ParentMap June 2021 Issue

Page 27

Ages + Stages

8 Ways to Protect Your Kid From Pandemic Languishing Effective strategies to help your teen counteract the pandemic blahs By Laura Kastner, Ph.D.

Languishing is a big buzzword of late, describing what a lot of us are feeling after more than a year of pandemic fallout. Languishing is a befuddling case of the blahs. It’s the limbo state that exists in the drift downward on the mental health continuum, with flourishing at one end and anxiety and clinical depression at the other. Languishing saps your energy to do the healthy stuff of life,

such as exercise and nutritious eating, and it makes the drudgery and effort of homework and chores seem Herculean. If you think it’s hard on adults, just talk to kids, as I have for the past year. Here’s what they say: “My parents keep saying, ‘Start a hobby! Learn something new!’ It’s bad enough just staying at home and doing remote schooling. Then you get

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