Category: Family & Parenting

Guest post by Michael Schroeder

Working professionals in the U.S. who are starting or growing families face a unique challenge. Unlike their counterparts in every other industrialized nation, Americans have no federally guaranteed paid time off to be with their newborn children.

Employees may be able to take up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave per year and still have a job to come back to under the Family and Medical Leave Act, or FMLA. But not all workers qualify for this, and many who do simply aren’t in a financial position to take that time off. (FMLA allows states to provide more coverage than the federal law does, and a handful of states have their own provisions; but only California, New Jersey, New York, and Rhode Island offer paid family and medical leave.)

As a result, parents rely heavily on paid parental leave policies from employers that provide it. But the vast majority of employers don’t offer paid parental leave; and those that do provide far less compensated leave for fathers than mothers. This, experts point out, creates added hardship for working dads and moms.

“I think these policies imply that mothers are and should be primarily responsible for childcare and for raising kids,” says Richard Petts, Ph.D., a sociology professor at Ball State University who has closely studied parental leave policies. He adds that the imbalance makes it even harder for fathers to take leave, as they may face stigma, as well as the career penalties mothers encounter. Others say such an imbalance in policies providing time off for parents leaves working mothers unsupported and sends the message that fathers are unnecessary.

That’s because a traditional male-centered employer model treats men not as working parents but employees without family obligations. Women who take time off may also miss raises, advancement opportunities, or for those who take extended leave, struggle to successfully reenter the workforce or find themselves underemployed when they do. In parental leave policies, women are commonly viewed by default as primary caregivers. And experts say these company policies, in offering less parental leave for men, assume their partners—commonly working mothers—will handle the lion’s share of child care responsibilities.

Survey data finds, accordingly, that new fathers tend to only take about one week off after the birth of a child, while women take less than three months. Neither is working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic a solution for dads or moms, given the hands-on care (read: undistracted parenting) newborns need.

One recent study that provides a snapshot of the gender disparities in parental leave looked at the exemplars in industry: Fortune 500 companies. These U.S. firms with the highest revenues set the bar for all others to follow. As such, Petts and David College sociology professor Gayle Kaufman, Ph.D., thought it worth evaluating what precedent these top companies set with their parental leave policies, and specifically with regard to gender differences in these policies.

“The good news is that a majority of Fortune 500 companies do offer some form of paid parental leave,” notes Kaufman, who led the study published online in Community, Work & Family in August. Kaufman, who has also done extensive research on parental leave policies, and Petts, who co-authored the research, found 72% of companies they were able to obtain detailed information on had parental leave policies. But only 17% of all Fortune 500 companies captured in their research provide the same amount of paid parental leave to fathers and mothers.

Of the companies that offer paid parental leave, half offer at least twice as much leave to mothers as to fathers. That equates, on average, to about 10 weeks of leave for moms and five weeks for dads, Petts says.

Understanding the Importance of Dads

All of this is based on a Mad Men-era idea that women can take time off after the birth of a child because they have a husband who’s the breadwinner, says John Badalament, director of programs for The Fatherhood Project at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. It ignores the modern reality of women in the workforce and the science that supports the powerful impact of involved dads.

“The hard research is that dads in the early years make a huge difference,” Badalament emphasizes. “The quality of their relationship and the time they spend with their infant … it makes a huge impact on the child’s development (and) on their marriages.” There’s still a gap in understanding how important fathers are, he says.

Commonly gender unequal paid parental leave policies put parents at odds. “Companies that offer lesser policies for dads are doing themselves a great disservice—along with adding fuel to the fires of gender inequity—by pitting moms and dads against each other, instead of looking at the research about workplace retention,” Badalament says.

He adds it’s been shown employers that are family-friendly and offer equitable paternal leave policies and take leadership in encouraging employees to use those policies have increased employee retention and satisfaction rates, not to mention being viewed as more socially responsible. But fathers in the workforce often have a far more strained experience when it comes to their perceptions—and often the reality—of what employers expect of them. Experts say that flies in the face of a work-home life balance and is out of step that can be with the parent fathers want and need to be.

For her book, Fixing Parental Leave: The Six Month Solution, Kaufman talked with some fathers about obstacles to taking parental leave. (Per the book’s title, she ultimately suggests a leave policy that allows all working parents to take six months off to spend with a new child.)

One father, Gabriel, who worked part-time at a movie theater while going to school, detailed having a sick baby and dealing with an impatient boss. His boss pressured him to return to work even while his son was still in the hospital. “With part-time work you don’t get any benefits, you don’t have paternity leave at all,” he told Kaufman. “I was obviously really emotionally unavailable for work in every sense.” He worried about losing his job for taking time off to be with his newborn son.

