analyses [DD1] have consistently demonstrated the widespread positive impact of social and emotional learning on adults and students alike.

Create the culture you want. Create social norms for the culture and climate to encourage desired behaviors that become the norm. There are numerous surveys available to schools that let students give feedback about their school culture and assess school climate. Students can also contribute: Research on InspirEd, student-led social and emotional initiatives, showed improvements in school climate, school pride, student relationships and emotional safety.

Provide resources to students. Normalize conversations about mental health and psychological services. Learn what resources are available for your students and communicate those to them. Students need to know who to talk to, how to disclose, and find care in hard moments, like following a sexual assault, when a friend is in trouble, or when they’re invited to participate in harmful behaviors.

Facilitate safe, supportive student relationships across ages. Mentors come in all ages and locations.

Convey hope and inspiration. Students need more than information about problems; they need models and stories that give them hope about their future and their ability to navigate and shape it, without feeling overwhelmed by their responsibility for it. “Teens need honesty, but hopeful honesty,” Frost and François add. “They need to be held in a process of making meaning of what they’re experiencing. Otherwise, where will they get the perspective to face inevitable adversity?”

Model wellbeing. Model how to be an adult and how to achieve the future you want.

* * * * *

Unfortunately, all of the above advice is given in a particularly challenging context. Currently on overall measures of child well-being, the U.S. ranks 36th among 38 nations with comparable high-income economies.

“The nation is getting riled up about the wrong things,” Gunnar says. “We need to be very riled up about how to keep the world a safe place, about critical things like the climate and gun violence. That’s not for the kids to do. It’s for the adults to do.”

In the meanwhile, we can still all have a role in making things better for teens. Growing up in a stressful and unpredictable world will be part of this generation’s story, but in the safety of our patient gaze, warm regard, and reliable support, they may even develop hidden talents—gifts and abilities that we cannot imagine and that only emerge in difficult circumstances. As the author and artist Chanel Miller writes in Know My Name, “You have to hold out to see how your life unfolds, because it is most likely beyond what you can imagine. It is not a question of if you will survive this, but what beautiful things await you when you do….Wait for the good to come.”

[1] a group convened by the federal government to solve complex national problems and inform public policy

Pandemic 2020: Will the Kids Be All Right? Lessons on Parenting from 100 Years of Crises

April 16, 2020

Massive unemployment. Loss of life. Disrupted education. And an economy in free-fall. These are the ingredients for the kinds of tectonic social shifts that alter the arcs of human lives. And parents, as always, are at the fulcrum of the pressures, protecting their families while trying to hold together a semblance of normalcy for their children.

For 100 years, developmental scientists have studied how families and children respond to disasters, manmade and natural. From the Great Depression to Hurricane Katrina, from 9/11 to wars and historic migrations, we’ve learned a few things. Studies of resilience have shown us that certain conditions enable children to adapt well amidst adversity, and other conditions lead to unfavorable outcomes.

The most critical element, according to the research, is the presence of at least one stable, caring adult, someone who provides a secure psychological container and a scaffold for growth—and I’ll explain that more fully below. But there are other levers at play, too.

In times of societal crisis, the following qualities are important to a child’s psychological resilience. I share these with you in the hope that whatever your situation in caring for children during the pandemic, you can focus on what really matters to your family’s long-term psychological well-being and let go of the more minor concerns.

Dosage

Research on children’s resilience began with developmental psychologist Emmy Werner, who was a child during the horrors of World War II in Europe. Many of the 39 million civilians who died because of the war were children, and 20 million children were orphaned. Werner managed to survive with her cousins by “foraging in the ruins of bombed-out houses and in abandoned beet, potato, and turnip fields” when all of the adult males in her extended family perished on the battlefield or in prisoner camps.[1]

In order to explore how children survived, she studied the letters, diaries, and journals of 200 child eyewitnesses on all sides of the war across 12 countries. In addition, Werner conducted in-depth interviews with 12 adult survivors when they were in their 50s and 60s.

In her book, Through the Eyes of Children, Werner writes that many of the children who survived became adults with “an extraordinary affirmation of life.” However, children were affected differently depending on a number of variables. The most important was their level of direct exposure to violence, bombing, and combat. For example, in a study of 1200 British school children targeted in air raids, 18 percent had symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), e.g., intrusive fears; nightmares; sleep disturbances; and heightened reactivity to loud noises, like sirens and explosions. These symptoms were present five years later at a rate comparable to those found in combat veterans of WWII and, later, the Vietnam War. When Werner interviewed her adult subjects more than 50 years later, they still reported frighteningly vivid memories of the sounds of air raid sirens, machine gun fire, and low-flying planes.

(Getty Images: Hulton Deutsch, Fred Ramage, Fox Photos)

Studies of children worldwide in other wars and conflicts, from South Central Asia to Rwanda to Ireland, corroborate that the dose is the poison. In other words, the degree or length of exposure to danger is strongly predictive of later disturbance.

This was true, too, for children who were alive at the time of the collapse of the Twin Towers in New York City on Sept 11, 2001. Representative studies of children and adolescents following the attacks showed that the greater the degree of direct or indirect exposure, the greater the symptoms of PTSD, anxiety, and separation anxiety, and of course children who experienced the loss of a family member suffered most. The proximity of children to the event when tragedy struck mattered. A study of 844 children showed that those who were below Canal Street when the towers collapsed, and witnessed the event or were out in the dust soon after, had more psychiatric and physical health disorders at ages 17-30. Those same children had four times the rates of both disorders co-occurring, compared to a control group of children who were across the bridge in Queens and only saw media coverage of the event.

But media coverage, too, is a kind of chronic exposure, albeit indirect. A study of middle school children who watched repeating loops of television coverage of the Oklahoma City bombings showed that they were more likely to have symptoms of PTSD seven weeks later (even though none of their families were harmed), compared to children who watched less television coverage.

Takeaway: Children with the most direct exposure to the pandemic—e.g., who lose a loved one or whose family is struggling with the disease, food shortages, or other deprivations—may be most at risk for psychological disturbances and should be prioritized for services and resources.
If possible, shield children, especially the youngest, from media exposure so that caregivers stay in control of the messages. Four- to six-year-olds can handle minimal, manageable facts about why their lives have changed. Teenagers can take in more information and are interested in understanding how the world works and their place in it. But even then, caution is warranted. It’s helpful to have a wise adult in the wings to talk about events and emotional responses, and extra care should be taken with sensitive or empathic teens, as they can become overwhelmed and anxious more easily. Staying constructive and action-oriented helps to mitigate the chances of depression and overwhelm.

Availability of loving caregivers

When uncertainty or danger strikes, children are “wired” to look to their caregivers to determine how safe they should feel. If their primary adult is calm, a child feels reassured. But if their adult is upset, the child feels unsafe, and their body and brain go into threat mode. And when the threat system is on too long without relief, physical and mental health problems can result.

The first documentation of the protective effect of a caring adult also came from observations of children during WWII. Anna Freud, daughter of Sigmund Freud, founded the Hampstead War Nurseries in England to care for children during the Blitz, the Nazi bombing campaign of the United Kingdom from 1940-41. Freud and her colleague Dorothy Burlingham documented their observations of children in their care in their book War and Children.

Though the children were not exposed to direct combat, they lived through repeated, unpredictable air raids throughout the day and night. Some children saw death up close, some were buried in debris, and many were injured. Freud and Burlingham found that, remarkably, when children were with their family members during these events, they rarely showed “traumatic shock.” They showed “little excitement and no undue disturbance. They slept and ate normally and played with whatever toys they had rescued.” The children seemed to equate their experience with just another childhood “accident,” like falling out of a tree or getting thrown off their bike. That the war “threatened their lives, disturbed their material comfort or cut their food rations” mattered little, according to Freud and Burlingham, as long as the children were with a trusted adult.[2]

But it became “a widely different matter” if a parent was killed or a child was separated from their parents. Children had a much harder time, for example, if they were evacuated for their safety to the countryside. Separation from parents was worse for children than enduring the bombings alongside their family, write Freud and Burlingham. This has been true in every war zone studied, from Rwanda to Bosnia and the West Bank to Syria. Studies show that if children lose the sense of safety anchored by a secure caregiver, the result is often an increase in PTSD, desensitization to violence, anxiety, depression, aggression, and/or antisocial behavior.

However, when the parent is present, their own emotional state matters. Freud and Burlingham write that most of the London population met the air raids with a “quiet manner,” so it was extremely rare to find children who were “shocked.” For example, they describe one Irish mother of eight whose windows were blown out in a bomb blast. When she showed up at the clinic, she said that they were “ever so lucky” because her husband was there and could fix the windows. Another mother brought her daughter in for a “cough and cold” but didn’t think to mention that they’d just escaped a bomb shelter destroyed in a fire. Due to the mother’s “lack of fear and excitement,” Freud and Burlingham write, the child “will not develop air-raid anxiety.” By contrast, they noticed that very anxious mothers had very anxious children. For example, one five year-old boy developed “extreme nervousness and bed wetting” when he had to get up in the night, get dressed, and hold his trembling mother’s hand.[3]

More recent research confirms that depression or anxiety in the primary caregiver is a significant risk factor for children’s psychological health. Anxious parents can overlook their children’s needs, and depressed parents usually under-respond to their children; either situation can lead to missed emotional cues and mental health problems in children.

