Talking with college students about risky decisions
Students heading back to college face a return to COVID-19 risk factors. Here's what to do.
With no national consensus on how to approach teaching classes at colleges and universities, some schools started remotely as early as last week, while others sent tens of thousands of students back to in-person classes. What immediately followed were images of students across the country filling house parties, clubs, bars and sidewalks without social distancing or masking.
How do we talk to our students — our children — to help prevent them from getting or spreading COVID-19 after they head back to campus?
photo by: Samantha Gades
We all know that students — like the rest of us — want to return to life as normal, which means seeing their friends and having full freedom of movement. In a College Reaction/Axios poll last month, 76 percent of college students said they would return to campus if given the option. The majority said they would still abide by public health measures, though, by not attending parties (79 percent) or sporting events (71 percent), and 95 percent said they would wear masks when they couldn't socially distance.
Feel free to read more at my NBC article on how to understand the neurobiology of teen/young adult development (the brain isn’t fully developed until 25 years old!), and why it is that we as adults look back at our own adolescence with shock. What I didn’t add in the article, was a more concrete, practical solution that administrators/schools can use.
Speak to youth at their emotional levels first (to their more mature limbic systems) and then to their developing prefrontal cortex.
Young people (defined as those 15 to 24 years old) are going through a huge period of physical, cognitive, social and emotional development. The brain isn't fully developed until about age 25 — particularly the prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for organizing, setting priorities, strategizing and controlling impulses.
But a still-developing prefrontal cortex isn't the only factor influencing young people's behavior. Many are aware while acting that they are engaging in risky behavior, because, in emotional situations, their more mature limbic system — the emotional center of the brain — may win over the knowledge demonstrated by the prefrontal cortex.
2. Ask youth themselves to take the lead on safe public health practices.
Most all teens like the feeling of responsibility (when tied to significance, not chores!). They’re also bored and isolated now, wanting to connect. Help give them a voice, use social media, to shift the culture and shape what is acceptable (“cool”) or not. Focus groups are easy to do online now.
In those images going around of packed high school hallways and college parties, there seem to be 1 or 2 that are masked in a sea of open faces. Let’s talk to those kids and find out what makes them able to stick to what they believe is right, among the peer pressure around them.
3. Schools (and parents) need to have clear expectations, limits, and consequences.
This means we actually have to think through not just what our limits are, but why we are placing them. Often parents and adults are used to telling kids what to do. That’s fine, but if you actually want kids to comply, your chances of success are better if you are clear on the expectation as well as the reasoning.
And remember, there’s a difference between shame and guilt.
Shame is “you’re selfish and seriously flawed if you don’t mask”. Guilt is “you’re normally a compassionate and caring person, but by you not masking, you’re potentially causings someone to be on a ventilator or to have long-lasting neurological changes.” The child isn’t bad. Their behavior is. Guilt can lead to change. Shame rarely does.
With all the uncertainty in the world, children, adolescents, and adults are all struggling. Check out the links, my NPR interview, and the Mental Health Field Notes to read more about how we can manage during these stressful times.