Even when men have paid parental leave, they often feel pressure not to take it.

Finn, a physician, opted to take two weeks off, and wanted to work part-time for several additional weeks to spend more time with his child. As Kaufman detailed in her book, Finn said it did not go well with his supervisor and friend who pushed him to return, even continually contacting him while he was on leave about coming back. “I felt pressured to come to work,” he told Kaufman.

Ultimately, what’s needed, many experts say, is not only a change in parental leave policies. Rather, a culture shift is required where working fathers and working mothers are treated as such—not pigeonholed in one capacity or another, but supported in all they do.

Copyright @2020 by Michael Schroeder

Michael Schroeder is a freelance writer, former health editor at U.S. News & World Report, and father of four in Westfield, Indiana. He has always taken the full paternity leave his employers offered, while still wrestling with how to best balance home and work obligations. You can connect with him on LinkedIn.

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Judith Grisel, Ph.D., an addiction expert, recounts her first taste of alcohol—drinking wine at the age of 13—in a way that could describe any teenager’s experience.

“I felt as Eve should have after tasting the apple. Or as a bird hatched in a cage would feel upon being unexpectedly set free,” Dr. Grisel vividly recalls in her book Never Enough: The Neuroscience and Experience of Addiction. “The drug provided physical relief and spiritual antidote for the persistent restlessness I’d been unable to identify or share… alcohol provided powerful subconscious recognition of my desperate strivings for self-acceptance and existential purpose and my inability to negotiate a complex world of relationships, fears, and hopes.”

Drinking or using other drugs can provide “an easy way through the difficulty of growing up” and precipitate a descent into drug abuse, says Dr. Grisel, a neuroscientist in recovery for over 30 years and a psychology professor at Bucknell University.

After her introduction to alcohol, Grisel spent 10 years as a daily user and later a college dropout on a harrowing journey that took her to seedy motels and exchanges with questionable people in the quest for drugs of all varieties and at any cost. But why do some young people end up on this dangerous path?

And is there a role for parents to play in prevention?

Teen substance use today

Some research suggests that expanded legalization of pot in many states across the country has been associated with a higher rate of marijuana use among adolescents under 18 (for whom it’s still not legal) in those states. That’s one more reason for parents to be prevention-minded.

What’s more, while teens’ use of most drugs has decreased during the pandemic, adolescent alcohol and cannabis use has increased, according to research in the Journal of Adolescent Health, first published online in July. That included a rise in solitary use of these substances, which researchers found was related to increased COVID-19 fears and symptoms of depression.

Many other factors may impact when and how frequently teens turn to drugs or alcohol.

As Grisel notes in her book, genetics may certainly play a role in determining who’s more susceptible to addiction. The more DNA a person shares with an addict, the higher one’s risk for addiction. Even children of addicts adopted immediately after birth continue to have an elevated risk for addiction.

But what happens at home also has an impact on the likelihood that adolescents will develop substance use problems. That’s not only true when parents are addicted to illicit drugs, like cocaine, but it may occur when caretakers are permissive in drinking with adolescent children as well.

Results from the study evaluating substance use during the pandemic “suggest a surprisingly large number of adolescents were using substances with parents during the COVID-19 crisis.” The upshot is that when teens partake with parents, lower rates of heavy drinking, cannabis, and vaping are reported. However, the study authors point out that while kids tend to drink in moderation around parents, past research finds they’re more likely to engage in high-risk drinking when they’re consuming alcohol outside of the home.

We know that young brains are developing and, therefore, more susceptible to drugs. But what teens and their parents may not appreciate is that those same impulsive decisions can impact neurological development. Drug use can change the very structure of the brain permanently.

These brain structure changes can lead to cognitive and behavioral deficits. For example, a sibling-comparison study of 1,192 adolescents from 596 families found using cannabis more frequently and starting to use earlier was linked to poorer cognitive performance, specifically in regard to tests of verbal memory. More study is needed to confirm the findings, which contrast with previous twin studies. But the authors of the research, published in the journal Addiction in September, report that even moderate marijuana use (roughly twice weekly, on average) may have an adverse impact.

Research finds changes in the brain from early drug exposure also increase drug-taking or drug-seeking behavior, Grisel points out in Never Enough.

There are many environmental influences that could push teenagers who tend to be risk-takers into drug use. Such factors include everything from economic status and education to physical or sexual abuse.