Center on the Developing Child, Harvard University

On the other hand, when a supportive adult is present, the child can tolerate much more than if they were alone. Simply the presence of a calm adult can reduce the levels of cortisol, the stress hormone, in a child’s body. In fact, this supported exposure to manageable stress can even be “inoculating,” helping children to be more resilient, whereas complete avoidance of stress undermines the development of resilience.

The supportive adult figure doesn’t have to be a parent. Research shows that any non-parental figure in a caring capacity, including a neighbor, teacher, counselor coach, sibling, or cousin, etc., can be just as effective.

In addition to her study of children in WWII, Emmy Werner also conducted a 40-year longitudinal study on the Hawaiian island of Kauai to investigate the long-term effects of poverty and family dysfunction on children. She found that one of the strongest predictors of a child’s resilience was an emotional bond with an adult outside the immediate family.

This correlation was also found in a study of children in New Orleans who survived the flooding and aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Children who fared the best seven years later were the ones who’d had the most supportive connections—family members, teachers, pastors, or shelter workers. By contrast, those who fared worst had lacked any constructive connections, and the ones who floundered marginally had had only one person as a solid anchor.

Werner also studied the records of pioneer families who travelled across deserts, mountains, and rivers in wagon parties. The Donner Party is perhaps the most tragic and well-known story of westward migration. A small band of 87 travelers took an ill-advised shortcut away from the Oregon Trail and onto a lesser known route around Salt Lake. The path eventually ended, and they had to cut through forests and brush to clear their way. The delay caused them to get trapped in the heavy Sierra snowfalls, unable to move for four months. As supplies dwindled, travelers resorted to eating their animal skin rugs and animals, and a few resorted to cannibalizing their deceased companions. Of the 41 children in the party, a third died, mostly infants and toddlers.

The ones who survived, according to Werner, had the strongest social supports from mothers, aunts, cousins, and a teacher who pooled what resources they had, maintaining whatever shreds of structure and normalcy they could muster. Werner details the particular significance of the sibling bond. Siblings shared food and drinks, nursed the sick and injured, and were confidants and supports to each other when the going got tough. The majority of children who survived went on to lead “long and productive lives,” becoming lawyers, ranchers, writers, prospectors, and heads of large families.[4]

Takeaway: Children are most resilient when they’re embedded in a network of social support: a parent, a caring parent figure, and/or siblings. Accounts like these suggest that the support that works for children doesn’t have to be overly-precious or hyper-conscious. Rather, practical, positive decency offered by ordinary people will suffice.
The message to parents who aren’t able to care for their own children because they’re essential workers—or are sick and quarantined away from their families—is that other committed adults can pinch-hit as caregivers just fine.
For stressed parents at home caring for children 24/7 and trying to work, too: Put on your oxygen mask first. Your self-care is essential. It’s a consuming challenge to bring your best self to this quarantine day after day, but your wellbeing is essential to you and your children. And rest assured, you don’t have to be perfect. Even in the healthiest relationships, parents are only “in-tune” with their children 30% of the time. What matters more is your flexibility to repair, to come back together, and perhaps to reunite at the end of a long day. Apologies, forgiveness, and self-compassion are key. Remember: the biggest lesson your children are learning from you is how to handle themselves in stressful situations.

Child characteristics

What about the characteristics of children? Do some kinds of children do better than others?

First, there is no “resiliency gene,” but difference in biological makeup does affect how children register and regulate stress. These foundations are created by genetic and epigenetic transmissions across generations and by childhood experiences, especially during sensitive periods. The physiology of the stress regulation system is established from the prenatal period, through the first three years of life, so the stress experienced during that time is very influential in shaping stress-sensitivity of a child’s system. However, research also shows that in puberty—a period of brain remodeling—a child’s stress physiology can be recalibrated for better or worse, depending on how much stress they’re experiencing.

About one in five children is more biologically “sensitive” to stress than others. Their “fight-or-flight” systems react more quickly, easily, and intensely to mild stressors. They can become more devastated in difficult conditions, even more susceptible to respiratory illnesses. But they bloom more brilliantly in favorable conditions—becoming the world’s artists, poets, inventors, and empaths.

The first wave of resiliency research presumed that children who were more easygoing and sociable (i.e., could enlist other people’s help), and “intelligent” did better. Newer research has refined those generalizations into more specific abilities.

Recent studies have pointed to certain kinds of cognitive and emotional skills related to resilience. Executive control involves the higher-order thought processes in the prefrontal cortex. These include self-management abilities like setting goals, devising a plan to accomplish the goal, problem-solving, flexibility, and monitoring progress along the way. Historical studies show that a family’s survival often depended on the contributions of children, and that the mastery and competence the children developed through these tasks served them well in their adult lives.

Emotion regulation is the process of monitoring feelings and using strategies to minimize unpleasant ones (down-regulation), increase pleasant ones (up-regulation), and maintain desirable ones in order to accomplish a goal. Positive strategies include reframing, acceptance, and finding a purpose. Drawing on children’s unique inner resources, like friendliness, musicality, humor, building, organizing, or creating can help keep their focus constructive. Unhelpful strategies include ruminating, numbing, escapism, venting, blaming, and disengaging; all of these lead to greater anxiety and poorer mental health outcomes in children.

Resiliency studies show that a combination of executive control and emotion regulation leads to the best outcomes and the lowest anxiety in children.

Takeaway: Some children may need a little more attention and support than others because of their age or their sensitivities. Pregnant women, infants, toddlers, preschoolers, and young teens need extra support and stress-buffering. It’s a good time to model, demonstrate, and teach executive control (e.g., through planning and completing projects) and emotional skills. Many professionals have suggested that during this time, traditional school lessons may be less important than social and emotional ones.

Prior vulnerability

Whatever the future effects of the pandemic on children and families, according to Jack Shonkoff, pediatrician and director of the Center for the Developing Child at Harvard, they will not be evenly distributed across families. Vulnerable families who already struggle with difficulties such as poverty, food insecurity, racism, immigration stress, and disabilities will experience more breakdowns like substance abuse, family violence, mental health problems, and later educational and employment challenges.

We’re already seeing news reports of faltering families. Divorce rates spiked in China following the peak of the pandemic, and early reports are signaling a similar trend in the U.S. The United Nations has reported a “horrifying” increase in domestic violence. As of this writing, calls to police and domestic violence hotlines are up 15-20% in New York; they’ve doubled in Lebanon and Malaysia, tripled in China, and increased 75% in Australia. Quarantined victims are trapped at home without access to teachers, counselors, or doctors who could support their emotional and physical safety. Part of the U.S. government relief package provides funding for shelters and hotlines. It seems that disasters that immediately threaten mortality like 9/11 or wars are less likely to spike family disturbance, but those that become chronic stressors like unemployment and the quarantine bring out the worst.

The disruption of education is a serious risk for vulnerable children. Educational consistency is a stabilizer for children in uncertain times, and teachers play critical roles in keeping disadvantaged children on track. Schools give structure and focus amidst disruption; many studies show that disasters interrupt children’s education, leading to unfulfilled lives, as well as a loss of human capital to society. UNESCO estimates that 91% of the world’s students are currently affected by school closures. While many schools are shifting to online education, the approaches are ad hoc and unstudied. Digital access is not available to everyone, though schools are struggling to provide students with internet hotspots. Some schools report that large numbers of students have “disappeared,” i.e., fewer than one half are engaging in online courses.

During the Great Depression, schools reduced their hours or closed. A million children lost access to school, and a quarter of a million children hit the road and rails, becoming “drifters” in search of work. For the first time, the federal government was spurred to take an interest in children’s well-being, because it was afraid that large numbers of disaffected youth could be susceptible to a rise of authoritarianism, similar to what was happening in Europe. The New Deal launched the first free school lunch program, free nursery schools, the first federally funded work-study programs, and the National Youth Administration and the Civilian Conservation Corps, which employed over seven million young people. The schools were funded to reopen, and Aid to Families with Dependent Children helped poor families. The government ended child labor and raised the mandatory school attendance age to 16 in order to eliminate having children compete with adults for jobs. The first safety net for children and families was cast, and the word “teenager” entered the vocabulary for the first time.

On the other end of the economic spectrum, affluent families that tend toward “overparenting” can be at risk for fostering anxiety, as they strive to perfectly recreate the school learning environment at home in order to keep up with standardized testing and the college admissions cycle. These families might benefit from broadening their definition of learning to focus on simply reading, problem-solving, communication, and social and emotional skills.

“When children are involved in things they’re really interested in, a project or an exploration, they will be learning. Everything around them is a learning experience. Parents should think about how to take advantage of that,” advises Linda Darling-Hammond, professor at Stanford University Graduate School of Education and CEO of the Learning Policy Institute.

Takeaway: Vulnerable and disadvantaged families, especially with multiple stressors, should have access to and seek help from mental health and legal services. Local schools and each states’ Department of Education list educational guidance and resources for students and families. Staying connected to education is especially critical for children with any kind of disadvantage, while families who tend toward overparenting may benefit from dialing down excessive traditional educational demands.

A higher calling

Many studies of resilience find that survivors who do well have philosophies or spiritual traditions through which they interpret events and derive hope and optimism. Ann Masten, professor at the Institute for Child Development at the University of Minnesota, is a noted theoretician in the study of children’s resilience. In her book, Ordinary Magic: Resilience in Development, she writes that many faith traditions—including Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—naturally incorporate all of the ingredients for resilience. They offer parenting guidance; identify moral conduct; provide role models, mentors, and community support; teach and practice self-regulation; and value the greater good. A connection to some definition of the divine and a philosophical framework help survivors make meaning of their experience and in the process, help them keep calm. Studies show that some homeless families in shelters persevere because of their faith. African American communities find connection, spiritual guidance and a coherent vision through their churches; and orphans in war-torn Sri Lanka find acceptance and peace through Buddhist and Christian practices of meditating, storytelling, and reading scripture.

