就第一次约会而言，14岁的杰克·斯科特和他的新女友艾比·韦斯特洛普在三月初就够史诗的了。

事情是从斯科特参加的棒球比赛开始的，韦斯特罗普去看他比赛。然后，他们回到他的父亲家，观看奈飞，在外面玩捉迷藏，吃玉米饼。两人谈论生活、朋友、希望和梦想。有时候，北加州的青少年甚至会接吻。

三个月后，两人仍在约会，只是面对全球大流行，情况大相径庭。

这些天，少年杰克斯科特和艾比韦斯特洛普外出闲逛的时候，他们保持至少6英尺的距离。

他们每天视频几个小时。他们发短信。每周一两次，他们不戴口罩，在父母家的车道上见面，坐在相距至少6英尺远的草坪椅上。他们不允许触摸或亲吻，或做其他任何八年级和九年级学生通常可能做的事情——总有一个家长在看着。用斯科特的话说，这是"粗糙的"。但是家长已经这么实行了。

斯科特上周在一条短信中写道："起初，我真的反对，但（现在）我正处于接受阶段。"知道我的[女朋友]正在做同样的事情，这样我就知道这不仅仅是我。

在科维德时代约会

斯科特和韦斯特洛普并不是唯一在冠状病毒大流行下面临新规定的青少年恋人。在世界各地，青少年和他们的家庭都在研究如何使青少年爱情的戏剧适应社会疏远和适时保护措施。

谢天谢地，许多人听从了当地政府的建议，即使父母给予一些额外的鼓励和束缚。另外一些人则完全无视规则——部分原因是他们是青少年，但也因为爸爸妈妈不能或不会监督社会疏远措施。

"现在想要年轻和相爱是很难的，"杰西卡·英格兰说，她在旧金山是一名执业婚姻和家庭治疗师。"让青少年看到大局，长远思考，真的很难。"

回溯到罗密欧和朱丽叶时代，青少年恋人都发誓要不惜一切地在一起，我们每个人都至少有过几个与我们的高中意中人偷偷溜出去的故事。

在2011年的电影《传染》中，甚至有一个场景，一个青少年对她的父亲（由马特·达蒙饰演）发狂，因为她在大流行期间没有让她见到她的男朋友。

然而，危险是真实存在的。研究表明，虽然青少年和年龄更小的孩子不太可能像成年人那样患上科维德-19急性症状或需要住院治疗，但根据美国疾病控制和预防中心的报告，无症状儿童可以充当媒介，自己可能感染病毒，然后传染给别人，并进而可能感染沿途无数个不知情的受害者。

请注意，我们对科维德-19如何影响儿童的理解正在发展中，因为最近一种神秘的疾病导致数十名儿童住院，而卫生官员认为这种疾病可能与冠状病毒有关。

为什么青少年不明白

那么，为什么青少年很难理解大流行的严重性呢？为什么他们中的许多人难以理解社会疏远和适时保护的重要性呢？

也许最重要的解释与大脑发育有关：大脑最后完全形成的部分是前额叶。拥有前额叶皮质的区域可以控制"执行功能"，如冲动控制、判断、情绪调节、计划、推理以及以未来的视角和眼界看待情境的能力。

纽约牙买加圣约翰大学心理学副教授西阿塔·华莱士说，“大脑的这个区域直到我们25岁时才停止发育，这使得一些青少年很难想象到威胁生命的病毒会如何影响他们。”

这也使得青少年很难通过超越自己的压倒性的情感的眼界看待事情。

华莱士说："青少年很难从根本上想象这些事，也很难理解它们。”

"当你把这一观点运用到浪漫的爱情及其相关的所有的强烈感情中，并因而使他们以为他们会永远对男朋友或女朋友有这种感觉时，想要他们实事求是地思考情况并平衡风险就更具挑战性。”

