The grief teenagers and young people are experiencing is profound – please don’t minimise it

The good news is that the environment can and does shape our brains at this stage of development and there is an inherent adaptability at play, writes Lauretta Cundy

During this time young people are separated from the peers on whom they are so reliant (Getty/iStock)

We are all currently undergoing a grieving process for the life that we knew – each of us mourning a past to which we can’t return and facing an uncertain future. This collective grief we are experiencing is entirely natural and valid.

There is one group, however, for whom this situation is truly unique – our teenagers and young adults.

Those due to be leaving school or university this summer, who were previously approaching the brink of their next, well-defined steps in life – further education, a first job, a gap year – find themselves in limbo, with no real reassurance of what may happen next. For many of these young people, this will be the first time they haven’t had a concrete guide for their future endeavours and that will have left many of them feeling extremely vulnerable.

And then there’s the specific milestones and rites of passage they are missing out on. Exams, leavers’ balls, graduation ceremonies, celebrations for 18th and 21st birthdays, that first holiday with friends at the end of school. Some of these may sound frivolous, but they are such important elements of the teenage and young adult experience.

Unlike many of the plans the rest of us have had to put on hold, these events are so tightly bound up with the emotions and experiences of a certain stage of youth that they will be virtually impossible to recreate at a later stage. Today’s teenagers will likely never feel that heady rush of freedom combined with nostalgia that will be familiar memories to so many.

There are seemingly unlimited resources for helping our younger children through this time – David Attenborough has even stepped in to teach them geography – but we shouldn’t ignore the specific challenge our young adults are facing. The neuroscience of the teenage brain is unique and will have a significant impact on how they handle these circumstances.

Despite all assertions of independence from our teenagers, their brains won’t be fully developed until their mid-twenties, and later for boys. The prefrontal cortex, the area that helps to regulate behaviour and emotions, is the last region to develop. It is the fundamental neuroscience of young adults that dictates their bias towards activities with the highest dopamine “reward” and undermines their ability to allow the perspective of others (particularly their parents!) to guide their behaviour.

Right now these factors will be having a huge impact as young people are separated from the peers on whom they are so reliant, and are unable to partake in many of the stimulating activities they would previously have sought.

The good news is that the environment can and does shape our brains at this stage of development and there is an inherent adaptability at play.

Now is the time to acknowledge the experience our teens are going through, normalise it for them, and then take the opportunity to work with them in creative and supportive ways to reach a point of acceptance and prepare for their future.

And, we need to celebrate those milestones. They’ll look different, of course, but there are still ways to mark the occasions. Next week, we’ll be baking a cake for our daughter’s 20th birthday, leaving it on her doorstep and singing from a safe distance. Then she’ll get together for a virtual party with her friends.

It’s not the same, but the young are nothing if not adaptable. Our daughter will, along with thousands of others, make the most of it.

Lauretta Cundy is a coaching psychologist, focusing on stress management and resilience