Sometimes, cultural practices offer meaningful support. A study of 1000 Afghani adolescents showed that in prolonged periods of armed conflict, Afghani cultural values of faith, family unity, service, effort, morals, and honor shored up resilience. Werner’s longitudinal research in Kauai showed that many adults who eventually created happy lives drew from their cultural heritage, becoming involved in Hawaiian conservation efforts, going to the ocean in times of trouble, or caring for their elders.

Recent psychological work suggests that having a sense of purpose may be enough to get you through. Surviving, ensuring your child’s well-being, volunteering, keeping your job, or finding awe in the moment may just be enough for now.

Takeaway: A connection to something greater than ourselves—whether it’s a spiritual practice, cultural beliefs, or a sense of purpose—can help families and children orient their thoughts, feelings, and actions. Participating in a larger flow can feel supportive and calming. Children, even very young ones, enjoy and benefit from these kinds of feelings and experiences.

* * * * *

Children are neither inherently resilient nor vulnerable. Instead, their well-being arises out of who they are as individuals together with the cascades of experiences they have. Some children may luck into a combination of resources that set them on a good path early on. But even for children who don’t do well initially, studies of the life course show that many can still find happiness later in life from a new opportunity, education, a good relationship, or a fulfilling career.[5]

For now, the world is in a difficult state of uncertainty. We don’t know how long we’ll be sheltering in place, the course of the virus, or what kind of “normal” life we will return to. But the enduring lessons for our children will surely be the emotional ones. These are the lessons they will remember as adults when they inevitably experience upheaval again—only then, it may be without us. So let’s stay focused on, and grateful for, what really matters.

Our Teens Are More Stressed Than Ever: Why, and What Can You Do About It?

May 9, 2019

Every time a new disheartening statistic is released on teen mental health, I cringe. For the past seven years there’s been a downward trend in the state of their emotional well-being, and I’m waiting—hoping—for an upswing.

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American Psychological Association (2018)

The American Psychological Association (APA) periodically surveys for stress in the American public, and since 2013, teens have reported higher levels of stress than adults. In the 2018 APA survey, teens reported worse mental health and higher levels of anxiety and depression than all other age groups.

These finding are consistent with other surveys, and I have yet to see data that counters that trend. A 2019 analysis by Jean Twenge, author of iGen and psychology professor at San Diego State University, showed that between 2005 and 2017, teens and young adults experienced a significant rise in serious psychological distress, major depression, and suicide. And a 2018 American College Health Association survey of more than 26,000 college students found that approximately 40-60% reported significant episodes of anxiety or depression during the year—an increase of about 10% from the same survey conducted in 2013.

Why is there a steady increase in teen distress, when the period of adolescence (as developmental scientists have discovered) is not inherently characterized by “storm and stress?” Adolescence is a period of transformation, not mental illness. So what’s the problem—and what can we do about it?

The popular bogeyman

The most popular focus of blame for teen stress is social media. Is there a connection? On the one hand, it’s certainly obvious that teens (just like the rest of us) spend hours every day staring at screens. And, adolescents are especially sensitive to the social comparisons that result from seeing carefully curated, idealized bodies and lifestyles online. At a panel[i] I recently attended in Berkeley, CA, one eighteen-year-old woman said that she regretted losing so much time in her childhood to wishing that her body looked different. She had come to the conclusion that Instagram and Snapchat “encourage us to live from the outside in, instead of from the inside out.”

In the APA survey on teen stress, one third to one half of teen respondents reported that social media made them feel judged or bad about themselves. In her book iGen, Twenge analyzed large survey data sets and found a correlation between the rise of the smart phone in 2012 and the rise of mental health problems among teens. Her further analyses uncovered similar correlations, explicitly linking more time on new media with more mental health problems for teens in grades 8-12. Conversely, more time spent in in-person interactions (along with sports, homework, religious activity, or print media) correlated with fewer mental health problems.

So, yes, there’s some evidence to support that social media may harm kids. But the situation is complicated. Science and culture zig and zag while scientists test and correct each other’s conclusions, and the correlations between screen use and mental illness have been roundly criticized. One social scientist tweeted that data also shows that “teen pregnancy, drug use, and delinquency all declined significantly with the rise of smartphone and social media use.” In other words, correlation is not causation. It simply means that two things just co-occurred.

A prospective longitudinal study which assesses people over time, sorts out causality better. One such Canadian study surveyed nearly 1,700 teenagers at several points in time up to a six-year period. It showed that social media use did not lead to depression, either in girls or boys. However, the reverse was true: Depression in middle school girls (though not boys) at the beginning of the study predicted greater social media use two years later. In other words, heavy social media use may be a sign for concern, not because it causes distress in the first place, but because it may be a symptom pointing to underlying distress. And middle schoolers may be most at risk.

The longer social media is around, the better youth and families are becoming at managing it. The APA survey on teen stress showed that individual teens use social media in different ways, and it’s worth noting that 55% of teens consider it a source of social support. Parents and teens are also getting better at understanding how social media “hacks” the brain (how the reward algorithms are coded to be maximally addicting). This is especially true in a developing brain, when the reward circuitry and dopamine architecture that “lock in” responses to pleasure are remodeled. As a result, many parents are limiting teen social media use, and numerous guidelines[ii] for wise strategies are now available. Social media “hygiene” is something we should all practice.

Are teens the canaries in the coal mine?

Teens take in more of the outside world than children do. Neurological changes occur in puberty that draw their attention outward, beyond the family, and their cognition allows them to ponder big issues in more abstract and sophisticated ways. Because they take in more and more of the outside world, what teens absorb is increasingly stressful. And high schools reinforce that expanding view with curricula on current social events. Yet teenagers have no prior experience and few strategies for dealing with this new level of exposure.

More than two thirds of adults and teens surveyed by the APA said that the future of the country caused them significant stress and that the U.S. is on the “wrong path.” Teens had additional concerns: 75% of them were stressed about gun violence, mass shootings, and school shootings. This is not surprising given that 288 shootings have occurred in the U.S. since 2009, 57 times the rate of all other developed nations combined. More teens than adults feel stressed by societal issues like rising suicide rates, climate change, immigration separation and deportation issues, and sexual harassment and assault. More teens than adults worry about work, money, and health alongside more age-relevant issues like bullying, peer conflict, gender identity, and sexual orientation.

Stress and adolescence can make for a perfect storm. Until recently, scientists believed that an individual’s baseline for stress reactivity was more or less set in the first two years of life. However, new research suggests that puberty might open that window of sensitivity again for a second chance at recalibrating the stress system—for better or for worse depending on the context: If the environment is supportive in adolescence, this second opportunity might smooth out earlier problems and improve coping in the long run. However, if the context is harsh and stressful without relief or repair, the stress system can remodel for vulnerability and set the stage for later mental and physical health disease systems.

Policymakers should be worried about rising teen stress, not only for the sake of teens’ psychological health (which should be enough cause), but for the health of the country. Teen stress might be an important warning that the nation is off-course. As influential developmental scientist Urie Bronfenbrenner said, “There is no more critical indicator of the future of a society than the character, competence, and integrity of its youth.”[iii] Put more bluntly: If we squander our human capital now, we can’t expect a robust society in the future.

Much of the responsibility for decreasing the stressors listed above is in the hands of policymakers—and ultimately in our hands as voters and citizens. But political and social change take time, and teens and parents are still left to cope. So what might be helpful?

First, remember that every teen is different. Some may find relief, empowerment, and community by actively engaging in planning and organizing around social, political, and environmental issues. Other teens may need to modulate or decrease their exposure to stressful news for self-protection.

Photo by Andrew Lichtenstein:Corbis via Getty Images

Teens benefit from, and want, relationships in which their understanding of the world and their place in it can be co-constructed in a healthy way. A mentoring relationship or facilitated group can help teens process their growing awareness with like-minded people while balancing it with a focus on healthy development. In such a setting, the skills for mastery and sense of control can gradually emerge at a developmentally appropriate pace that teens can manage.

Parents might be mindful of buffering their own stress from their teens. True, the parental brain has evolved to scan the environment for threats. But if parents pass on their stress, children can become overly stress-reactive, vigilant, and stress-sensitive. On the other hand, passing on constructive coping strategies is helpful.
Building emotional intelligence skills is always important, too. Every teen will benefit from a) the ability to be aware of their feelings and b) having strategies for regulation. As one woman on the Berkeley teen panel said about meditation, “It’s real. You should try it.”
And finally, a warm family climate and what I like to call a “competing joy” is always a good antidote to stress.

Resurrecting an old theory: Healthy identity development

A third possibility is that society has forgotten about an important developmental task of adolescence.

In the 1960s, while the Baby Boomer generation was famously transforming society, the lifespan psychoanalyst Erik Erikson wrote his groundbreaking work, Identity, Youth, and Crisis, about identity in adolescence.[iv]

Identity is how you walk in the world. It’s a sense of knowing who you are, what you believe, where you fit, and where you’re going. It includes being at home in your body, having personal agency, and feeling a sameness through time, all of which contribute to a general sense of well-being. According to Erikson, and the major developmental scientists who followed, finding a healthy identity is the central task of adolescence.