Certainly, family stability plays a major role. Upheaval at home or family stress can raise the risk that a teen will become addicted to drugs. As with some other environmental factors, it can be difficult to define or quantify what constitutes problematic family stress, as Grisel notes. COVID-19 has added to almost everyone’s stress and threatened stability for many.

Nonetheless, even in stable times, there’s no way to avoid conflict entirely; it’s important to strive for peace at home. That includes addressing problems with drug or alcohol addiction that parents themselves may face.

For parents who find that their children are using drugs, there are no easy answers. But a good place to start is seeking professional help. And whether preventing problem drug use or breaking free from addiction, healthy relationships are a critical component. Grisel emphasizes the need for such “honest connections.”

For Grisel, it was her father reconnecting with her after having refused to speak with her—or even acknowledge he had a daughter—at the height of her addiction that made a world of difference in her recovery. “Though there were several turning points in my trajectory, it seems profoundly significant that the material change began… when my father inexplicably changed course and took me out for my 23rd birthday.” His willingness to be seen with her and treat her with kindness, Grisel recalls, “split open my defensive shell of rationalizations and justifications. It broke open the lonely heart that neither of us knew I still had.”

By contrast, Grisel and other addiction experts emphasize, when people feel isolated or alienated as so many teens are during the pandemic, they’re much more likely to abuse drugs or alcohol and have a harder time breaking free from addiction. While we’re still learning about all the factors that make addiction so intractable, Grisel says we have enough data to understand that our brains are shaped by more than individual biology. “And of all these influences, perhaps the most immediate and impactful, and therefore potentially helpful for realizing change, are our connections with each other,” she says.

For parents searching for answers, making your relationship with your teen a priority—difficult as it may be to connect sometimes—is a powerful place to start.

Copyright @2020 by Susan Newman

When the pandemic caused widespread lockdowns in March of 2020, I raised the question, More Babies or More Divorces After COVID-19? I compared the possibilities to other disasters such as hurricanes and the 9/11 bombing of the World Trade Center in New York City… and speculated.

A year later, the pandemic continues to create personal and economic upheaval. Signs point to fewer babies in the coming years, continuing a trend that gained noticeable momentum during the Great Recession in 2008. According to data from the National Center for Health Statistics, the birth rate dropped dramatically and has remained low.

A recent survey from the Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive-health research and policy organization, found that “about a third of women in the United States ages 18 to 49 were planning to postpone pregnancy or forgo adding a child to their family because of the pandemic.”

Uptick in Requests for Birth Control

I spoke with Dr. Julie Graves, a family medicine and public health doctor and the Associate Director of Clinical Services for Nurx. Nurx is a telehealth company launched in 2016 that provides women’s reproductive health care, prescribed online and delivered to their home. Since the pandemic started, the company has seen a 50 percent increase in birth control requests and a 40 percent uptick in requests for the morning after pill. In the case of the latter, women told Dr. Graves that “they just wanted to keep protection on hand in case they needed it.”

Early on in the pandemic “barriers to getting contraception were stunning,” she told me. “As the pandemic unfolded, access to your own physician was problematic, going to the pharmacy and waiting in line was troubling if you could get a prescription from your doctor. Many physicians were called on to handle COVID-19 cases and unavailable for their regular patients.” With cases surging in different parts of the country, it’s difficult to know how or if women will face barriers in getting contraception to prevent a pregnancy they don’t want right now.

Baby-Making Decisions in a Shaky Economy

The trajectory of this virus remains unknown, but its economic devastation is affecting how people think about family size. They worry about starting or expanding their family for financial reasons.

In July, a U.S. Census Bureau survey reported that 50 percent of adults have experienced their own or someone in their household’s loss of income because of the pandemic. The numbers are almost identical for men and women. Because children are expensive, job loss or income reduction will likely influence baby-making decisions negatively. In our COVID world, those with one child wonder, Is Being an Only Child a Problem?

For now, the economy likely supersedes thoughts of having a first, second child or more children. “The tenuous economy is one of the many tragedies of this pandemic,” notes Dr. Graves. But if you look back, she adds, “Women have been worried about when to have their babies for decades. We have asked women who want to be successful in the work world to hold off starting families.”

Apple and Facebook, for example, offered egg freezing as a perk. Was it a perk or something else? For women as they get older, waiting to have children as many do can affect their chances of becoming pregnant with or without fertility assistance. Nonetheless, the pandemic has caused some women to put their IVF treatments on hold.

