Alcohol, teens and socialising: Being prepared for parenting post-COVID-19
Over the past couple of weeks I've written about the challenges facing teens and their parents during the COVID-19 restrictions. It's been (and will continue to be) a tough time for everyone, particularly in regard to social isolation and as I've said previously we are in completely uncharted territory and still have little idea about what comes next. In a feature in The Lancet published a couple of weeks ago the author, Joyce Lee wrote "... not much is known about the long-term mental health effects of large-scale disease outbreaks on children and adolescents." She ended the piece by stating we needed to support young people through this period but there is also "a need to monitor young people's mental health status over the long-term, and to study how prolonged school closures, strict social distancing measures, and the pandemic itself affect the wellbeing of children and adolescents." What will the impact be on our young people and how wil...