It takes time. Young children identify with their parents: they imitate them and believe that they’ll grow up to be like them. But with the onset of puberty, neurological and social forces propel teens to differentiate from their parents. (Differentiation is not a rejection of parents, but a reconfiguration of the relationship in order to accommodate a teen’s growing autonomy and independence of thought and action. It’s a necessary process that teens need to go through to become functioning, autonomous adults.)

But teens struggle with their identity and with the core question that adolescence invites them to answer: If I’m not my parent, who am I?

There are multiple paths by which teens find their identities. Whichever they take, Erikson believed that the establishment of a coherent sense of identity requires a period of moratorium—a timeout during which a teen is clearly not a child but the adult path has not been determined. It’s a time to discover and experiment with different roles, paths, ideas, and activities. When a teen quickly changes points of view, jobs, friend groups, pop culture preferences, hair color, and more, this process is likely at work.

The psychologist Jeffrey Arnett, who named the later period of emerging adulthood, said that the central themes to be settled in establishing a healthy identity are worldview, work, and love. The psychologist James Coté believes that identity rests on two things: first, the feeling of having matured into adulthood, and second, finding a permanent niche in community and lifestyle. But exploration can occur across many domains, including politics, religion, societal issues, relationships, recreation, appearance, competence, occupation, morality, ethnicity, sexuality, and intimacy. The process can last a decade or more—usually only one or two areas can be tackled at a time—but it culminates in commitments to those dimensions, a greater sense of purpose, a coherent system of values, and long-term plans. Identity formation—or coming of age—is a central theme of many classic and best-selling novels including The Catcher in the Rye, The Fault in Our Stars, The House on Mango Street, and Jane Eyre.

An authentic identity exploration is hard, intellectually and emotionally taxing. Uncertainty can be uncomfortable, and progress is not linear or orderly. There are anxious periods of not knowing where to fit. Dead ends are common. And progress feels unstable, sometimes sliding back after taking a step forward. It can be difficult for parents to stay supportive as their teens bang around in the mess of options. But identity exploration is most successful when it’s encouraged and accepted by an adult, where the teen feels seen, where their feelings and perceptions can be accurately mirrored back to them, and where they can borrow the confidence, optimism, insight—and sometimes limits—from a loving adult.

According to Erikson, teens should grow into an adult identity, not be forced into one prematurely. But not everyone has that privilege. Some teens are restricted by life circumstances, a lack of options, and/or economic necessity. Others are restricted by self-imposed constraints, or limits others place on them. Erikson said these forced choices do not necessarily lead to a failure of identity: young adults can still organize meaning and purpose out of the circumstance, while still exploring other areas. But he did believe that the lost potential was “regrettable.” Without an authentic search, a teen might not get the chance to discover their true capabilities.

When teens don’t get a chance to explore the central questions of their lives, there can be several problematic outcomes:

A foreclosed identity results from a premature commitment to a path without sufficient exploration or experimentation. This could be the child whose “tiger” mother decided for her in fourth grade that she would be a dancer; the son whose parents forced myriad activities on him in order to build a college resume; or, conversely the child who grew up without any mentor, guide, or exposure to opportunities.

For youth who lack a wide range of opportunities, middle and high schools can offer much-needed exploration and experimentation. In her book, When Grit Isn’t Enough, Linda Nathan argues that career exploration and support should be systematically incorporated into educational curricula from middle school through graduation and across the transition to college.

In their book, Talented Teenagers: The Roots of Success and Failure, authors Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Kevin Rathunde, and Samuel Whalen identify the qualities that sustain the development of talent across teen years. Along with a modicum of talent and wholistic support, free time was an important variable. Teens who were distracted with too many life hassles, family conflicts, excessive out-of-school employment, or over-scheduling, did not have the unencumbered time and space that was necessary to just “mess around” in the subject area, to dream, practice, and experiment. Exploring what you’re good at and what you enjoy takes sheer time.

Today, in the drive to raise their selectivity ratings and drive a vast lucrative network of feeder businesses, the college industrial complex colludes to torque teens’ developmental trajectory. Teens (and their parents) often sense a pressure to be a certain kind of idealized applicant, and they’re tempted to shape their high school experiences to fit someone else’s idea of who they ought to be in order to be accepted into college.

Psychologist Robert Sternberg is a forceful critic of college admissions practices. He argues that college acceptance criteria are not correlated with either college achievement or life success. Instead, the types of competencies that predict actual success are: 1) creativity and the ability to see things differently or defy a current trend; 2) wisdom and the application of knowledge and skills for the common good; and 3) practical intelligence and the ability to cope with a situation that’s not explicitly taught, along with more conventional and domain-specific kinds of intelligences.

A diffused identity is one that is never quite settled, in which exploration and experimentation never seem to end. The identity feels incoherent and disjointed, and the individual seems confused about, or just unaware of, who they really are. They’re often more neurotic, have difficulty making decisions, and suffer extreme self-consciousness.
A negative identity is an undesirable one, chosen in opposition to, or defiance of, surrounding pressure. This might be the “bad boy/girl,” the extremist, and the anything-my-father-isn’t person. Erikson observed that a negative identity often arises from a lack of recognition or acceptance from the important person in the teen’s life. In those cases, being somebody “bad” feels better than being nobody at all.

Based on J. Marcia (1980). Identity in adolescence. In J. Adelson (Ed.), Handbook of adolescent psychology. New York: Wiley. — Based on J. Marcia (1980). Identity in adolescence. In J. Adelson (Ed.), *Handbook of adolescent psychology.* New York: Wiley.

What else is protective against stress?

Some stress is good.

Some parents might overcorrect and try to protect their children from any stress at all. Scientists worry about this kind of experience, too! Parents who “snowplow” or “lawn-mow” away their children’s obstacles do them no favors, in fact, they may be undermining their children’s development. Stress in the right amount promotes neural growth, enhances task performance, and can be a motivation to stretch, reach, and strive.

When young people have a chance to master a new challenge, it can contribute to their resilience, i.e., their ability to withstand and recover from future stresses. Their challenges should be reasonably within their developmental competence; not overwhelming; and “scaffolded” if necessary, where they’re coached through the components. After the challenge has passed, rest and repair also help.

Mind the basics—sleep, exercise, nutrition.

Teens need more sleep than adults, and they need it later on the clock. A recent survey found that teens are shortchanged by an average of two hours of sleep per night, which adds up to a devastating deficit. Sleep is critical to all areas of functioning. It’s necessary for cognition and consolidating memories, especially in the adolescent period of rapid brain growth. When schools adopt later start times to accommodate teens’ unique sleep needs, the benefits are vast—better mood regulation; improved academic performance; and fewer incidents of conflicts, aggression, bullying, and accidents. Teens, like everyone, should follow good sleep hygiene, including screen-time management. Healthy nutrition and regular aerobic exercise also help keep an even keel.

An authoritative parenting style is extremely protective.

Authoritative parenting balances warmth and love with clear expectations and the support to meet those expectations. It’s flexible, respectful, and allows a teen’s growing autonomy. Of all parenting styles, authoritative parenting is the most predictive of positive outcomes for children and teens.

Other family qualities that help keep teens on track include a positive climate that creates a background sense of well-being, joyful ways of staying connected, and regular routines and rituals. In other words, a thriving family life is nourishing, provides a buffer, and supports resilience. Parents’ own development matters, too; how parents manage their own stress is extremely influential for teens. The template of family life gets imprinted on a teen and stays with them for a very long time.

Photo credits: D. Divecha, Unknown, D. Divecha, S. Burkhart, M. Divecha, R. Archibald

Keep growing the skills of emotional intelligence.

In the APA study of stress, three-quarters of the teens surveyed said they wanted more emotional support. One powerful strategy is to teach them to recognize feelings when they’re happening and help generate constructive strategies (not avoidance and distraction) to regulate them. The more families can name and normalize emotions and emotional competence, the more successfully teens develop.

Save time for friends and relationships.

Good relationships are essential to mental health and well-being. The presence of a caring person can buffer the cortisol response. In the presence of a friend, challenges feel easier to navigate. Unfortunately, teen boys are at risk for giving up their good friends, which can lead to sadness and grief, in addition to an absence of support.

Whatever the cause of adolescent stress, it falls to parents, educators, and mentors to help teens move through it. Developmental science, practical sense, and even traditional wisdom can all help.

When my own daughter (whose father is Indian-American) became a teenager, we marked the new road ahead with a Hindu coming-of-age ceremony. Sitting in the circle of our community and facing my daughter, the pundit reminded her of two things: first, to stay connected to her family, and second, to develop her powers of discernment.

Discernment, the pundit said, is the ability to parse what is true and right from what is not, and it’s one of the most important intellectual qualities. It requires recognizing the difference between what matters to you and what is coming toward you from the world. From that space, wisdom springs.

I’ve enjoyed watching my daughter develop discernment—and use it—as she has formed her identity, choosing a partner, a career, and a new city to live and thrive in. As other parents of grown children can attest, when our teenagers explore their way into the world and land comfortably in a solid identity, it’s a joy for everyone. Nowadays, though, they may just need some extra care doing that.

[i] Teen Wisdom Panel, April 26, 2019, David Brower Center, Berkeley, CA.

[ii] Common Sense Media; Cyberbullying Research Center

[iii] Bronfenbrenner, U. (1996). The State of Americans: This Generation and the Next. New York, NY: Simon and Schuster, p. 1.

Teenagers Might Have a Problem With Respect But It's Not the One You Think

November 30, 2017

If you have a teenager, you're probably familiar with the feeling of being disrespected: Your teen rolls their eyes, sighs deeply, no longer laughs at your jokes, goes straight to their room and closes the door, or seems to argue with you all the time. You feel triggered: Your once-compliant child is becoming a stranger. Or your parental authority is threatened.

