In the thematic analysis, we generated five main themes that represent the adolescents’ experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic (see Table 3 for an overview). The first theme, “Adolescent mental health in crisis”, depicts the range of emotional and behavioral difficulties that adolescents experienced during the lockdown and upon their return to school. The second theme, “Broken support systems”, describes the extent to which adolescents perceived a lack of support within family, peer, and school systems during lockdown. The third theme, “The school agenda must go on”, reflects the strategies to continue schooling despite the feasibility issues and learning challenges identified over time. The fourth theme, “Blurred boundaries”, identifies the functional changes in the transactions between family and school systems, and the reorganization of the family system during daily life at home as a result of lockdown measures. The fifth theme, “Development will (try to) find its way”, describes developmental processes that took place in the social and individual domain, despite the pandemic. Overall, themes 1 and 5 describe individual outcomes and experiences in relation to adolescents’ emotional wellbeing, while themes 2, 3, and 4 identify risk factors in the ecological context of adolescents that might help us understand the negative mental health outcomes experienced by adolescents.

Table 3 Overview of themes and subthemes emerged in thematic analysisAdolescents in a mental health crisis

Adolescents made clear reports on their mental health during lockdown: how the lockdown affected their mental health, and the various strategies they used to cope with these complaints. This emotional toll became evident to school staff after the return to on-site education, when adolescents’ emotional struggles were manifested in the school setting.

Reports of a crisis

Adolescents reported on how their mental health was affected during lockdown through a wide range of complaints. Most of them described signs of emotional internalizing complaints, like mood- and anxiety-related difficulties. For instance, many adolescents reported feelings of sadness and discouragement: “Something like stifled, like alone, sad” (A. 16); “I had a lot of sadness. From May until August, I felt very listless, I could not get out of bed... I was tired all day” (A. 14). Feelings of sadness were sometimes accompanied by feelings of anxiety, triggered by daily life during the pandemic, like being locked down or having homework piling up. A large proportion of the adolescents interviewed described feeling emotionally distressed, unstable, or irritable.

Adolescents also reported feeling bored, or experiencing a lack of will power to do things: “In the beginning, it was cool... then, going back to the same routine, being locked down, seeing your family every day, with nothing to do– it became too boring” (A. 13). The feelings of lack of will often co-existed with an overuse of screens and a reduction of physical activity: “It was like… I did nothing but sit at a computer... I did not do any other activity” (A. 16); “I was like looking forward to doing sports and all, but no. I didn’t do it. It’s because I was watching too many series... and then said ‘okay, tomorrow’, and in the end I never did [sports]” (A. 8). On a similar note, adolescents themselves reported the emotional impact of physical changes that might have happened normatively or may have been due to the decreased physical activity during the lockdown:

I got overweight... I was always a person that moved a lot; I did lots of things, trained almost every day; and let´s say, my mind started to turn against me. I said ‘no, it’s not necessary for me to go out, so nobody will see me’. (A. 19)

In some instances, participants’ emotional states seemed to affect their physical wellbeing in other pervasive ways, like alterations in their sleep patterns (insomnia, excessive sleeping, disruptions to bedtime schedules) and eating behaviors:

Many sleep problems: sometimes I could go more than 24 h without sleeping... and I also had trouble with eating. It was like, sometimes I got up, ate food all day, like a binge… and then didn’t eat anything else until the next day. (A. 14)

Among the most common feelings reported by adolescents were loneliness and isolation. In some participants, isolation was described not so much as a consequence of the lockdown, but as a drive to socially “shut down” (A.19) or emotionally withdraw in a way that can be understood as an internalizing manifestation:

I would place myself like in a bubble, just staying in my bedroom, not doing anything. That sort of suffocated me... I would start crying and keep everything to myself... I would talk to myself. (A. 16)

For some participants, anxiety accompanied their drive to emotionally or socially distance themselves. They experienced anxious feelings about socializing -even digitally- and were afraid of being exposed to others during lockdown. For these students, the online schooling experience was a mental challenge and not a welcoming event:

[I felt] constant fear of being chosen to write [in the chat during an online class]... or to read or answer something; when they checked the attendance, I could not say ‘present’: I wrote it in the chat because I felt embarrassed. (A. 17)

Other psychological problems mentioned were somatic complaints, not explained by underlying medical conditions, and attributed by the adolescents to the excessive use of computer screens during remote education: “I had to leave [the online class] because my head hurt after being in front of the screen for so long” (A.19). More pervasive symptomatology in reaction to stress was also reported, such as difficulties with impulse control (e.g., hair or lip-pulling).

