Seeing "The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog" on our syllabus was really thrilling for me, because it's one of my favorite books, and also I already had my own copy. I'm excited for the chance to read through it again and discuss it, especially now having some experiences in the role of therapist rather than educator.
What really struck me, though, was the NYT article. I spent most of this past academic year listening to my teenage clients tell me essentially exactly what was written in that article, and counseling them through very similar experiences to those outlined by the students in the article - the depression, the lack of motivation, the suicidal thoughts (both passive and active), etc. The pandemic has been such an intense collective trauma, but it's also becoming somewhat normalized now - and teenagers are supposed to just magically know how to adjust and become adults after experiencing something like that? My clients and I worked together to find small solutions that worked for them, but I often found myself feeling really helpless, because...there's not really anything we as clinicians can do to get things "back to normal," if that's something even worth getting back to. I have a lot of questions, but have trouble putting them into words. I guess the overarching one is The Question: how do you help a teenager navigate high school and the transition out of it while also helping them effectively cope with a global pandemic (piled onto the personal traumas they have already experienced)?