You may sense that some of this disrespect is related to growing up, to your teen's desire to run their own life, make their own decisions. But they're not yet an adult, and the issues you need to weigh in on accumulate: When can they go out without supervision? What media can they use, and for how long? When can they have co-ed sleepovers, go to parties, or date? Are they doing their homework, getting enough sleep, spending time with family?

Some adults (not only parents but teachers, coaches, advisors, and more) react by taking a top-down approach, laying down their word as law: "Do it because I said so." Others take the opposite tack and abdicate their authority, letting the teens do what they want. Some adults try to micromanage teens, taking over where teens could be responsible for themselves. And others--especially those with a higher level of education--try to inform and persuade, didactically offering all the reasons why a teen should or should not do something.

But research is revealing an important truth: Respect is a two-way street, and it becomes especially important during adolescence. Shifting focus from how much respect you feel you're getting, to whether or not you're showing them respect, is critical. Leveraging respect for teens is key to helping them stay engaged, in relationship, and in collaboration.

So what does that look like?

Respect for autonomy is key.

Self-determination theory asserts that people are more motivated when their underlying needs are taken into account. One of the most important human needs is autonomy, and autonomy is never more important than during the teenage years.

When you have autonomy, you have the freedom to act out of your own volition, to "own" an action yourself. Teens are more likely to feel autonomous when they feel successful managing a part of their lives, when they're allowed freedom of choice and action, when they're given responsibility, and/or when they see that their actions are meaningful and that they matter. Feeling autonomous contributes to feeling respected, and it helps teens know that they're on the road to adulthood.

A number of changes conspire during adolescence to make autonomy more important than at any other time. The hormonal changes that come with puberty act on the brain to bias teens' motivation in certain ways, perhaps in preparation for adulthood. One of those changes is in testosterone; its rise in both boys and girls in adolescence is correlated with respect-seeking. (Conventional wisdom links testosterone with aggression, but researchers find that it's more accurately predictive of respect-seeking. It's just that what counts for respect depends on the context. In deviant peer circles, testosterone is associated with aggression, but if teens are in a healthy peer group, the drive for respect is channeled more constructively, like taking leadership.)

If you take a long view of adolescence, this sharp turn toward needing respect makes sense: As adults, we all need to solicit respect or status among our peers in order to make things happen and function effectively in a group. But to a parent, the sudden change can feel jarring, and parents are often unprepared.

Autonomy threat: Why teens shut down (and how to avoid it).

It turns out, teens are super-sensitive to how adults react to their growing autonomy. When teens feel over-controlled or coerced, or even when adults do too much for them, it can trigger "autonomy threat," which shuts down teens' willingness to collaborate or engage. Threats to teens' autonomy may make them feel less able, less trustworthy, and more childlike than adult-like. Autonomy threats also send negative messages about teens' competence.

Researchers have noticed that quite a few strategies that work for children don't work for teens, especially beginning at around the eighth grade. A major reason for that may be autonomy threat.

For example:

A meta-analysis (analysis of multiple studies) of bullying prevention programs showed that program effectiveness drops to nearly zero for eighth graders and above. Many social and emotional learning programs that work for younger children are less effective with high school students.
A recent randomized control trial (the gold standard of research) of a mindfulness intervention showed that it had no benefits for high school students, even though the course was taught by an expert in mindfulness.
Other meta-analyses show that numerous public health campaigns aimed at preventing obesity, depression, and juvenile justice recidivism become less effective in the eighth grade and above.

In fact, scientists are now starting to think that so-called "teenage rebellion" is not an inevitable part of adolescence but rather a reaction to autonomy threat. For example, studies show that teens are willing to comply with parents when they think the rules are fair (like moral choices or ones involving safety), but they resist when the rules seem personal (e.g., what clothes to wear) or unjust. In other words, they don't rebel across the board, just when they think something is out of bounds--a distinction we surely want them to be able to make as adults.

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One clever study showed how criticism can literally shut teens down. Researchers scanned teenagers' brains while they listened to recordings of their mothers making different types of statements, including both loaded statements (criticisms) and neutral statements about the weather. When the mothers criticized the teens, saying things like, "One thing that really bothers me about you is [blank]," regions of the teens' brains that process emotions (specifically social and physical pain) became more active. Simultaneously, areas of the brain associated with emotion regulation and social cognition became less active. Scientists interpret this to mean that not only do teens react with negative feelings to their mother's criticism but that their ability to regulate those feelings also deteriorates and they become less able to take the parent's perspective into account.

So how do we talk with teens about difficult subjects without activating their autonomy threat?

One recent study demonstrated that avoiding autonomy threat, along with appealing to teens growing sense of social justice, could inspire them to make healthy food choices--something traditional public health campaigns have been unsuccessful at. Researchers Christopher Bryan at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and David Yeager at the University of Texas at Austin, along with other colleagues, randomly assigned over 500 eighth graders to one of three learning conditions:

The first group learned about the importance of healthy eating through traditional, information-based health education lessons.
The second group read an article about how food companies unfairly influence people's food choices in a number of ways, e.g., by engineering foods to be addictive, manipulatively targeting young people, mislabeling unhealthy foods as healthy and natural, and so on.
The third group was a non-food-related control group.

The following day, when students had the opportunity to select their own snacks for an ostensibly unrelated event, the group that had read about corporate manipulation chose healthier snacks than either of the other two groups. A reasonable conclusion is that in the case of the first group, teens' autonomy threat was triggered by the didactic style of teaching information. But in the second group, their desires both for autonomy and for social justice were appealed to--teens don't want to be controlled by anyone, including corporations, and they have a strong sense of fairness and justice.

Interventions are more effective, science suggests, when they work in concert with teens' strong values. Indeed, studies show that teens collaborate more under certain conditions: where they feel their intelligence is valued, where their potential fro growth is taken into account, when they are allowed to make choices and discoveries, when they feel safe.

Another piece of the puzzle: secure attachment.

Teens who have a secure attachment with their parents or primary caregivers also collaborate and engage more with adults and make healthier decisions. Scientists define a secure attachment in adolescence much the same as in earlier childhood--where parents are a "secure base" for children to explore the world and master their environment. And a secure attachment in adolescence continues to confer benefits like better mental health, better social skills, fewer risky behaviors, and better coping in teens.

But attachment looks different in adolescence that it does in childhood, especially in the dimension of autonomy. Teens don't need to be as physically close to their parents, but they do still need the psychological closeness and assurances of support and protection when needed. They spend more time with their peers, away from parents, than younger children do. And they have more conflicts with their parents--though conflict itself is not a sign of a problem. Rather, some conflict is a healthy byproduct of negotiating their growing autonomy. However, how the conflict is handled matters very much: Teens do better when they are allowed to express their opinions freely (respectfully, still validating and showing empathy for the other person's point of view), without being made to feel that their relationship with their parent is threatened.

Kristine Marbell-Pierre researched "autonomy-supportive parenting" as a graduate student at Clark University, and she is now the Head of Guidance and Counseling at The Ghana International School in Ghana. Autonomy-supportive parenting is part of a secure attachment and is an approach where parents motivate teens to be collaborative.

"You help them get behind your actions so they want to do what they're doing," she says. "They're cleaning their rooms because they want to do it, or they're studying really hard because they want to do it." How does that happen? "Through a conversation," she explains. "You let them give you their opinion, you give your perspective, and you negotiate and give them some choice."

For example, the parents of a friend of mine were getting a divorce and they felt it was important for their son to go to therapy. He wasn't sure he wanted to go, though, and his parents listened to his opinion. Then they explained why they thought therapy might be helpful...and they let him reject as many therapists as he wanted to until he found one he liked. Both parties had some control in the situation, and to this day, their son talks about therapy as one of the most important contributors to his mental health.

But what about when making a choice isn't appropriate or isn't allowed? Marbell-Pierre wondered if allowing teens choices would fly in her home country of Ghana, where families are hierarchical and where obedience to, and respect for, elders is paramount. "How can a teen feel like they're behind their own actions without undermining our value of respect for elders?" she asked.

So she surveyed both American and Ghanaian six graders about how they and their parents handled decisions together. What she discovered is that there are two separate parts to autonomy support: The first involves taking the teens' perspective, empathizing, and allowing an open exchange of conversation. The second part is the allowance of choice, or the teens' own decision-making.

Among the Ghanaian teens, obedience and lack of choice did not create negative feelings, she explained, because the teens identified more as part of the collective family. For American teens, though, having a choice was important, and negative feelings resulted when they couldn't have a hand in the decision-making. However, teens in both cultures did better and felt better when they were free to express their views, their feelings, and even their criticisms--and when they received empathy and an understanding of their different perspective from their parents.

"Human beings across cultures need to feel heard and understood," says Marbell-Pierre.

Research confirms that all kinds of positive outcomes result from autonomy-supportive parenting: Teens learn better and do better in school, they are more engaged, and they persist harder if the face of difficulty. They also have better moods, are more collaborative with adults, and they rebel less.

"They are happier, more self-motivated, and more confident," says Marbell-Pierre.

Teenagers are one of the most negatively stereotyped groups in America, writes Laurence Steinberg, a prominent developmental psychologist.(1) And yet, as a society, we need--and we should value--teens' developmental gifts.(2) Their creativity, their energy, and their idealism are what remake society and carry us forward into the future with new ideas and solutions. Validating, protecting, and guiding their growing autonomy is important to their wellbeing and to keeping those gifts intact.

