Why young people may be feeling angry right now and how to talk to them about it

Are the kids alright?

Some in Waterloo region may be asking that question after recent reports of threats made at schools and a large fight of 150 young people near the Kitchener Market that involved weapons. 

Dillon Browne is an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Waterloo and a Canada Research Chair in child and family clinical psychology.

He joined CBC Kitchener-Waterloo's The Morning Edition to talk about what parents should and should not say to their teens who may be feeling angry.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity. 

CBC K-W: We've seen some violence recently involving younger people here in the community. It may seem to people from the outside in and observers that there's a lot of anger in our youth right now. From your perspective as a researcher, is there any indication about what might be happening here? 

I don't want to begin by invalidating anyone's perspective and certainly during the pandemic, there's a lot of anger going around in young people and teachers and school staff and it looks like we're facing a bit more of a disruption in the new year. 

That being said, year after year since probably the early 90s, there has been a reduction in youth offending. 

So my initial inclination is to caution folks to not over interpret an increase in one year out of the context of decreases over the past few decades. 

I hope that parents, teachers and school staff can take some solace in the fact that for the past few decades, youth criminality and youth offending has been decreasing in Canada and actually nationally. Ontario is one of the lower provinces across the Canadian landscape. 

CBC K-W: But if we look at what has happened a couple of times here in the region. What role do you think the pandemic is playing there? 

Well, if we were to focus on these numbers this year, I think it actually does make some sense to consider the pandemic playing some role in contributing to. the possibility of youth violence happening in schools right now.

As we've seen over the past, I guess almost two years now, there have been a number of closures and disruptions in youth activities, youth clubs, neighborhood organizations, community centers, all of the things that social distancing has kind of gotten in the way of.

So there is a framework in the psychological literature that youth seek agency and mastery and the capacity to be good or to perform well in whatever area of life where there is an avenue.