马里兰州巴尔的摩的儿科医生艾罗·菲尔兹博士对此表示赞同，并补充说，前额叶皮质的不完全发育也是造成青少年时期的不可战胜和无懈可击的感觉的原因。

菲尔兹是约翰霍普金斯医学院儿科助理教授，他把这种情况比作青少年关于超速危险的解读，但随后开车太快。

"青少年认为，'这不会发生在我身上'，这是很常见的，"他说。"他们听说过这种抽象的病毒导致世界关闭了，但他们也听说过这对青少年来说没什么大不了的，即加倍形成了没什么大不了的观点。

父母如何帮助青少年度过大流行

父母可以帮助青少年理解为什么他们必须认真对待社会疏远。

是的，这些谈话最终必须传递关于家里的规则。但是，他们也可以进行关于恐惧、挫折、焦虑等的公开和诚实的对话。

丹佛的心理学家乔迪·托马斯说，"如何"提问是这些聊天的关键。你对中断与你男朋友/女朋友的日常交往感觉如何？你如何确定去看到你的重要的她/他是否安全？你如何确定它会带来哪些风险？所有这些都是很好的问题，要求让你的孩子进行更广泛的思考。

托马斯说，父母至少应该承认青少年与朋友和重要朋友进行隔离是悲剧，尤其是在青少年可能觉得他们最需要他们最亲密的朋友的时候。她建议让青少年发泄关于隔离生活的挫折，倾听他们的感受，验证这些感受，然后邀请他们参与讨论家庭如何共同努力，使情况更加具有品味。

"说，'我知道现在很糟，但我们需要保证你的安全'，也许能帮助一个青少年开始了解是什么真正处于危险之中，"托马斯说，他是斯坦福大学医学院的兼职讲师。"我们必须以同情的方式为孩子们画这些界线，同时也得承认这是多么困难。”

旧金山的心理治疗师英格兰说，制定家里的规则很重要，但同样重要的是，与青少年一起进行技能建设，让他们在发现自己做出错误选择并希望踩刹车的情况下，引导他们完成该做的事。

具体来说，她说，父母必须明确，他们重视安全而不是服从。

她说："你宁愿让你的孩子凌晨2点打电话，也不愿酒后驾车，也不愿和酒后驾车的人一起骑车。"如果你的青少年偷偷溜出去看他或她的男朋友或女朋友，情况也是一样的。承认这个错误需要勇气，但你需要他们告诉你把潜在的风险暴露出来，以保持家庭中的其他人的安全。

如何作为非父母帮助青少年度过大流行

当然，父母也需要注意可能适得其反的大流行教育策略。

纳什维尔范德比尔特大学心理学和人类发展教授乔·罗杰斯说，首先，那些严厉、高度专制或僵化的父母会让青少年形成非要做被告知不能去做的事情的心理过程，即抗拒心理。

另一个潜在的陷阱是：进行专家所说的苦惨比较。

单亲妈妈关于的大流行的教育建议

托马斯说："当大人开始抛出诸如'这不像我经历的那样难'或'这与x、y或z相比什么都不是'时，青少年就停止倾听了。"除了有些情况可以理解之外，这是大多数青少年经历的最艰难的事情。他们不可能有身临其境的体验”。

英格兰补充说，在力加大的时候，父母必须现实地看待对青少年的期望，并努力确保他们不会为失败而塑造孩子。

她说："如果任何父母认为可以对青少年说，'你看你的伙伴无人看管，但你不能和在他们一起'，那只是一种明显的错觉，就像要求他们独自在房间里拿着课本做一个闭卷测试一样。”

如何与邻居谈论社交疏远

青少年性别和性问题专家菲尔兹提醒父母要记住，即使青少年还没有确定所钟意的人，也不一定意味着孩子就缺少这样一个人。

因此，他说，疏远会给那些被认定为女同性恋、男同性恋、双性恋、变性、奇怪的、跨性别或无性的孩子带来心理健康挑战。

菲尔兹说："如果一个十几岁的孩子不和（他们）的父母在一起，父母也会感到难以置信的孤立，即使没有大流行需要我们所有人呆在家里。"有时，对于这些孩子来说，浪漫的伴侣是正常感觉和理智的唯一联系。

一线希望

最后，父母必须做好灵活准备，在家庭社会疏远计划不可避免搁置的情况下，要保持耐心。

罗杰斯说，这是因为那些认为自己恋爱的足智多谋的青少年总是会想办法绕过父母。

他在一封电子邮件中写道："第一条规则是，十几岁的男孩和十几岁的女孩总会想办法聚在一起。"规则2是大流行不会改变规则1。

No, your teenager's boyfriend or girlfriend cannot come over during the pandemic

As far as first dates go, the one 14-year-old Jake Scott had with his new 15-year-old girlfriend, Abby Westrope, back in early March was epic.

