告诉孩子们他们并没有悲伤，除非他们在大流行期间失去了爱人，否则他们会发出一个不健康的信息。
由于我们的世界和国家继续面对持续的大流行，“我们都在一起”，继续在电视广告中展出政府更新，并通过Hashtags展示。
But are we?
During this time of tremendous uncertainty due to新冠肺炎, many have mourned with teens and other kids who have missed out on milestones and events. Parents and friends have done what they can to make the best of things, adapting with drive-by graduations and online celebrations.
但在一些空间中，您可以找到减少悲伤事件，希望或计划的声音，因为有人没有死亡，因为有人没有死亡。无论是对在线新闻故事还是心爱的祖父母都是陌生人，那么这些评论可以刺痛。
对于许多孩子，特别是青少年，这条消息表明他们的感受和情绪是无效的，不应该表达，这与应该发生的事情相反。相反，我们应该倾听和提供年轻人的保证和接受。
In place of the push to get things back to “normal” as school begins again while the pandemic continues, we need to take the time to validate their emotions.
In late May, a classmate of my twin high school seniors wrote an意见信给纽约时报saying, “It feels selfish to say this when people are dying, but I know the class of 2020 is hurting.”
Her words were honest and expressive of what many seniors were feeling but her words were heartbreaking because she felt自私表达他们。
Many seniors remain in limbo with graduations rescheduled for mid to late August and now, with anCovid-19案件的上升across the country, those long-awaited physically distant graduations are being canceled.
After a最近的一篇文章about missed milestones was published on Today.com, comments were made on asuccessive social media postthat stated, basically, unless a teen had lost a loved one, they needed to, “shut up and get over it.”
在另一个例子中，一个现场城镇厅播出on a major cable news outlet on the topic of education and COVID-19, teen Analey Escalera expressed grief about things missed during her senior year and worries about how attending college would change due to the pandemic. She asked the professional panelists for advice moving forward.
The response by one expert was that she should remind herself that her situation could be worse.
I find the exchange hard to watch without feeling palpable discomfort and concern for a young woman being dismissed by the very person she’d reached out to for advice.
艾米莉国王博士is a licensed psychologist in private practice in Raleigh, North Carolina, who specializes in working with children and adolescents. She’s also a mom of two school-age boys and is seeing this same disturbing trend in her practice. She cautions adults from negating or quantifying anyone’s悲伤, particularly that of children and teens.
King lost her father unexpectedly when she was pregnant with her first child so understands the grief of losing a parent. She has been in sessions with grieving teenagers who are mourning “the loss of a friendship, an opportunity, the end of year, and now the upcoming school year due to the pandemic.”
“I am here to say that grief is only defined by the person feeling it,” King asserts. “We are all a collection of our experiences and the grief we feel can only be measured when comparing it to the experiences we have had, not the experiences someone else has had.”
King uses the example of her own loss to emphasize why invalidating feelings is insensitive. She points out that telling someone that things could be worse just because they haven’t lost a loved one to death doesn’t acknowledge the reality that we all have our own experiences of grief.
“My grief is not comparable to someone else’s grief because they own their grief, I don’t. When we tell young people that ‘things could be worse,’ we invalidate what they are feeling. We are saying, ‘your feelings aren’t important’ or ‘your feelings are misguided.’
“This is confusing and damaging to young people who are processing a loss. Grief is a broken connectof any kind。它可能是一种死亡，拒绝，分手，或者丧失永远不会发生的事件。“
So when your tween or teen is emotional over things that may seem minor, take a step back. Evaluate your response to their sadness. Consider that we each have our own experience of coping with the current situation.
“No grief is too small to be validated and supported. Like any other emotions, we are not allowed to tell each other how to feel. Grief included.”
国王想提醒所有孩子和青少年的下面，“没有人必须死去感到悲伤。它不仅仅是为了谈论这种悲伤，谈论它，并弄清楚如何通过这种新现实前进。我希望孩子和青少年伸向他们信任的人通过他们的痛苦谈谈。如果不是成年人，那么同性恋者也感受到同样的损失。“
Other people’s grief makes us uncomfortable, says King and the first thing we do as humans when we are uncomfortable is try to avoid what is making us feel this way.
“So, we minimize,” King says, “thinking we are making the person feel better. Yet, minimizing someone else’s grief is the human attempt of helpingusfeel more comfortable and can be hurtful to the person feeling the grief,” shares King.
We now move from the initial losses ushered in by COVID-19 to future losses, including many rites of passage for children and teens. In some ways the loosening of restrictions and return to school may seem like a return to normal, but very little is like what it once was.
No traditional first day of school with smiling pictures and meet the teacher moments for many children entering kindergarten or other milestone years.
没有内在的学校，尽可能多school systems are going fully remote并取消了这一来临的运动。
没有亲自经验和大学生通过的仪式，就像进入宿舍一样。这可能特别困难2020名现在正在入境大学新生，并且已经丢失了这么多。
我们都渴望正常，但没有什么正常的，对每个人来说都很困难，尤其是孩子们来应对。
King believes that this kind ofanticipatory grief在这一点增加了悲伤。
“我和悲伤的幼儿园谈过，因为他们期待着结识新朋友，可能不会发生。我与上升的高中小辈和老年人谈过，他们不想通过虚拟，“股票国王”的一年来“放弃”，我们需要记住一切都是暂时的，甚至在2020年的学校。“
那么，我们可以对我们的孩子们面临更多的损失，在视线上几乎没有结束？
最好的反应是简单地听，“听你孩子的悲伤和损失感。验证它们，让他们知道你是在那里以任何方式帮助它们，“King说。
Laura Richards是四个儿子的母亲，包括一套相同的双胞胎。She has written for numerous outlets including The New York Times, The Washington Post, U.S. News & World Report, The Boston Globe Magazine, Redbook, Martha Stewart Living, Woman’s Day, House Beautiful, Parents Magazine, Brain, Child Magazine, Scary Mommy, and Reader’s Digest on the topics of parenting, health, wellness, and lifestyle. Her full portfolio of work can be found atlaurarichardswriter.com.，你可以与她联系FacebookandTwitter。