The eeriness of the silent streets suffocates many and the emptiness makes one reach out to the ghost of something that was once there. The novel coronavirus has transformed millions of lives through quarantine, including teens. Your teenage years may be the most integral part of your life and have the power to change your future greatly. They are the years in which we sob the hardest and laugh the brightest. The years in which we are no longer children, but not yet adults. The years in which some expect too much from us and others expect too little. They are the years full of anticipation and confusion. They are the years that shape who we become. We develop our values, our morals, and our goals. We discover our identities, but what if that development is stumped? Your teen years are the years you may forever cherish, regret, or despise depending on your actions, but what if we can not control the predicaments that come our way? The novel coronavirus has affected all age groups, but a great toll was taken on the adolescent and teens. Humans are meant to interact with each other. We feel, we think, and we act. We are not rigid. Unfortunately, at a time where one is still developing and their hormones are not yet stable, teens were affected by COVID-19 biologically and psychologically. These mental health effects are only heightened depending on the environment at home and many other factors.
School closures have forced teens to isolate themselves within the walls of their homes and away from the interaction with their loved ones outside of their homes. They may be less likely to become sick by COVID-19 due to their stronger immune systems, but their mental health is not protected. 55 million students in kindergarten through 12th grade in the US are affected by these closures and at risk for mental health issues. Even something like stress, fear, and depression in teens has lasting effects on their futures. Even before COVID-19, clinical depression, an extremely long term melancholiness, interfered with the lives of 1 out of 5 teens from the ages of 13 to 18 years (Geiger). These statistics are sure to increase as teens are more likely to lose a loved one and spend more time on social media, as it can become toxic and full of impossible expectations for the “perfect” teenager. Isolated at home, teens may also be living in toxic environments with a lack of support for their mental health. Teenagers of minorities are also more at risk of depression and anxiety during COVID-19 because they are less privileged than White Americans. They faced discrimination based on their sexual orientation and race. As a result, they face extreme fear of abuse, causing them to fall into depression. Minorities are more likely to be impoverished, and therefore, have less access to education and the resources to combat COVID-19. Signs of the mental toll the virus may be taking on a teen are extreme changes in body weight and appetite, suicidal thoughts (suicide is the 3rd leading cause of teen death in the United States), insomnia or trouble getting out of bad, and a loss of interest in hobbies.
Therefore, as the world changes, access to resources and rules must change as well to preserve the mental health of our future generation. One way is to increase the number of school counselors and implement free team care into schools, especially when children go back to school in-person having faced the horrors of a pandemic that the last generation had never experienced. Psychotherapy costs an abundance of money. Instead, students should have access to a counselor who is specifically for anxiety, stress, and depression. However, in order for students to put trust in anyone, schools should create a bonding experience between their teens and their school counselor. There should also be team care offered, as face-to-face meetings with the parent and child are more influential. Depression conversations should be more imperative and required, than talking about academics. “An analysis of the 2012 to 2015 NSDUH found that among all adolescents who used any mental health services in the year, 57% received some school-based mental health services” (Golberstein). This reveals the lack of aid schools provide. They also provide a lack of education on the coping strategies for experiences like the COVID-19 pandemic to remove the stigma around mental health. Many people experiencing symptoms of depression did not seek help, especially teens. This is due to the stigma around depression because teens do not want to be called “abnormal” or “unable to be successful”. This stigma can only be diminished if students learn about mental health before they learn about academics, so teens are not afraid of getting help.