It started at Scott's baseball game, where Westrope watched him play. From there they went back to his dad's house, watched Netflix, played catch outside and ate tacos. The two talked about life, friends, hopes and dreams. At some point(s), the Northern California teens might have even kissed.

Three months later, the duo is still dating, only it looks much different in the face of a global pandemic.

They FaceTime for hours each day. They text. Once or twice a week, they don masks, meet up on the driveway at a parent's house and sit in lawn chairs spread apart by a minimum of 6 feet apart. They're not allowed to touch or kiss or do anything else that eighth and ninth graders typically might do — one parent is always watching. In Scott's words, it's "rough." But they have made it work.

"At first, I was really against it, but [now] I'm in the acceptance phase," Scott wrote in a text message last week. "It helps to know that my [girlfriend] is doing the same thing so that I know that it's not just me."

Dating in the time of Covid

Scott and Westrope aren't the only teenage sweethearts facing new rules under the coronavirus pandemic. All over the world, teens and their families are figuring out how to adapt the drama of adolescent love to the rigors of social distancing and sheltering in place.

Thankfully, many are following recommendations from their local governments, even if it's with some extra encouragement and enforcement from their parents. Others are disregarding the rules altogether — partially because they're teenagers, but also because moms and dads either can't or won't supervise social distancing.

"It's a tough time to be young and in love," said Jessica England, a licensed marriage and family therapist in San Francisco. "Getting teenagers to see the big picture and think long-term is really, really hard."

Teenage lovers dating back to Romeo and Juliet have vowed to stop at nothing to be together, and each of us has at least a few stories of sneaking out to be with our high school heartthrobs.

There's even a scene in the 2011 movie "Contagion" in which a teenager gets mad at her father (played by Matt Damon) for not letting her see her boyfriend during a pandemic.

And yet the danger is real. Research has suggested teenagers and younger kids are less likely than adults to show acute symptoms of Covid-19 or require hospitalization. Reports from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, however, say asymptomatic children can act as vectors, picking up the virus from one person and transmitting it to another, potentially infecting any number of other unsuspecting victims along the way.

Note that our understanding of how Covid-19 affects children is developing with the recent hospitalization of dozens of kids due to a mysterious illness which health officials believe could be linked to the coronavirus.

Why teenagers don't get it

So why is it so difficult for teenagers to grasp the gravity of a pandemic? Why do so many of them struggle with understanding the importance of social distancing and actually sheltering in place?

Perhaps the most significant explanation has to do with brain development: The last part of the brain to form fully is the frontal lobe. This is the region with the prefrontal cortex, which controls "executive functions" such as impulse control, judgment, emotional regulation, planning, reasoning and a person's ability to look at situations with perspective and an eye on the future.

Scyatta Wallace, associate professor of psychology at St. John's University in Jamaica, New York, said this area of the brain doesn't stop developing until we're 25, which makes it difficult for some teenagers to imagine the enormity of how a life-threatening virus could potentially impact them at all.

It also makes it tough for teenagers to see beyond their own overwhelming feelings.

"It's physically difficult for teenagers to imagine these sorts of things and understand them," said Wallace, who has focused the bulk of her research on teens.

"When you apply this to romantic love and all the intense feelings associated with them thinking they're going to feel this way about a boyfriend or girlfriend forever, it's even more challenging for them to think practically about the situation and balance out the risk."

Dr. Errol Fields, a pediatrician in Baltimore, Maryland, agreed, adding that incomplete development of the prefrontal cortex also accounts for the sense of invincibility and invulnerability that often characterize the teenage years.

Fields, who is an assistant professor of pediatrics at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, likened the situation to teenagers reading about the dangers of speeding, but then driving too fast.