Although most consequences reported by adolescents were negative, a few adolescents reported some initial positive reactions in response to the pandemic: “In the beginning, I was relaxed... I prefer staying home” (A.14). A few adolescents even mentioned a sense of normality, referring to feeling “normal” in an evidently abnormal situation: “Eh, no, nothing. Like, normal, as though I was at school” (A. 4). These references to normality were often made by participants who, despite reporting some form of distress, had only brief narratives about their lockdown experiences and struggles. Overall, adolescents reported many more negative aspects of the lockdown than positive aspects.

Trying to cope with the crisis

Adolescents not only gave indications of a mental health crisis, but also reported distinct strategies to cope with this crisis. About half of them reported that it had helped them to express their feelings to others and share experiences, mostly with peers. Other adolescents reported that going out and maintaining some structure in their daily activities helped them to remain stable and cope with the difficulties. Interestingly, another strategy that was commonly referred to was isolation. While some adolescents mentioned isolation as a manifestation of internalizing behavior and feelings of distress, others used isolation as a coping mechanism. For example, isolation was useful for some adolescents as a way to protect themselves from conflicts in their home environment and to “ignore” their surroundings (A.9). Adolescents also referred to isolating for recreational purposes, seeking calmness by becoming absorbed in hobbies like music or art: “I hid myself inside, in music, as though to distract myself. In the nights… Like, turning on some music, reading a bit, and well, watching anime helped a lot. But the key thing was music” (A. 19).

Other adolescents referred to digital media and other hobbies as regulatory strategies to counter the exhaustion of online classes. Because in some cases school attendance was reduced to merely logging in to the class, some even chose to do these activities parallel to attending classes: “I stopped watching the classes– I mean, I played it, but only turned the volume up and would then do something else, only listening to the class while drawing or playing and stuff” (A. 2).

The crisis beyond the lockdown

The mental health crisis that was reported by adolescents was not restricted to the lockdown period. Upon the restart of face-to-face schooling in March 2022, teachers observed their students’ expressions of unrest, often reporting concerning behaviors (e.g., aggression, bringing weapons into school, suicide attempts and self-harming, sexual activity inside school, or damaging school property) or acute emotional difficulties (e.g., panic attacks, crying during school hours): “The number of kids having panic attacks is huge. Kids are doing horribly, having crises during exams as never before. They keep on crying and all that stuff” (S. 2).

Staff also reported repeatedly about students displaying behaviors related to difficulties in re-engaging and adjusting to the classroom setting, such as difficulty interacting with others, sudden need to leave the classroom, high levels of conflict and reactivity among peers and with school staff, resistance to school rules, and intermittent attendance:

The psychologists were outnumbered by the cases. And we had very extreme cases: students with suicide risk, cutting themselves... They popped up like never before, a lot of cases of students that endangered their own safety... We saw students hitting each other in front of teachers... I even received punches when separating students. (S. 16)

According to school staff, the interruption of normative socialization had negative effects on students’ self-concept. Some staff described adolescents struggling with their self-image and being anxious about socializing on the return to school: “Kids are experiencing a lot of shame, until now, facing some stuff. For example, for many, it is frightening to present something on the whiteboard. Something that for us was super normal, for them seems impossible” (S. 7).