* * * * *

Helpful tips for supporting teens’ growing autonomy:

Strive for an authoritative parenting style, which includes a secure attachment. It also helps to encourage the ongoing development of a child’s autonomy from an early age.

Practice deep listening or reflective listening to the teen’s side of things. It might help to:

Turn off your own internal alarm system: Take a meta-moment to calm your own reaction in order to make space to listen.
Reframe the teen’s desire for autonomy as a sign of their growing maturity rather than a threat to your authority.
Notice what gets in the way of your ability to be present and listen, such as stress, worry about your teen’s future, daily hassles, over-investing your own self-esteem in your teen’s success, or an addiction to control. (These suggestions come from this website on autonomy-supportive parenting.
Learn reflective listening techniques. For help, see the classic book How to Talk So Teens Will Listen and Listen So Teens Will Talk, by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish.

Be wary of pop literature that offers simple solutions, such as this article that points to letting teens fail as the way to promote autonomy. Granted, low-risk failure is appropriate at times, but be aware that the development of healthy autonomy results from more complex processes.

Scaffold choices and decision-making in age-appropriate ways. Teens, especially younger ones, can have strong emotional responses without the skills to regulate them. That, along with their desire for status among their peers and fallibilities in logical reasoning, can sometimes put them at greater risk. One helpful strategy is to require increased responsibility concomitant with increasing freedoms. For example, allowing the tongue piercing but making the teen responsible for health, safety, and costs. Or allow your teen to stay at a friends’ house but requiring a phone call when they’re starting back home.

Hone your back-and-forth negotiation skills. Here’s a template for that kind of conversation in families. Be clear on what’s non-negotiable for you (e.g., safety), versus what you’re willing to compromise on (e.g., appearance).

Other resources: Developmental psychologist Mike Riera offers the framework of transitioning from being a child’s “manager” to becoming more of a “consultant” during your child’s adolescence. He has several books, including Staying Connected to Your Teenager and Uncommon Sense for Parents with Teenagers. And developmental psychologist Laura Kastner, along with Jennifer Wyatt, write about how to handle conflicts that arise with teens in the book Getting to Calm.

* * * * *

Footnotes:

(1) Laurence Steinberg (2014). Adolescence, 10th Ed., NY, NY: McGraw-Hill, p. 18

(2) Daniel Siegel (2013). Brainstorm: The Power and Purpose of the Teenage Brain. NY, NY: Penguin Group.

What Does a Developmental Psychologist See in a 40th Class Reunion?

July 23, 2016

When I told people I was going to my 40th high school reunion, I might as well have said I was jumping off a cliff. Almost across the board, the reaction was shock, though the reasons varied. Granted, I hadn’t been in touch with my classmates, so some degree of surprise was legitimate. But my friends and family also projected their own reasons: high school had been the “worst time of their lives”; that they had never “fit in”; they didn’t want to open their present lives to judgment. But I’m a developmental psychologist, and I wanted to understand what a reunion ritual might mean. Nothing is more interesting to me than discovering how children grow up and their lives turn out.

As the date approached, I finally became apprehensive myself. Most of us had been together since kindergarten, but what if I didn’t recognize people after forty years? After all, I now have silver hair and 40 additional pounds; others would also have changed. Or what if we didn’t have anything to talk about? How would I react to an old “flame,” or he to me? Could I finally uncover the story behind a friend who had so traumatically “dropped” me in sixth grade? When nervous jokes started showing up on the Facebook reunion page, I saw that I wasn’t the only one with anxiety. I recruited a childhood friend to go with me.

“I’m only doing this for you, you know,” Vic joked when she greeted me at my hotel. Our mothers went to high school together and been friends long before we were born. Vic remembers the fuzzy socks I wore in second grade and how my father had carried me into school in his arms when my broken leg was in a cast. I remember making vinegar and baking soda volcanoes at Vic’s house and singing soprano next to her in choir.

We arrived at the Curling Club (home to the winter sport of sliding granite stones on ice) to a frenzy of slightly boozed-up greetings. About a third of my class of 140 was there. A current of excitement crackled through the crowd—hails from across the lawn; flying wisecracks and boisterous teasing; and enthusiastic, if somewhat self-conscious, hugging. It was a relief to find my old friend Dave, who was just as unruffled as I’d remembered him—a straight shooter, unperturbed by his surroundings. He had worked for a time for my father, a milkman; his mother had been my beloved third grade teacher. I was happy to meet Dave’s wife, and a meaningful conversation ensued about parents, illness, children, and more.

Sociologist Vered Vinitzky-Seroussi has observed that high school reunions can trigger a sudden threat to one’s identity. In the space of a short gathering, we are called upon to reconcile past expectations with our present reality, among people who shared that past. At my reunion, the actual list of predictions that our peers had made about each other 40 years ago hid amidst the memorabilia. “Diana will run a computer dating service,” it read, and the old memory of craving connection amidst my chaotic environment flashed. Other predictions were equally unpredictive: that a high school romance would end in marriage (it didn’t) or that a career would peak in a grocery store stockroom (it didn’t); and predictions for women centered on marriage and children. Predictions can be entertaining, but since these weren’t about activating our best future selves, I regretted their presence. Reunions are not just happy gatherings, Vinitzky-Seroussi writes. They “telescope the life course” and create pressure to evaluate, or protect, or project our choices, often in the space of a very short, catch-up conversation.

But this was not our tenth or even twenty-fifth reunion, the early ones that Vinitzky-Seroussi studied. This was our fortieth, a time when life achievements are behind for most of us and some are even looking toward retirement. Fortunately, I felt well-anchored in the present, and I think others did, too.

The conventional wisdom about reunions is that people can surprise you, and I found that to be true. Who would have known that the quiet boy in the back of the band would be a pillar of the community as the trusted funeral director? Or that the guy who seemed lost in high school would be so crisp and successful at 58? Psychologists use the terms “equifinality” and “multifinality” to describe how very different paths can lead to similar outcomes, or, conversely, how similar paths can lead to very different outcomes. At the same time, our perceptions of what’s important changes, too: The kids who once dominated in popularity might now appear boring and superficial, and the former “outsiders” often turn out to be the really interesting ones. And yet when I asked Vic if she recognized everyone, she replied, “Not so much from their faces, but their energy—it’s the same.”

Even though we all shared a large part of our pasts, we couldn’t have truly known each others’ lives while we were children. A few kids had seemed to sail through with equanimity—they ran the student council at school and collected maple syrup at home–but even then, there were hints of malaise. I knew that it wasn’t right that the gentle, deer-like boy who sat in front of me in seventh grade homeroom smelled like alcohol and cigarettes. Another child was rumored to have been abused, though there was no action taken to protect her. I was a high achiever but suffered with parents who were in constant conflict; they struggled with mental health and substance use issues. Many parents were alcoholics before the disease was even named.

Psychologists now know that adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are predictive of later physical and mental health problems, including heart disease, depression, and suicidality. Research suggests that about a third of kids are lucky enough to escape trauma, but about a quarter suffer such high doses that it affects brain development, immune and endocrine functioning, and can create mental and physical disease systems that reduce the lifespan by an average of 20 years. How different might many students’ lives have been if an adult had recognized their feelings and had the skill to approach them and say, “You look down. What’s going on, and can I help?” Today, innovative schools throughout the country are feathering emotional skill development into their academic curricula, and studies show that both individual kids, and the school as a whole do better. Pediatricians, too, are beginning to screen for ACEs and offer early intervention services to families and children at risk.

Childhood is not easy, even at the best of times, and middle school is an especially stressful period. Conventional wisdom used to hold that it was the changing sex hormones that made kids “crazy,” but scientists now understand that puberty kicks off changes in the brain that make youth more emotionally sensitive, more sensitive to their social world, more willing to take risks, and more vulnerable to mental illness and addictions. Combine all of that with changes in schools, new peer groups, or family troubles, and you quickly get a pile-up of stressors that can be overwhelming.

Jockeying for status in peer groups begins as early as the fifth grade, and, in my day, peer dynamics were raw and lacking any guidance. Consistent with the research, it was the male athletes and the conventionally pretty girls (especially cheerleaders) who were conferred high status, and kids who were “different” were often marginalized—through teasing, exclusion, and gossip. Girls who physically matured earlier than average, or boys who matured later than average, were at greater risk, just as they are today. Too tall, too skinny, too heavy, too awkward, too shy, too country, too slow…the “faults” can be endless.

Kids naturally form and re-form friendships, but without real social skills, the process can be excruciating. In sixth grade, I was shattered when my best friend of six years decided one day to simply stop talking to me. While it’s natural for a child to feel ready to find new friends, this particular friend had had no skills with which to explain her needs. Her silent treatment left a mark, and I used it both as a cautionary tale for my own children and an illustration in the college courses I taught on teen development. Research now shows that humans are such intensely social creatures that social ostracism lights up physical pain pathways in the brain; it can be more damaging than even physical abuse. Sometimes, I imagine how our friendship “breakup” could have gone differently, had we had the social skills kids can learn in school nowadays to navigate peer conflict. Though my well-being is no longer affected by that experience, I was curious to know my former friend’s side of the story. Yet when we greeted each other at the reunion, we didn’t get much beyond a hello. I took that to mean that it was not likely to be the place—or perhaps the person—where such a conversation could happen.