"It's totally common for teenagers to think, 'That's not going to happen to me,'" he said. "They hear about this abstract virus that's causing the world to shut down, but they also hear it's not a big deal for adolescents, which multiplies the perception that it's not a big deal."

How to parent teens through the pandemic

Parents can help teens understand why they must take social distancing seriously.

Yes, these conversations ultimately must convey the rules of the house. But they also can incorporate open and honest conversations about fears, frustrations, anxieties and more.

Jody Thomas, a psychologist in Denver, said "how" questions are critical components to these chats. How are you feeling about disrupting the routine with your boyfriend/girlfriend? How would you decide if it's safe to see your significant other? How would you determine what risks come with it? All of these are good questions to ask to get your teen thinking more broadly.

Thomas said parents should at least try to acknowledge the tragedy of their teens being cut off from friends and significant others, especially at a time when teenagers might feel they need their closest pals most. She advised to start these conversations by letting teenagers vent about frustrations with quarantine life, listen to what they're feeling, validate those feelings and then invite them to contribute to a discussion about how the family can work together to make the situation more palatable.

"Saying something like, 'I know it sucks right now, but we need to keep you safe,' might help a teenager begin to understand what's really at stake," said Thomas, who doubles as an adjunct lecturer at the Stanford University School of Medicine. "We have to draw these lines for kids in a way that's empathetic and also acknowledges how hard it is."

England, the psychotherapist in San Francisco, said it's important to lay out the rules of the house but it's equally important to engage in skill building with teens and walk them through what to do if they find themselves in a situation where they've made bad choices and wish to tap the brakes.

Specifically, she said, parents must make clear they value safety over obedience.

"You'd rather have your kid call for a ride at 2 a.m. than drive drunk or ride with someone who's driving drunk," she said. "It's the same situation if your teenager sneaks out to see his or her boyfriend or girlfriend. It takes courage to admit the mistake, but you need them to tell you about potential risk exposures to keep everyone else in the family safe."

How NOT to parent teens through the pandemic

Of course, parents also need to be mindful of pandemic parenting strategies that are likely to backfire.

For starters, parents who are draconian, highly authoritarian or rigid risk their teenagers engaging in a psychological process called reactance, which essentially results in kids doing precisely what they're told not to do, according to Joe Rodgers, the Lois Autrey Betts professor of psychology and human development at Vanderbilt University in Nashville.

Another potential pitfall: engaging in what experts refer to as comparison of suffering.

Pandemic parenting advice from a single mom

"When grown-ups start throwing out statements like, 'This isn't as hard as what I went through,' or 'This is nothing compared to x, y or z,' teenagers just stop listening," said Thomas. "With the exception of some extenuating circumstances, this is the hardest thing most teenagers have ever had to go through. There's no way they're going to be able to contextualize it."

England added that parents must be realistic about what to expect from their teenagers during this time of heightened stress, and to strive to make sure they don't set up their kids for failure.

"If any parent thinks he or she can say to a teenager, 'You can see your partner unsupervised but you can't make out with them,' that's just plain delusional, like asking them to take a closed-book test alone in their room with all of their textbooks," she said.

How to talk to your neighbors about social distancing

Fields, who specializes in helping adolescents grappling with questions of gender and sexuality, cautioned parents to remember that even when a teenager hasn't identified a significant other, it doesn't necessarily mean the child lacks one.

For this reason, he said distancing can create mental health challenges for kids who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual, queer, intersex or asexual.

"If a teenager isn't out to [their] parents, they can feel incredibly isolated, even when there's not a pandemic requiring all of us to stay at home," Fields said. "Sometimes for these kids, a romantic partner is the only connection to feeling normal and sane."

Silver linings

At the end of the day, parents must prepare themselves to be flexible, and to practice patience in the face of inevitable hiccups with the family social distancing plan.

Rodgers said this is because resourceful teenagers who think they're in love always will figure out ways to circumvent their parents.

"Rule No. 1 is that teenage boys and teenage girls will find ways to get together," he wrote in an email. "Rule No. 2 is that pandemics don't change Rule No. 1."