Quarantine and How It’s Affecting Adolescent’s Mentality

For the past few months, the Coronavirus outbreak has spread like wildfire in countries like China, Italy, Spain, the United States, and more. Quarantine and social distancing were both measures internationally adopted to help reduce the rate of the outbreak. To the government, this seems to remain the safest option, but for some teens across the country it’s driving them insane. There are teens who just can’t stand being inside for a long period of time due to stress, anxiety, or toxic households.

People tend to freak out when they’re at home all the time, they could be feeling trapped or too much in their thoughts. They could try doing something to keep their mind off things but majority of the time it doesn’t work.

14-year-old Josey Jarquin feels as if she’s trapped in her house and all she wants to do is leave. She hates how COVID-19 has stripped her freedom away.

“I feel more anxious than I did before quarantine and I feel like I’m going to lose my mind if I stay in this house any longer,” Jarquin says. She never thought this would happen right before spring break and wishes that the virus was treated more efficiently than how the government and president reacted.

Instead of home, some students depend on school to be their safe haven. It can help them escape from issues at home and feel protected. But now that they must stay in quarantine, these students are struggling to face household situations, including different forms of abuse and anxiety-inducing relationships.

Further, online school is a different story. Teens don’t like online schooling since it’s not really teaching them anything nor helping them improve academically. The typical school-day now consists of simply submitting assignments hoping that it won’t affect their grades.

Amanda Gadea, 15-years-old, feels like she has been getting lazier and lazier as the weeks go by.

“I honestly have no motivation to do online classes whatsoever and I hate how it feels like it’s a choice to do them,” she says, “It’s not because the work is harder, it’s just the teachers keep piling up assignments more and more throughout the day and my grades seems to be getting worse ever since we started online school.”

Gadea feels unmotivated to do work and the amount of work sent out to her is giving her nothing but stress because she thinks it’s only going to jeopardize her grades.

“Not only that, I find it frustrating that we can’t go out doing regular things like going out with friends or going to the movies,” Gadea says. “This would probably end quicker if people just listened and actually stayed home and not go out to party ignoring the fact that there’s a whole pandemic going on.”

She understands that quarantine can be hard to handle but it can help the virus die down. Gadea doesn’t want to be inside forever but if it’s helping the community, she’s willing to do just that.

In contrast, people like 16-year-old Bridget Jean-Baptise, feel completely fine with self-quarantine. She understands that it’s not something to sulk about and is content with dealing with social isolation until the virus washes over.

“Honestly it’s not that big of a deal, you can still go outside you just have to social distance yourself from others,” Jean-Baptise says.

However, her thoughts about online school seems to be the same as everybody else.

“Online school isn’t the same as school in real life, it’s like they’re giving you more assignments to do online than they ever did while we were actually there,” she says. “And the assignments they give us really aren’t teaching us anything nor keeping us in track about the topic were learning.”

Jean-Baptise doesn’t want to have bad grades but the work is getting more complex as the days go by.

Teens in general harbor varying opinions about the current state-mandated quarantine, but regardless, it has been difficult to adjust to constantly staying at home. Although predictions remain uncertain, many hope that the Coronavirus begins to subside and that everyone can resume with their normal lives.