“Humans are storytelling, story-loving creatures,” says psychologist Matthew Lieberman, author of Social Brain, Social Mind. One of the most powerful ways we understand the experience of being human is by constructing a narrative of our lives. Young children begin this process as soon as they learn the word “I,” and parents begin telling them stories about when they were little. And at the other end of lifespan, elders engage in a “life review,” telling and retelling their stories to help them make sense of their lives.

Reunions—where our past selves meet our present selves—can be a special opportunity to re-weave our stories. I observed it happening all evening. One woman who had seemed defiant and tough in junior high apologized to the PE teacher, telling her that she hadn’t meant to be the teacher’s “nemesis” but in fact was a military kid who got moved around a lot.

“I never knew that,” the teacher breathed, empathically.

A man who had been a geek before geeks were cool enthusiastically shared that he was an inventor, held patents, had designed a part of the space shuttle and a medical device, and had made millions doing so.

A friend divulged her confusion about some same-sex experimentation that had gone on at a childhood sleepover. Of course there had been no framework for normalizing that, or even language to name it.

I, too, had a story to revise. When a popular biology teacher’s name came up, I shared that six years after we’d graduated, he had prevented my Lutheran church from marrying me and my husband, because my husband is from India. “He’s not a good guy,” I grumbled about the teacher.

The life stories flowed, from what it’s like for a Minnesotan to be transplanted to the Deep South, to taking care of grandchildren, to being the youngest in a senior citizen woodworking shop, to losing a child. There was a lot of loss and growth to process, as well as joy to celebrate.

One evening is not enough time together to truly span 40 years; it’s just a sliver of reality. But I happily put new numbers and email addresses into my phone. I want to keep up with some old friends, and I discovered new ones that I’d missed earlier.

And that old flame?

“I learned from you,” he told me. “Your family had high expectations, and I craved some of that.”

“You sheltered me at a stormy time,” I replied, remembering his laughter and easy-going manner.

Class reunion? For me, at least, it wasn’t so scary. What we went through together mattered, and bearing witness to one another’s stories—from our shared past and the years that had followed— felt like a good way to honor that.

Ten Reasons Teens Need an Emotion Revolution: My Speech to Lady Gaga's Foundation and the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence

October 30, 2015

Developmental scientists are alarmed about American teens' well-being. Our teens are doing much more poorly, in many spheres, than teens in other countries, and indicators of mental illness have been rising among American teens in recent decades.

On October 24th, I joined 400 high school student students, educators, policymakers, funders, and parents at the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence. We were there for an all-day summit to launch the Emotion Revolution--a movement to improve the emotional climate for teens at school.

Last spring, the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence teamed up with Lady Gaga's Born This Way Foundation to conduct a survey of 22,000 diverse teens. The survey asked the teens how they were feeling in school and how they wanted to feel. In the first morning session of the Emotion Revolution Summit, the results were revealed:

Students surveyed reported that they are not feeling well at school. 80% of the top ten feelings were negative: tired, stressed, and bored, followed by anxious, annoyed, sad, alone, and depressed. (The remaining 20% was accounted for by "happy" and "good" or neutral.)
Students said they would rather feel happy, excited, and energized, along with safe, comfortable, valued, respected, connected, supported, balanced, and contented.

In response the Center, along with the BTW Foundation and Facebook, created a website called InspirED. There, teachers and students can find classroom activities of every size designed to foster exactly the feelings that students said they want to have.

But it's going to take more than a resource center. Like any great change, helping teens feel good at school is going to take attitude shifts, policy changes, funding, and more.

I gave a talk at the Summit which laid out ten reasons, based on adolescent development, for why a revolution is necessary to bring a greater and more sophisticated investment in teens themselves, and in the environments they move in.

My 15-minute talk is here:

If you don't have time to watch, here are my points in a nutshell:

Compared to teens in other developed countries, American teens are struggling in most spheres that matter.
Developmental scientists, who study child and adolescent development, are calling the teen years the new Zero-To-Three. Zero-To-Three was an effort to pour money, policies, and programs into the first few years of children's lives, founded when the science revealed that what happens in a child's environment affects critical brain development. Well, now we're understanding that the brain changes that happen in the teen years are just as critical--and they need just as intense a focus. Never again in a person's life will there be such a window of opportunity.
Beginning in puberty, the brain undergoes tremendous "pruning" of neuronal connections. The neurons that are necessary, and are still used, remain. The unnecessary ones get pruned, or cut out. ("Use it or lose it.") This means that teens' environments are important--what they are paying attention to becomes entrenched in the brain.
A number of changes happen in the brain to make teens more emotional. They need strategies to deal with this intense emotionality.
Due to imbalances in the development of brain systems, teens are "all gas and no brakes," which makes them take uncalculated risks, for better and worse.
Teens are more sensitive to other people than are younger children or adults, and could benefit from more skills for handling their greater depth of feeling.
Teens want to become independent, but they also want to stay connected to their parents--and have been telling researchers so for decades.
This current generation of teens has strong values. They are less materialistic than earlier cohorts of teens, they care more about others, they are concerned for the environment, and they have progressive attitudes.
Most human rights documents concerning youth give them the explicit right to have a say in the matters that affect them.
Teens have led revolutions before.

If we give teens the skills they need and the respect they crave, who knows what force for good we could unleash?

What Does a Developmental Psychologist See in Burning Man?

September 15, 2015

When I sent my 86-year old father my photos from Burning Man, he replied that he didn't understand: Wasn't it for "hippie kids"? What was I doing there, and what did the experience do for me?

The Burn is famously different for each participant. Some Burners go to strut and party, some to share their art, a few to network and get ahead. Approaching our 60s, my husband and I get the most pleasure from camping there with our 20-something kids who extended an open invitation for the second time. But I also go to stay fresh, keep up on emerging ideas, and to prevent the fixed mindset I fear might creep in with age.

Like everyone, I bring my own kaleidoscopic lens to the playa. In my everyday life as a developmental psychologist, I experience much of my social world through a chronological telescope: When I look at children, I see the adults they may become; when I meet adults, I see the children they likely were. I’m keenly aware that we are all developing, all the time.

And I recognize that we are not nailed uniformly to a single rung on some developmental ladder. While some parts of us are reasonably established in adulthood, some parts of us remain deep in childhood. Psychologists call this normal developmental unevenness décalage, a French word that translates to “lag” or “gap.” Many people are not stuck but move flexibly and adaptively—like various spiritual teachers I’ve encountered, whose equanimity is spacious and evolved, yet who can erupt with the laughter and delight of young children.

At home, preparing for Burning Man, I gave myself permission to go the craft table and the dress-up corner to immerse myself in the elixir of creativity and make-believe. I emerged wearing a homemade caftan, wooden necklaces, and a medieval horned headpiece, along with a second headpiece of papier-mâché branches sprouting from a drywall skullcap anchored inside a turban. By the time I hopped on my bike at the edge of the playa, I could see my 10-year-old self in the mirror.

In my adult life, I advocate for improving childhood through my research, speaking, and writing. And there's much to do. In the first twenty years of life, we find out how the world works and we wrangle a place in it. For some, the process is kind, and for others it is bumpy yet manageable. For a surprising number, though, it is a tortured and traumatic path and they are deposited at the door of adulthood with handicaps and scar tissue. In a famous study of over 17,000 adults, about a third said their childhoods were free of “adverse childhood experiences” (one of ten serious conditions that can derail a child’s life), but about a quarter reported three or more types of traumas— a number that science now links to emotional and physical problems that persist well into adulthood.

And in a Hansel-and-Gretel world, the places meant to shelter, nurture, and protect children are the ones that do the most damage. Many children are traumatized in their homes, and show up at school unable to concentrate or manage their strong feelings. They are frequently misdiagnosed, drugged, punished or expelled. When adults have emotional problems, they are treated as mental health concerns, but when children have emotional struggles, they are often "behavior problems" to be controlled. Schools, too, can be unsafe: Punishment is a popular but harmful approach to managing children, while cultivating kind, emotionally supportive school cultures is effective but slow to catch on. About a quarter of kids are bullied or harassed at school--an experience that can undermine the rest of their lives. Children do not enjoy the same relationship rights that adults are privileged with; they're made to return, day after day, to the places and people who abuse them.

Burners are a well-educated, modestly financially secure group, but emotional difficulties are equal opportunity. The playa is sometimes described as a kind of playground, but through my eyes it is unlike the one of our childhoods. This one acknowledges some real developmental concerns. Through installations, workshops, and talks, Burning Man offers a chance for some re-dos. Some rewiring.

And it can start with letting go of some of the grief collected on the journey so far. The Temple of Promise, a stunning Gothic cornucopia rising 97 feet above the playa—is a paean to both the normal and the outsized suffering of being human.

Temple of Promise (photos by Diana and Arjun Divecha)

Visitors walk through its increasingly narrowing form, leaving baggage, burdens, pains, fears, and mementos to be burned away at the end of the week. Messages fill and are hung from every available surface, and this year someone left three small suitcases. One woman vented an angry diatribe of suffering at the hands of an abusive stepfather and a complicit mother. Another message was written to parents who had died in a plane accident: “I have not been in a small plane since yours was taken down,” it said. “A friend has offered to fly me over this temple, and I am going to try to overcome my fear. My love is eternal.” On our fourth walk through the temple, my husband quietly released some of the sorrow of losing his mother three months ago.

Reflect (photo by Diana Divecha) — *Reflect* *(photo by Diana Divecha)*

A giant 20-by-40-foot colored tear drop, called Reflect, was captured at the point where it hits water, to represent all the tears shed by those left behind when someone takes his or her own life.