With an effective, tested vaccine still a hope and COVID-19 continuing to spiral in many states, giving birth in some areas is challenging. Although hospitals had and have concern about being supportive, partners can be kept out of the labor and delivery room. “Early on people were afraid. Sadly, our culture is not conducive to families on so many levels, and the pandemic has laid bare and intensified many of the issues,” explains Dr. Graves.

Because labor and delivery regulations can change according to COVID-19’s prevalence at the time and definitive studies on the risks to mother and baby during the epidemic are not yet available, couples are being appropriately cautious about becoming pregnant. Writing in The Atlantic magazine, journalist Joe Pinsker put it this way, “…in times of heightened uncertainty, people are less likely to bring children into the world. And the future is doubly uncertain right now: Potential parents are likely worried both about their (and their children’s) future health, and their future finances.”

COVID-19 has added another layer of complexity to an already difficult and life-altering question: How many children to have. Is the social, emotional, or financial fallout from the pandemic affecting your family planning decisions?

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Copyright @2020, @2021 by Susan Newman

Facebook image: FrameStockFootages/Shutterstock

I was surprised when I read a parenting researcher’s email introduction with a link to an article she wrote about understanding children’s meltdowns and reactions to different situations. Amy Webb, Ph.D. opened her email with questions…and answered them:

“Do you remember a time when your child reacted to a situation in a completely surprising way? Perhaps a little scrape on the knee resulted in a half-hour meltdown? You may have asked yourself: why did she react so dramatically?

“I clearly remember one of these situations. It was one of the first times I took my oldest son to a park as a toddler. He was still toddling around trying not to trip on his own feet. I thought he’d be hesitant to interact with new kids, especially since he was an only child at the time.”

She pointedly implied that only children are shy. Certainly not all or most of them and definitely not her toddler. Her comment also suggests that children need siblings to interact and be comfortable with their peers—something science refutes.

I’ve interviewed hundreds of only children and their parents and reviewed many studies that explore the stereotypes about only children. If anything, many only children are outgoing and eager to engage with other children whether or not they know them, while others can be shy and hesitant to interact with new people. The researcher acknowledged this fact by explaining her son’s playground interactions:

“He went up to every child on the playground and tried to engage with them, even with his limited vocabulary. I was flabbergasted! This is so not like how I would react.”

Her insinuation that kids need siblings to learn to socialize with other children is old-school. Her son’s temperament was already at work as a toddler. He has a brother now, but he likely would have developed keen social skills on his own, as his young playground behavior flagged.

Webb’s article focuses on children’s unique temperaments and points out that “It is important to remember that the child temperament types described in these theories (e.g., “difficult,” “easy,” “slow to warm up”) are not meant to be labels in which children can be pigeonholed for life. They are simply categories that help describe different combinations of characteristics or behavior patterns. Although there seems to be some genetic basis for temperament, this does not mean a child is destined to be one way or another. Many other factors come into play.”

I agree: Every child is exposed to an endless array of experiences that will shape his temperament and how he functions in the world. Having or lacking a sibling is just one piece of the thousands of pieces that contribute to and shape a child’s development.

Amy Webb’s work is spot-on and her information at The Thoughtful Parent solidly based in research and extremely helpful to parents. Could be that in her email this self-described introvert was projecting how she would react in a similar situation? Or perhaps she slipped into now-ancient mythology—read: stereotype—that only children are shy, even lonely, and need siblings to sharpen their skills so they can play well with others.

How easy it is for anyone to fall into stereotypical thinking and attitudes, even topnotch professionals who are trained to be cautious with comments and innuendos that stigmatize. Hearing the only child myths repeatedly as we have for more than 100 years simply reinforces them.

In an op-ed for The New York Times titled, “Your Brain Lies to You,” Sam Wang, a professor of neuroscience at Princeton University, and Sandra Aamodt, a neuroscientist and co-author with Wang of Welcome to Your Child’s Brain: How the Mind Grows from Conception to College, note, “if their message [in this case, only child stereotypes] is initially memorable, its impression will persist long after it is debunked.”

Copyright @2020 by Susan Newman

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6 Well-Kept Secrets That Affect Family Size

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if social distancing were a thing of the past? If we could hug our friends, see our relatives and have dinner with them or allow our children all the play dates they request? No one wants life before the pandemic to resume more than children whose worlds have shrunk dramatically. Their understanding of why, however, is vague and abstract.

It has been difficult enough for adults to wrap their heads around the coronavirus and its implications. Imagine being a young child. You may be tired of the questions: Why do we have to wash our hands so much? When can I play with my friends? Why can’t I see Grandma and Grandpa?

