Colman Noctor: Long and isolated summer for young teenagers
The lack of opportunities for young people and subsequent underdeveloped social skillset means that children's communication can often be limited to online and virtual platforms.
I recently talked with a group of young people as part of a work project. I began to ask them about their experiences of the first summer break from school since the end of Covid restrictions. I expected to hear many accounts of adventurous plans for the summer and how they were planning to ‘make up for lost time’ having had such a disrupted summer for the last two years. But while the older group talked about their plans for the traditional Leaving Cert holiday to exotic destinations like Magaluf and Ibiza and the younger children about their back-to-back summer camps, the middle teens seemed to have little sense of what to do during the summer holidays.
This 13-16 group is particularly challenging when it comes to the summer holidays. They are typically too old for summer camps and many are too young for a part-time job. They are also often tricky when it comes to family holidays, as many are at the stereotypical grumpy teen stage, thinking family-based activities are ‘lame’. But as they are too young to be left at home while the rest of the family goes away, they tend to be dragged along like a reluctant passenger.
Children in this age group are usually candidates for a few weeks in Irish college, and while there are several sad stories, most tend to enjoy it. For many, it’s their first time living away from home, so it can be a great opportunity to gain some independence and broaden their horizons. But Irish college is not an option or suitable for all young teenagers. With the current financial crisis, trips to the west of Ireland for three weeks are too costly for many families, and children who have been waiting to get out of school may baulk at the thought of going to ‘Irish classes’ over the summer.
The social world of young teens is quite limited. Outside trips to the cinema, which are not ideal over the summer, there are very few suitable activities for them. The children I spoke to described how they struggled to find things to do, and it was apparent that the initiative needed to organise social events was lacking.
Many described how their past experiences of meeting up with friends in primary school were largely arranged by their parents. Essentially, what they were describing were ‘play dates’ and ‘sleepovers’ which are the norm for primary school children. However, Covid and the subsequent lockdowns ended much of that, and they had grown out of organised play time when the restrictions ended. Many described feeling ‘mortified’ if their parents got involved in arranging events with their friends, but they also talked about an inability to organise these events themselves.
They discussed having friends with whom they would socialise in school but would not meet outside of school. This is a trend I have noticed, especially in young teenage boys. The lack of ‘things to do’ and the lack of social skills and autonomy to organise these meet-ups mean they are often left to their own devices. The early teens also described how all their outside school peer contacts occur at adult-organised events such as football training or gymnastics. One young person said that the focus of adult-led activities like sport is ‘the training’, and any socialising or chatting was discouraged as they were deemed to be ‘messing’ and ‘not tuned-in’.
This conversation highlighted a significant gap in the informal socialisation opportunities of this age group. Where previous generations would have depended on the initiative and autonomy of one group member to organise events, the current group seems to be missing that role, perhaps due to the infantilising effect of lockdown.
The young teenagers also said if they were to organise a meet-up in the local town or at a shopping centre, there were some whose parents would allow them that level of independence and others whose parents would not. Some were 15 years of age, and their parents did not permit them to go into their local town to meet their friends during the day. Surely this significantly impacts their opportunities for independence, development and growth.
The lack of opportunities and underdeveloped social skillset has meant that most of their communication was limited to online and virtual platforms. The children I spoke to described ‘hanging out on Snap Chat’ and how they would chat while playing video games on their headsets. It is no wonder we have huge issues with children’s dependencies on devices if this is their only form of mixing and socialising.
If we want our children to socialise and mix, we have to give them the opportunities to do this. The current 13-16-year-olds have missed a crucial developmental step in their social and emotional development. During the lockdown, the majority of their school experiences were either delivered remotely or facilitated through masks and social distancing measures. The signs and negative impact of this are right under our noses. But without the opportunity to listen to these young people, I might have missed what’s happening or, more importantly, what’s not happening.
Due to the missed developmental steps, it seems these children have found themselves in second and third year of secondary school with limited ability to create a social circle beyond the virtual world. We need to help them find ways to re-socialise in person.
When I asked the young teens about their ideas for possible solutions, their requests were simple. They asked someone to organise a space for them to hang out and be together, almost like the old ‘hanging out on the green’ scenario. They didn’t want adults there, though. They wanted the space to be themselves, and that’s an age-appropriate request. Many doubted that parents would permit such a scenario as they believed they do not trust adult-free spaces. One young person suggested a music festival-type event for this age group where there was no alcohol, and they could hang out together.
We must be aware of what this cohort missed out on during Covid and empower them to make up for the lost time. Instead of protecting them, we need to help them find the right outlets so that they can flex their social muscles. It might be easier for us as parents to keep our younger teens on a tight leash so that we don’t have to worry about them being out and about, but there is a cost to being isolated which may not be immediately obvious.
If you have a young teenager at home, ask how they are doing and offer support to create social opportunities if needed. They may not be hanging around because they are unmotivated - they may be anxious. So let us be mindful of the impact and missed steps of the past two years and, instead of laying down restrictions, open up new opportunities.
- Dr Colman Noctor is a child and adolescent psychoanalytical psychotherapist
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