Participants from both groups made references to the effects of face masks on several domains of development. They mentioned that masks interfered with the interaction with peers, because they were “not able to read full body language” (A. 19). Staff also reported on the negative effect that masks had on the delivery of educational activities (e.g., in relation to emotional education). Face masks were also mentioned as an interfering element when it came to the development of self-esteem and social skills. Students sometimes even used the mask as a way to deal with uncomfortable normative physical changes and cover up insecurity issues:

I think it is particular cases. There is one student with severe acne– when they want to stay hidden, they use their hoodie and mask. I have a student who I am sure must be depressed, also with a hoodie and mask. I have never seen their face... And someone I talked to about it said they felt insecure, but I think it was something with their teeth. Then they wanted to continue using their mask... in order to cope better they felt protected behind the mask. (S. 9)

Because not all schools in Chile offer secondary education, half of the participants reported a change of school (transition to high school) right at the start of or during the pandemic. For these students, not having prior social connections with their class was an extra challenge during the pandemic and on their return to on-site schooling. According to staff, during the period of voluntary on-site attendance, new students tended to attend less often than students who were already enrolled at the school and showed more reluctance to interact with their peers in the classroom:

In order to interact, children first need to feel comfortable where they are, in the classroom with their classmates, and they did not know each other... they were with strangers in the classroom. It was like they had just started the first day of first year. (S. 16)

Overall, the adolescents’ own narratives and the reports by staff about their students’ emotional state on their return to face-to-face education seem to complement each other; together they provide a more complete picture of the adolescents’ mental health struggles, which are likely attributable to the pandemic disruptions.

Broken support systems

Under normal circumstances, adolescents typically turn towards peers as their main source of social support. The school setting would usually also provide a supportive structure and serve as a monitoring agent for adolescent wellbeing. Given the pandemic restrictions, both these support contexts were disrupted for a prolonged period, leaving the family as the most available source of support.

The school system

Since the pandemic disrupted contact between school and students, staff could no longer monitor students’ mental health. Many staff members reported that their school had little or no contact with students during the pandemic period. This impeded the school’s usual role in signaling emotional difficulties, which is largely dependent on the students being in the school setting, and the staff being available as significant figures of support for adolescents. One reason for the lack of connection may be that students were reluctant to reach out to their teachers online and communicate their need for support: “The kids are not very good at telling us about their issues in a virtual way… so it is only in 2022, this year, that I have found out more about their struggles” (S. 7). Only a few adolescent participants mentioned seeking or receiving support from school during lockdown– mainly through the school psychologists who were more likely available for emotional support as part of their role. Teaching staff pointed out that being worried about academic work prevented them from focusing on contact with students: “Suddenly, you would think ‘it’s been a month since that student disappeared’. And you would be worried about grading– ‘How will I grade her?’– rather than worrying about why she’d been missing for a month” (S.16). A few staff members reported that the school only implemented psychosocial monitoring when they lost contact with students completely– those that clearly did not show any sign of attending online classes– and it was only possible in a very few cases to make referrals to specialized care if more help was required.

Overall, there seemed to be a consensus among most staff that there were not enough resources to deal with the mental health crises of their students on the return to on-site education. Some staff reported feeling limited in their role of supporting students and needing additional tools and training for this:

There is no way that we can perform in fields that are not our own, and we are not associated with any mental health practice or whatever... [i.e., during a panic attack] where do I send them? To the nurse? The nurse? The woman comforts them, looks at them… what else can she do? She then takes their blood pressure, their temperature, and calls home– their mum or dad– to come and pick them up. Because that’s where our role ends. (S. 2)

Many staff members recognized that their school had not implemented actions to support students emotionally during the pandemic. Only a few individual initiatives were taken to provide emotional support for students on their return to on-site education. Concretely, staff reported being available to talk to students if they were approached. However, this support seemed to represent an extra effort from their side, something that “comes from within” (S.2) rather than a role they were qualified to perform or instructed by the school to take on.