As a public service, Drs. Lauren Block, a primary care physician and medical educator, and Adam Block, a public health economist, created Kelly Stays Home: The Science of Coronavirus to fill a void in children’s understanding of COVID-19. It is an informative and helpful complimentary book to teach young children the principles of transmission, social distancing, and herd immunity. Two versions just released, one for children ages 7 to 11 and one for younger children, skillfully and sensitively answer questions that are difficult for most of us to respond to accurately. In pictures and plain language, the doctors have succeeded in describing why our everyday lives changed so quickly.

The Blocks, parents of three young children, asked friends what their children wanted to know, and Lauren Block included what her young patients were asking her to determine what to highlight in the book. They say, “There’s a lot of anxiety for adults, but for children, it’s about curiosity. We translate that curiosity into scientific fact and action that kids can readily understand.”

“Understanding is a big factor in securing adherence from children for all the changed things like the importance of thorough hand washing, staying away from their friends or missing a birthday party that we are asking them to do,” Adam Block points out.

The Science of COVID-19

The science behind the coronavirus is probably murky in your children’s minds as it may be in yours. What happens when you hug? Why can’t I go to my friend’s house yet? What happens if dad or mom gets sick? Science has answers.

“Young children don’t respond to numbers,” the Blocks say, “but you want to be able to answer their questions.”

What is a virus? The Blocks explain in the book, “A virus is a tiny germ. It’s so small that if you piled the virus on top of each other it would take about a thousand to be the same thickness of a piece of paper or a hair. It has little spikes on the outside that work like glue and stick to everything like Velcro.” Did you know that? I didn’t.

How does the virus spread if everyone is staying at home? Answered. Am I going to get the virus? Answered. What happens if I do? Answered. The explanation of herd immunity is one of the most crucial knowledge elements covered. As this page illustration indicates, the number of people (shown in red) who are contagious or at risk for getting the virus drops once most people are vaccinated. As much as Joey, Kelly’s younger brother in the story says, “I don’t like shots,” the doctors’ summary helps prepare children for accepting vaccination once we have one.

Kelly Stays Home makes pandemic facts and rules less onerous for children by detailing why we are doing what we are to stay healthy. It tells kids how they can help themselves and higher risk family and community members. In short, this free, charming book (and it is, despite its subject matter) gives parents the tools and information to answer their children’s questions as they arise. Once read, it’s highly likely that your children will have or ask fewer questions. Take a look.

And now that the vaccine is here, the doctors have written Kelly Gets a Vaccine: How We Beat Coronavirus” to help parents discuss how vaccines work, what to expect, and how vaccination helps us move beyond the pandemic. Ages 5 & up. Free download here.

Copyright @2020 by Susan Newman

The assumption seems to be that an only child and his parents are having a tougher time being quarantined for long stretches than children with siblings. The reality is Covid-19 created a new family landscape for all families. The challenges are not the same, but they are there.

Because of consensus thinking, parents of one can feel guilty and think their child would be more content if there were a sibling in the house. Maybe yes, maybe no.

If you are the parent of an only child, be delighted that you are not settling disputes, soothing escalating tensions or monitoring pleas for individual and undivided parental attention. When children are bored, parents will be called on no matter how many children to play games and fill in the gaps. I hear complaints from children with and without siblings: Their peers can’t visit, school is closed, no extracurricular activities. They tell me that they have nothing to do.

Only children have spent more time alone and many are be quite good at using the additional time social distancing has generated. Sibling status has little to do with a child’s ability to entertain herself. With or without siblings, one child may need you to orchestrate his time; another could be independent, able to amuse himself and be perfectly content left to his own devices.

Filling the Gaps

Parents of only children often feel they need to be the ones to fill their child’s time to avoid their child feeling lonely or bored. Left to their own devices and without constant parental input, only children become good at utilizing the extra time they have. When you worry that your child may be bored or lonely without a sibling to act as playmate, consider the significant and useful upside of alone time.

It fosters creativity, and most importantly, encourages a child’s independence and ability to entertain him or herself—both helpful as a child gets older. In her book, Bored and Brilliant: How Spacing Out Can Unlock Your Most Productive and Creative Self, Manuoush Zomorodi, explains that “Boredom leads to its close cousin, mind-wandering…Letting one’s mind wander is the key to creativity and productivity.”

Connect, Connect, Connect

Be permissive about online connections. If your only child complains, acknowledge his boredom, be empathic so he knows you hear him, keeping in mind that the Internet is a boon for most children and particularly helpful for only children while social isolation remains in effect. Parents who have scheduled limits for reaching out online to friends will want to allow increased online time as a means to stay connected to their peers.

