Where have all the teenagers gone?

[Aridane]

Since lockdown, I have been out daily for exercise (and food shopping), taking different routes for variety.

And during this time, I have not spotted a single teenager.

Where have they all gone?!? It’s like a plague has wiped them out.

Pre lockdown - even in school holidays - there were plenty of teenagers around (you couldn’t miss them).

Are they now indoors, online? (I know my nephew was).

Is this dearth of teenagers unique to my area (south east London)?

Other age groups are reasonably well represented

So Cruddles you are saying ALL teens are drug dealers or ON drugs based on you seeing a couple of them dealing drugs? Okaaay hmm

I know MN is full of pearl clutchers but i would have thought people would have realised my comment was in jest.

But the drug dealing bit was true, i saw teenagers doing a deal outside my house this afternoon. At least they were getting out and about

Mine is gaming, eating, perusing eBay and arguing with me every time I plead with him to go out and get some sun and fresh air. That's it. He will walk the dog for ten minutes if I fib and tell him I have a migraine, which I have been doing just to get him out in daylight. He and his younger sister get on well so they're often sitting in silent companionship with him on PS4 and her on her IPad. They both seem content enough.

I'm turning a bit nocturnal too and find my best conversations with teens are late at night.

I see groups of teens out and about with friends on my daily walk. Most of them are probably at home like the rest of us.

Yes, nocturnal 16 yr old here too. In fact I can here him downstairs now getting snacks and the Vit D I've left out for him.

Mine is nocturnal now too. On (on-line) school days, she has to register each morning. So she sets her alarm, hits the send email button, then goes back to sleep til afternoon. I admire her determination.

Round here the boys are cycling around in packs, like Hell's Angels on push bikes. The girls have all evaporated, apart from a few who can occasionally be spotted walking dogs.

Yep mine is a nocturnal, vitamin D taking food hoover too.

I think it's different if they are in Year 11 or 13 as they have no focus on school work. DS has done a bit of reading around what he wants to do at A Level bit other than that it's gaming, Netflix, helping in the garden and long walks

How funny... I daily see teens out on their own for walks or walking with family, even on bike rides with family. 15yo DS went out for a walk with me at 7:45pm last night - as we have done often since March, breaking lockdown rules for me by being multiple exercise in one day, but hey ho, if I have a teen who will talk to me & go out if he can talk at me for 2 hours, then off we go.

Last night, as usual, we barely saw anyone else loose.

I have bumped into the odd small group of teens (n=4/5), probably also breaking rules, out on bikes or lurking in a nowhere place.

DS gets up in 15 minutes for paper round.

ps: DD found a sun trap in our garden so have been working on a daily sunburn since March. (we are in England but she is pale).

While loafing around in their sliders and socks, they're plotting riots (and good on them, I say), because they know that their futures have been ruined by lockdown, to save a few oldies (their words, not mine). But they're being savvy and not doing it online, where they know their communication can be intercepted by the police. Instead, they're using secret methods from the 1980s, as described in one my favourite Usborne books: the Knowhow Book of Spycraft, which had all sorts of ways of communicating secret messages.

They're all out in packs doing wheelies on my street.

@wonderings I loved that book. I studied it endlessly.

OP good question - I never thought of it. My DC are out walking every single day - they walk together or occasionally on sufferance with us. But they never seem to see any friends. I've seen a few teens walking with family but not many. Of the 70 teens I know in our village from DC being at school with them, I've seen about three. How weird.

Pulling wheelies in the park

@DobbyTheHouseElk I'm glad you knew that book! At the time I wondered why such a book had been written for children, and who would actually want to do the things described in it, such as setting up a spy post office in a park, because "you can wander or dawdle in a park without looking suspicious". With all the rainbows in windows, have you noticed that the colours are often not in the usual rainbow order? That's not children being artistic, it's a secret teenage message.

Mine is nocturnal too. Comes down for food. Has only left the house a few times.

They are in the fields and by the canal near me...all of them. Every single one

Those that aren't are cycling on the pavement near me or on the buses.

@wonderings It’s still in print, I’m going to get a copy. I loved the spy cutout in the window reading the newspaper so your enemy would think you were still there.

We had an uncle who used to give us books like this and was a interesting character. My brother and I are/were convinced he was a spy. He used to behave in a very funny way to us children and pretend he was a spy on days out. Obviously to amuse us.

We studied the book inside out. So many tips. I love usborne books.

All having group bike rides near me... 12 of them yesterday out and racing about on tracks where families and dog walkers are.

I’m in SE London too. Mine is in his room chatting to friends or doing school. Force him in the garden to eat when sunny plus Vitamin D tablets.

I enjoyed the pp whose teen hit the email registration then slept all day.

Mine has to do classes from 10.30 so has to be up. He finds it hard. On weekends sleeps and sleeps.

mine are housebound - working hard because they're years 10 and 12. Learning tiktok routines and dying their hair blue, making banana bread and avocado toast.

The rest are sitting on Hampstead Heath in big groups

My girls are both leaving the house today and each meeting a friend. I feel a little bit sad that it's all ending (although I went out and met a friend last night).

My 18 year old year 13 has gone nocturnal- games til 4am, sleeps til 4pm. Has been on I think 3 walks since lockdown. School are doing some stuff online for them (talks /activities) which he sometimes engages with on his phone in bed. He seems happy enough so I try not to nag too much. I feel so sad though that all the fun stuff he had planned for leaving school/post A level summer has disappeared.
My 20 year old is back from uni and does usually get up by midday, goes for bike rides and favours sitting in the garden with his top off til he burns to get the vitamin D levels up.

The only evidence of mine is the extortionate food bill and the fake tan ring on the bath.

Gosh, maybe girls are different, or I have weird kids. Dd1 23 working full time from home, 8.30 till 6.00. She is pretty full on at work. Tries to have lunch in sunshine.

DD2 full school timetable. They have to be up and registered, no going back to bed as have to be on-line for each lesson and upload notes after. Full homework too. She is Yr 12. In free time she walks or cycles every day, and also sits in garden reading. No Vit D required here.

On sad note, she has had no contact with any friends since school closed. Her mental health is really suffering, she really needs her friends, and they have all basically dropped off radar.