Adolescents who entered school just before or during the pandemic had no sense of belonging to the institution or bonds with it or their peers on returning to on-site education. This was an additional challenge, as staff had to invest substantially more effort in connecting with them in order to play an educational and supportive role:

I had a class for two years during the pandemic, and now I met them live, and we were strangers to each other... I could barely recognize even a single voice... And as they never turned on camera, I didn’t even know their names... Sometimes one of them asks me ‘teacher, how do you envisage me in the future? Do you think I would be good at [field]?’, and another student says ‘Why would you ask them if they don’t even know us?’ (S. 16).

School staff also stressed the shortage of staff qualified to handle mental health in schools. Some schools did not have a psychologist, or if there was one available, the demands of so many adolescents in need of care exceeded their capacity. A few staff members even had to deal with reports of suspected abuse and neglect in the students’ family environment. In more severe cases, where they needed to refer a child to professional healthcare providers, the networks were also not working optimally during and after COVID-19: “The system has collapsed... Many students are on a waiting list in very complex situations, not like just having a panic attack” (S. 17). As a result, many students did not receive the help they needed, either from the school or from the specialized institutions that are supposed to deliver such services.

The peer relationship system

Restrictive confinement in Chile naturally disrupted adolescents’ opportunities for socialization. Since the school setting is the main platform for peer interaction during adolescence, friendships with peers were clearly reported as a support system at stake during the pandemic. Most adolescents identified the restrictions on meeting and hanging out with their friends as a significant struggle. Some adolescents dealt with this struggle by not obeying the rules. They mentioned that they continued to meet people in person despite the recommended measures. Clearly, for many it was difficult to overcome the feeling of loneliness by reaching out to others through alternatives to in-person interaction: “It changed a lot: I could not see them [friends], I didn’t talk to them; I spent the time alone, without talking to anyone” (A. 10). In a few cases, contextual factors (e.g., moving to a different city, living away from friends, parents not allowing contact with people outside the household) posed extra difficulties for attempting any contact with friends. In some cases, friendships did not survive the distancing, and adolescents referred to actually losing friends: “We went from meeting up all the time to not knowing anything about anyone” (A. 13).

The family system

Given that during lockdown adolescents spent most of their time within the family environment, we might expect to identify family as an important source of support. However, while many participants referred to their parents as a source of support during the confinement, only a few mentioned concrete actions by parents (or older siblings). For example, some parents activated external sources of support when their children showed mental health or learning issues, and others were emotionally supportive:

My mum was always there... Perhaps she didn’t have ideal advice, or very clear answers, but [she] always tried to guide me with her experience, and find a way that, how to say it… would fulfill me more (A. 19).

In conclusion, the lack of physical proximity to peers, the diminished support provided by the school system, and the pressures on the family unit collectively contributed to an inadequate support network for adolescents, which may have fueled the mental health issues previously mentioned.

The school agenda must go on

Apparently, the educational system continued with its program as normally as possible: “We did the same [online, as if they were at school]. We tried to replicate [the classroom], but in front of a screen, to keep on going” (S. 18). Some adolescents indicated that online education was somewhat more convenient than studying at school on site. However, this convenience was mostly associated with practical benefits, such as not having to wear school uniform, having extra time for leisure activities, not having to commute to school, staying warm during bad weather, waking up later than usual, being able to do everything from their bedroom, or having more relaxed mealtimes.

Taking online classes is the most salient experience that adolescents recalled over the two-year period of lockdown, with most students perceiving it as exhausting: “It was a bit enslaving, having online classes, because it did not leave space for doing different activities” (A. 19). Moreover, studying at home clearly had its downsides, since conditions were not ideal (e.g., attending online classes in the face of connectivity issues).

When teachers and schools tried to come up with an online school schedule, students tried to adjust by creating their individual routine. This routine varied across adolescents, from very structured to completely unstructured or even “bad” (A.17). In addition, the routines differed depending on solutions that were implemented to ensure education.