A study of young children and their online screen time, led by Douglas Downey, professor of sociology at The Ohio State University, reports little or no effect on children’s social skills. The researchers studied more than 30,000 kindergarten through 5th graders using teacher and parent evaluations and found, “In virtually every comparison we made, either social skills stayed the same or actually went up modestly.”

There are endless interactive choices and your child probably knows them. For example, there’s Game Pigeon—an iPad or iPhone app with 20 different multiplayer games from checkers and chess to basketball, darts and miniature golf.

Children and teens who text do what they always do—connect online and through different apps and on their phones. If you have ever watched children on their cellphones when they are together sitting side-by-side in the same room, you have probably noticed that they don’t interact other than tapping out texts. All that connecting fills time, maintains peer friendships and helps to keep your child busy and not focused on coronavirus fears and worries that are inescapable on the news.

Loosen Your Watchful Eye

In one sense, the only child is accustomed to having attention focused on him and that factor alone may make it easier to live in protracted close proximity 24/7. However, if your only child didn’t like being the center of attention before social distancing, she will probably like it less now.

Many parents of only children admit to doing too much of what an only child could and should be doing. Social distancing is an opportunity to pull back and to give your only child more responsibility. Put an older only in charge of the laundry or making dinner a certain number of days of the week or vacuuming. You’ll be surprised at how quickly a child—even one who complains—begins to feel good about contributing to the family. Pitching in serves a reminder that your child is part of a family and does not need to be the center of attention at all times.

Widen Your Only Child’s World

Unless you have an infant or toddler, your child will remember sheltering-in-place. Encourage empathy and tighten connections to family and close friends. Make a practice of video chats or FaceTime calls with your child’s grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. This helps to remind the only child of her wider support network and can bring her closer to family members beyond you.

Volunteer in ways that involve your child. Shop for elderly neighbors and have your child come with you when you leave the groceries at their doors. Talk about where donations are needed and donate if you can. Ask your only to call her grandparents or someone in the family who may be struggling to see how they are doing every few days. Come up with caring gestures that will remain in place long after the pandemic.

Build on Your Close Bond

Studies dating back to 1978 and more recent ones indicate that only children tend to be closer to their parents than children with siblings. Take advantage of social distancing to build on that bond: Add to your child’s memory bank by starting a new tradition around something your family has not done before—learn to play chess, bridge, backgammon or another game neither parent nor child has ever played. Try baking different kinds of bread or start a new type of exercise program you can all do.

Because of the parent-only child tight bond, many only children are alert to and sensitive to their parents’ feelings and attitudes. Lacking siblings to divert or diffuse parental worries, be mindful of keeping your stress and anxiety in check to avoid your only child absorbing it and carrying burdens that are not commiserate with her age.

Copyright @2020 by Susan Newman

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In the best of times, tween friendships are tricky and shifting, inevitably hitting snags. Being cut off from peers during the pandemic leave some feeling left out or bullied online or an open target for gossip.

Phyllis Fagell, a psychotherapist, school counselor and author of Middle School Matters, provides insights into what your child may be experiencing or feeling with concrete approaches you can use to help your tweens and teens during this period of social isolation and long after.

Guest Post From Phyllis Fagell, LCPC:

Under the best of circumstances, middle schoolers have to navigate a complex social landscape. They care deeply about their friends, but their empathy is developing, they’re insecure, and they’re still learning how to self-regulate and interpret non-verbal cues. They’re also in the throes of puberty, maturing at wildly different rates, and engaging with well-meaning but equally unskilled peers.

As the pandemic and social distancing add a new layer of stress, here are four ways to help your child stay confident and connected.

Explain that social distancing can heighten sensitivity

“I feel left out,” Claire*, 11, told me. Her friends had been meeting up the last few nights on House Party, a kids’ video-conferencing platform, and no one had thought to notify her. She wasn’t sure if they meant to exclude her, but she couldn’t stop thinking about the oversight.

Just a few weeks earlier, Claire would have cleared the air in person the next day. Or she might have decided to let the whole thing blow over if everything seemed normal enough at school. Instead, she just felt sad and unsettled.

If your child feels wounded about a perceived slight, validate her hurt feelings and encourage her to think expansively. Ask questions such as, “Is it possible they thought you knew about the call, or that one of your friends tried to reach you?” Explain that they may feel more sensitive because they lack opportunities for organic, positive interactions.

Then help them exercise agency. Come up with solutions together. You might ask, “Could you organize a get-together on House Party for another night this week?” Or ask them whether they’d like to share their feelings with someone in their friend group.