In childhood, adult power hierarchies—based on social status, gender, ethnicity, even height and attractiveness—are replicated inside the school walls, and kids learn early who’s on top and who’s pushed to the exit ramps. Kids often punish each other for being different, and power structures like schools and other institutions use whatever behavioral control possible to keep kids “in line.”

A 50-foot chapel called the Totem of Confessions contained dioramas of surreal and dreamlike black-and-white photos, oddities that might pop up from the subconscious into dreams or fantasies or fears, and that would likely be considered shameful by others. And as a reminder of ever-present judgment, there was a confessional in the interior of the chapel.

Totem of Confessions (photos by Diana Divecha)

Time Out Corner (photo by Diana Divecha) — *Time Out Corner* *(photo by Diana Divecha)*

A Time Out Corner appeared out of nowhere on the playa, recalling the frequent punishment—deserved or not—of our childhood transgressions. Timeouts for children are now understood to be ineffective, even harmful. Brain imaging studies show they light up the same neural pathways as physical pain.

Some days, after writing about bullying and trauma, I marvel that most of us make it to adulthood as well as we do. The striving to connect, to still try, to be able to still wonder, was manifest in the sculpture Love. There, two massive wire adult forms were seated back-to-back, heads down in withdrawal, while the glowing child inside each of them reached out for the other, touching hands.

Love (photo by Diana Divecha) — *Love* *(photo by Diana Divecha)*

Identity Awareness (photo by Diana Divecha) — *Identity Awareness* *(photo by Diana Divecha)*

At Burning Man, there is an invitation to sort out what is personal encumbrance and artifice, from what authentically belongs to us. A giant question mark, barely propped up by a human figure reminded us to question the source of our choices, the source of our identity.

One of the Ten Guiding Principles of Burning Man—radical self-expression—is a direct antidote to the censoring—and censuring—of growing up, making space to question the conventions we take for granted. We took part with our crazy clothes, our go-with-the-flow schedules (some of us got up before dawn when others were just going to bed), and our explorations of new topics (from beekeeping to twerking). We passed the “Dick Parade” where 150 men bicycled through camp, bottomless, while gentle hecklers (a thing) encouraged the liberal use of sunscreen. In its counterpart, women paraded topless in "Critical Tits." Overhead, a man flew a glider, naked. “You’re guaranteed to not be the weirdest kid in the classroom,” the online guide soothes. It would be easy to dismiss the naked experimentation as exhibitionism, but I'm sure some riders may have been struggling with their body image or health concerns; for some it may have been a healing process from being bullied, targeted, or abused; and perhaps others simply wanted to walk through the wall of a conventional boundary. There are as many possible reasons as there were riders.

(Photos by Arjun and Zai Divecha)

But by radical, they mean deep, not crazy: Consent is the cornerstone of a civil community, the Burning Man literature reads. It doesn’t refer to just sexual and physical touch, but anything that “will radically alter the experience of another person.” Prompts to good behavior were everywhere.

Another principle, "radical inclusion," is the antidote to the emotional abuse and social exclusions suffered in childhood. The consistent expectation of kindness is refreshing and softening, and people are just more present. I felt my own guardedness melt just a bit, with hugs, gifts, conversations, and gentle heckles.

Developmental psychologists find that play is the cauldron of intellectual, creative, and social development in childhood, and according to the Burner census, many people come to the playa just for that. The playful mood is their "top priority."

Everything that can be climbed on, is:

(Photos by Arjun Divecha)

You can be a flamethrower, safely:

Serpent Mother (photo by Jordana Joseph); Fire safety rules (photo by Arjun Divecha)

Puns are everywhere:

Burning Man: What Where When (photo by Arjun Divecha); Camp Nevada (photo by Diana Divecha)

And a Disney singalong and Thriller flashmob are open to all comers—not something we normally have an opportunity to attend.

The Bunny March Against Humanity herds humans into a bus and they exit dressed as bunnies. Humans haven’t done such a good job of being in charge, the organizers say. So let’s give the bunnies a chance.

“The only cure for reality,” says the author Gary Lindberg, “is imagination.”

And finally, our sense of wonder was on full throttle much of the time. The location itself is dramatic, and the playa was saturated with one stunning installation after another.

(Photos by Diana, Arjun, and Zai Divecha, and Julie Light)

The burning of The Man at the end of the week might not just represent an anger toward the political and economic establishment but perhaps a rebellion against the colonization of the heart and spirit as well.

This is a struggle we are all wired for. As we watched a group of young yogis strain, falter, and ultimately succeed in positioning themselves atop giant letters, an observer called out encouragement, shouting “This is what it is to LIVE!”

DREAM LIVE BE OK (photo by Arjun Divecha) — *DREAM LIVE BE OK* *(photo by Arjun Divecha)*

My Daughter Took Me to Burning Man

September 27, 2014

Originally published by the Huffington Post on September 10, 2014.

I checked my packing list for the long Labor Day weekend: antler headpiece, hair extensions, hot pants, fur coat, support hose and estrogen cream. My husband and I were going to Burning Man for the first time -- under the tutelage of our 26-year old daughter, Zai, her partner, Phil, and a large group of their friends.

We packed up the car with food and water for five days, drove to the Nevada desert, and, after a three-hour wait at the gate watching the sunset -- some waited 23 hours while the gates closed for rain on the playa -- it was our turn at the entrance. A distant din and twinkling lights beckoned in the otherwise dark void ahead.

"Welcome home," the young attendant smiled as she took our tickets. "First time?" We told her it was. "Birgins! Please get out of the car, roll in the dust, and ring the bell!"

It's easy to make fun of Burning Man from a distance, and many have. It's even easier up close: People stroll naked or half-naked, in Star-Wars-meets-Mad-Max-meets-Indian-guru garb. Sessions are offered on respectful fisting, penis worship, and making your own greeting cards by stamping your genitals with colorful paint on cardstock -- a craft I typically enjoy, though I've never used that particular stamp.

There is no Internet or cell coverage, no plumbing and no power grid. My husband Arjun gravitates to new experiences, and while I'd rather meditate in a lush forest, I was determined to keep an open mind. I respected our daughter and trusted that what she valued here would be revealed to me. After all, her visit the previous year had inspired her decision to leave a secure job and pursue her passion for metal working and furniture design. I wanted to know -- what could be so powerful here?

Mindfulness Practice in Schools? Slow down.

December 13, 2012

Meditation, my teacher used to say, is a vacation that you can give to yourself every time you tune in. For me, it’s a relief from stress and worry, a chance to hear the whispers of my own intuition, and space for my feelings that have not yet formed into words. More and more people are using contemplative practices, including educators who want to prepare their students with “21stcentury skills.” But a review in the June issue of the prestigious journal Child Development Perspectives warns that we should wait before adopting contemplative practices in schools: there just isn’t enough evidence on the benefits of contemplative practices for children to justify its widespread adoption.

There are many forms of contemplative or mindfulness practices—like meditation, yoga, Tai Chi, and the newer Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction—and they vary widely, but all have in common an important way of concentrating attention. Practitioners are guided to focus on the emotions, thoughts or feelings that flow through their awareness, without judging or getting caught up in them. For adults, these practices have been shown to reduce stress and anxiety, alleviate pain and illness, and change areas of the brain that are related to regulating emotions, attention and mental flexibility. Meditation practice is even associated with the lengthening of the DNA telomeres, suggesting that it may slow aging at the cellular level.

The research on contemplative practices with schoolchildren, however, is a different story. According to Penn State researchers Mark Greenburg and Alexis Harris, there hasn’t been enough research on the subject, and what studies have been done lack scientific rigor. The majority of studies suffer from design flaws: small numbers of children, a wide range of practices, different kinds of control groups, and varying periods of practice, which makes it difficult or impossible to compare or draw conclusions. Many measures rely on self-report—where the children themselves describe the effects they experience—which yields questionable data since children often want to please adult questioners. Sometimes reports come from teachers or parents who, themselves, know about—or even participate in—the programs, another potentially biased source of feedback. And no studies look at the long-term effects of mindfulness practice in kids.

This is not to say there isn’t reason to hope that contemplative practices can benefit children.

“The family is the most effective and economical structure for nurturing and sustaining the capacity of human beings to function effectively in all domains of human activity—intellectual, social, emotional, and physiological.”

— Urie Bronfenbrenner

Check out “Real Talk,” an online or in-person group for teen girls to learn how to have honest conversations, meaningful connections, and good fun.

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“Adolescents appear to do best when they grow up in a family atmosphere that permits the development of individuality against a backdrop of close family ties.”

— Laurence Steinberg

I got the chance to interview legendary Bay Area child and family therapist, Sheri Glucoft Wong for a three-hour conversation about what matters most in the small, everyday moments of life with children.

No one understands kids like Sheri, and she

This past weekend we saw images of American teenagers fleeing ordinary high school football games because of gun violence and images of Iranian teenagers protesting their lethal oppression by the state. Here in the U.S., we are experiencing continual

What helps to support teens’ emotional wellbeing? Permission to explore their identity, witnesses in their lives who clearly “see” and support them, and participation in “competing joys” that offset stress, are just a fe

Burning Man is a different experience for everyone. To me, a developmental psychologist, it feels like a mirror on childhood, full of magic and playfulness and spontaneity. But it is better than many childhoods, with its intentional culture of care,

“If we can only make it clear that feelings are mentionable and manageable, we will have done a great service for mental health.”

— Mr. Rogers

Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence

The Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence uses the power of emotions to create a more effective and compassionate society. The Center conducts research and teaches people of all ages how to develop their emotional intelligence. Learn more here.