When there were dossiers [homework assignments], there was no routine, it was just no, I had to pick up the dossiers... I had to hand them in on August 20th and started to do them on the 16th, like 8 dossiers. That was the modality: basically a lot of free time and then ‘okay, I have to do the dossier’. (A. 14)

Adolescents also recognized that their learning was not effective in the online modality, as they lacked opportunities to approach teachers for support on a one-to-one basis: “I could never focus very well at the computer. I always had many questions remaining... my concentration, my learning, was not good” (A. 16). Teachers also reflected on the fact that persisting with online classes faced them with several barriers and challenges. One of them felt they were trying to engage worn-out students. A teacher tried to engage them with “enthusiasm”, but “as weeks pass… months pass… And you continue the same routine, in front of the screen” this became much more difficult (S. 2). Others even had good reasons to doubt the online attendance of students:

It is very likely that some of them were not even behind the screen [with camera off], because when I came to say goodbye to the class, I would say ‘okay, goodbye, leave the meeting’… but I could have the videocall open for an hour longer, and some of them were still online. So that means they were never aware of the class– actually I didn’t know if I was even talking to anyone, because the only thing I saw was symbols and names. (S. 16)

Adolescents referred to a kind of group effect in the online classroom: if they saw that other classmates were not participating in the class, they decided not to participate either. Concretely, they would log in to online classes without really attending, which decreased their motivation to engage in learning:

The teacher was there, and well, I couldn’t understand much. I tried anyway. But then, three or four more students were online, and there were forty-something students [in the class altogether]. So, I said ‘if everyone else can do it without classes, then so can I’. (A. 6)

Staff struggled with having a realistic perception of the learning processes and actual progress of their students: “I need to see students’ faces to know how much they understand... I would ask them ‘are we okay?’... and there would be a resounding silence” (S. 16).

In addition to the lack of engagement by students, and consistently with what students reported, the use of the internet and the opportunity to interact with peers during graded assessments allowed for significant increases in students’ average marks that did not reflect actual learning:

And the worst of all was cheating, an enormous amount of cheating. Never in my life had I given so many 7s [maximum grade]... everything was copied... And the school also ordered us to give a 4 [minimum passing grade] even if the student did not hand in anything. So, anyway, everyone passed. (S. 16)

Regardless of the uncertainty, lack of engagement, and challenges of the online delivery of classes, the classes and teaching plans persisted. This reflected the obligation of schools to comply with higher order regulations, but also their determination to continue with “business as usual”, since for many of them state funding is dependent on student attendance: “If there are no students present, there is no subsidy, and no salary, no money, nothing” (S. 2).

Overall, during the pandemic, schools were mostly flexible at a curricular level. The staff members referred to curriculum adaptations, reflected in reduced school hours (longer breaks, shorter classes and school days) and less stringent academic demands (e.g., prioritizing certain subjects above others in line with the recommendations of the Ministry of Education), which also held in the transition to on-site school.

The consequences of the lengthy school closure and persistence with the online curriculum regardless of the learning challenges of adolescents were visible when the students returned to school. Upon their return, adolescents were not sufficiently prepared to continue with their education. Several staff participants recalled students openly claiming that they had not learned anything: “There were two lost years, regardless of online classes” (S. 16).

The kids came back with zero capacities... The ones we received from the 1st year of high school had the personality of 1st year of middle school, or even less. We had to dig from very low... with basic abilities in languages and math. (S. 10)

Staff were aware that starting with regular tests immediately would not work. For example, a “gradual” (S. 16) approach was used, in which short tests were averaged with work group assignments. Sometimes, schools even prohibited the issuing of failing grades.

As a result of the educational strategy implemented during lockdown, teachers and staff became worn out. This was evidenced by a higher number of medical leaves, conflicts between teachers, and emotional outbursts in the return to face-to-face education: “Truly, it [remote teaching] was very draining. There was a point when I couldn’t take it anymore, literally” (S. 11). Moreover, staff recognized that specialized support for teachers was lacking, plausibly contributing to their exhaustion: “The psychological support is for the students, but never for us, despite all we see and have to witness with the students” (S. 16). Strikingly, while many in the school staff community endorsed the need for psychologists, psychologists themselves reflected on the lack of receptiveness from teachers towards mental health initiatives, in the urge to continue with the curricular agenda, despite high levels of occupational exhaustion: “We wanted to fully support the teachers... but what did we receive in return? ‘I don’t want any workshops for myself’, ‘I don’t want emotional support’, ‘I don’t want anything from the psychology team’” (S.11).