Spot-check their online behavior

“Naomi told everyone that my parents are fighting all the time,” Zoe, 12, told me. “I trusted her not to say anything.” As the pandemic upends everyone’s lives, kids are absorbing the ambient anxiety. And tweens who are scared tend to be more impulsive and less empathetic. In a bid for attention, they may spill someone’s secret or post a mean comment.

Check your children’s texts and snaps periodically, call out any cruelty without shaming them, and help them identify positive ways to cope with darker emotions such as jealousy or anger. This is a good time to remind them to sit on their hands and count to 60 before posting anything, and to silently ask themselves whether their words could harm someone else or come back to haunt them.

As tweens spend considerably more time online for both academics and socializing, consider scheduling screen-free time, too. Kids who never get a break from social media tend to suffer more from FOMO, or fear of missing out, and also tend to feel worse about themselves.

Remind your child that they can always pick up a phone and call a friend, but they may preserve their confidence if they limit the amount of time they spend chasing likes or lurking in other people’s social media feeds.

Help them interact comfortably with peers

“I’m worried about Colin,” a sixth-grader’s mother told me. “No one is calling him or asking him to do anything virtually, and he’s not calling anyone either. He’s lonely and upset, but I don’t know how to help him.”

No two kids have the same social needs. An extrovert is going to miss regular face-to-face interactions, but they’re also going to identify alternative ways of engaging with friends. For introverts, social distancing might be a relief. They no longer have to interact with peers all day at school and potentially into the night. If this describes your child, don’t pressure him to talk online to others more often. If he’s content, let him manage his own social life. Otherwise, your son or daughter might feel judged or fear letting you down.

I worry the most about the third group of children. These are kids who want to be liked, but who were isolated even before the shutdown because they have difficulty connecting with peers. If your child falls into this camp, use the time to bolster skills. You have far more access to their interactions right now, so observe their behavior. Do they interrupt? Try to dominate a conversation? Do anything physically off-putting while on screen? When they’re in an online class, do they try too hard to be funny?

Be kind but direct. Help them understand, for instance, that if someone looks away while they’re talking, that’s a sign that they’re bored. Help them look for common ground. Encourage them to start with curiosity and ask questions. If they lack any ability to engage in conversation, suggest they consider playing video games or watching the same movie at the same time as a peer.

Talk to their teachers and counselor. There may be online lunch groups, book clubs, or other more structured, inclusive activities that would give them a chance to spend time with classmates. Consider teletherapy, too. Many practices have started offering online social skills groups.

Help them get out of their own head

When kids fixate on social losses, help them transcend themselves. You can’t spare them the disappointment of missing a sports season or not being able to celebrate their birthday with friends, but you can try shifting their attention to others who feel even more disconnected. Tweens want to make a difference in the world.

To the extent possible, give them ownership of how they help others. Tweens are eager to assert their independence, so it’s hard for many of them to be stuck at home 24/7 with their parents.

Discuss their options rather than dictate their choices. Do they want to reach out to a classmate who they’ve heard is lonely? Do they want to make masks for first responders? Or, would they perhaps like to create artwork or write letters to residents in assisted living facilities or hospital patients who can’t have visitors?

Don’t give up if your child is initially negative or indifferent. When they see they can change others’ circumstances, they’ll experience a boost in self-confidence. They also may be more likely to feel grateful for what they have rather than focus on what they’re missing.

It’s not possible to shield kids from all disappointment in the best of times, let alone during a crisis. But there may be an upside to the discomfort they’re currently experiencing.

Emily Bianchi, assistant professor of organization and management at Emory University’s Goizueta School of Business, has done research on adversity and found that forced periods of uncertainty can lead to greater levels of satisfaction, gratitude, and flexibility later in life. No one would wish this on anyone, but your child may emerge with skills she never could have acquired in the classroom.

*All names have been changed.

The COVID-19 pandemic is so different from anything we have ever experienced, yet it will be compared to natural disasters and outbreaks we have had in the past. The differences between our experiences with the coronavirus are its vastness, its unpredictability, and its duration. It’s as if we are stranded on an island with essentially no idea when we can get off.

We are accustomed to external involvement with others, amusements from sporting events and concerts to dinners with friends. Our usual human contact and diversions have been taken away and we are confined with severe limitations, emotional and financial pressures and distress over the health of those close to us and ourselves.

Eventually, this pandemic will be compared to past terrorist attacks and natural disasters that were, comparatively, in some ways on a smaller scale and could be measured in terms of a more or less predictable timeline. Will more babies be born as a result of COVID-19? Will more couples separate when we get back to “normal”? At some point, statisticians will attempt to draw parallels.

A Baby Boom?

Historically and in many instances arguably, natural disasters, terrorist attacks, and blackouts have affected the birth rate. The consensus thinking is that following such events there will be a baby boom. But is it true?

• The New York City 1965 Blackout. A power outage caused New York City to go dark for 10 hours. Nine months later, The New York Times and other media had hyped a surge in births. However, in 1970, J. Richard Udry compared statistics from the five previous years to discover no increase in births resulting from the blackout.
• Hurricanes. As they relate to fertility, hurricanes seem to be closely linked to the severity of the warnings. The less severe the warnings, the more babies appear to be conceived. A study of storm advisories in the Atlantic and Gulf regions, “The Fertility Effect of Catastrophe: U.S. Hurricane Births,” tracked births nine months after significant storms. Contrary to media reports about baby booms after disaster, researchers reporting in the Journal of Population Economics suggest that much of the media coverage on this topic is “overblown” or “mixed” and the effects could be temporary. As you see, there’s not much agreement on an increase in babies nine months after a disaster.

Drs. Catherine Cohan, Assistant Research Professor at The Pennsylvania State University, and fellow researcher, Steve W. Cole at the University of California, Los Angeles looked at data following Hurricane Hugo in 1989. Their analysis, “Life Course Transitions and Natural Disaster: Marriage, Birth, and Divorce Following Hurricane Hugo,” in the Journal of Family Psychology, “indicated that the year following the hurricane, marriage, birth, and divorce rates increased in the 24 counties declared disaster areas.” They note, “the results suggested that a life-threatening event motivated people to take significant action in their close relationships that altered their life course.”

More Divorces?

I’m inclined to believe we will see an uptick in divorces resulting from the stress of being confined with our spouses with whom we are not accustomed to spending so much one-on-one time. The lack of freedom and day-to-day struggles, coupled with the emotional and financial fallout, will probably take their toll on marriages. In a recent CNBC report, lawyers concurred:

“For some, life in lockdown due to the coronavirus may feel similar to holidays like Christmas—but that’s not necessarily a good thing, as prolonged periods together can prove make or break for a relationship,” U.K. divorce lawyer Baroness Fiona Shackleton of Belgravia told the U.K.’s parliament. She added, “that lawyers in the sector had predicted a likely rise in divorce rates following ‘self-imposed confinement.’”

Divorce after the September 11 World Trade Center attack tells a different story and one that may or may not turn out to be applicable in the aftermath of COVID-19. Catherine Cohan, Ph.D., and her colleagues examined divorce filings in New York City as well as in neighboring communities. The results of that study, “Divorce following the September 11 terrorist attacks” published in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, may be contrary to what you think: “Marital preservation appears to be an immediate response to mortal threat, but relaxes once the threat is less acute. Under conditions of extreme stress, uncertainty, and threat, people maintain the status quo and refrain from making a major life change.”

Unlike natural disasters like hurricane Hugo when divorces increased, after the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, divorces decreased in counties in and around the site. Similarly, Cohan found after the World Trade Center bombing, another man-made disaster, divorce rates decreased in New York City and in the suburbs studied.

Nonetheless, Cohan’s worries about COVID-19 are similar to mine. She told me, “I have some significant concerns that the stress of extended confinement and economic hardship associated with the COVID-19 pandemic will lead to a spike in domestic violence and divorces within the next year.”

Your thoughts?

COVID-19 cannot be neatly categorized as a blackout, terrorist attack, or natural disaster like a hurricane or earthquake. Despite similarities in the way it ruptures our lives, it is an entity in itself with eventual repercussions and aftershocks within the family. One has to wonder not if, but how COVID-19 will ultimately change marriage contracts and birth rates.

For years now, women have been having fewer babies. The drop in the birth rate has been steady. During the Great Recession in 2008, the birth rate dropped dramatically and has remained low, hitting a record low in 2018, or a 15 percent drop since 2007 as reflected in data from the National Center for Health Statistics.

Given that women are waiting longer to start their families and the families they start are smaller, it seems unlikely that this pandemic will increase the birth rate. We won’t have answers for a very long time, but patterns, opinions, and indicators before the pandemic suggest the birth rate will remain low and the divorce rate could rise.

Is COVID-19 affecting how you think about having a baby or staying in the relationship with your partner? Please share your thoughts in the comment section. You can respond anonymously if you prefer.

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Copyright @2020 by Susan Newman.