The accounts of both adolescents and school staff about their experiences of learning/teaching during the pandemic suggest that adolescents experienced an educational system that seemed to have been implemented with little regard for the hardship it caused to both school staff and students.

Blurred boundaries

The confinement measures and adaptation of school/work settings to remote mode blurred boundaries in routines, spaces, and roles: between school and home life, between school and the family system, and between the activities and roles within families.

Blurred boundaries between school and home life

Depending on the different solutions implemented by schools to deliver education, adolescents experienced different levels of structure and school workload. For some of them, the transitions and points of the daily routine became blurred, such as waking-up time, mealtimes, and activities between online classes. As school came into the home, school and personal life intermingled, and young people struggled to separate their routines:

I spent all day on the computer, almost. Because [classes] were from 8 am to 5:30 pm... I had to stay in my pajamas all day because in the morning I would get up just in time to connect. So I took a shower at night. (A. 9)

This lack of boundaries between the school environment and the home environment was also evidenced by the fact that school classes sometimes took place in the adolescent’s bedroom, where they would usually spend their time doing leisure activities:

I sleep on the second floor... I would go downstairs only a few times... I stayed upstairs almost all day. The lockdown caused this, because I had the computer in my room, so I was in my room for all the classes. (A. 2)

Another challenge was studying with other children or parents at home (e.g., having to share reduced spaces and even the same computer to attend the online classes as required). Some adolescents reported noise around the house which made it difficult to focus. They mentioned being distracted by other members of the household (e.g., having to do errands for the family), and even family conflicts happening during online classes.

Overall, the school’s intrusion into the home environment was difficult, as many adolescents had to rearrange their daily routines and working and studying spaces, at the expense of well-defined time and space for their home life.

Blurred boundaries between school and the family system

Despite the lack of actual contact between adolescents and their schools, the school “entered” the family system. For example, the educational system made new arrangements for the delivery of food supplies provided by the government for the most economically disadvantaged students. Normally, students would receive breakfast and lunch at school every day. Due to the pandemic, this was no longer possible and grocery boxes were delivered by school staff or picked up by the student when the safety measures allowed for it.

Then I transitioned to a more social role, so to speak... family grocery boxes started to arrive... and I was the one that would deliver them to all the kids on the list. So, for a long time I went to each of their houses. (S. 6)

Additionally, given the crisis, schools decided to provide printed study materials, school clothes (in some cases), and resources to ensure that all students would be able to participate in online schooling, such as tablets and internet connection means.

‘Quickly! tablets!’, so the students could have the devices and tools that would allow them to enter the classes, having the necessary connectivity. It [the connectivity] was strengthened with SIM cards– hundreds of hundreds of SIM cards were delivered... we have kids from rural areas, that come from very remote places, where internet does not reach; otherwise they would have to go to the top of the mountain for access. (S. 2)

This way, the school entered the family system, overstepping the boundaries of its educational role and acting as a social guarantor. The boundaries were also blurred the other way around, from household to school. In a context where teachers were no longer readily and physically available in person, the most proximal source of learning support for adolescents was their family. Family members began to perform an educational role for most of the participants. Parents became the main learning support mentioned by the adolescents: “My dad always says ‘should I hire a teacher so you can understand?’ Or ‘should I help you?’... When I have many assignments piling up, my mum says ‘should I do one for you?’” (A. 1). Support from siblings and other family members was mentioned in fewer cases. Importantly, not all participating adolescents perceived their parents as supportive. They indicated that their parents could be an additional source of stress for their learning, for example, through parental pressure on them to improve their grades under schooling conditions that were already challenging.

Blurred boundaries within the family system

Adolescents and their families were compelled to spend more time together and do most of their daily activities at home, given the restrictions. This introduced the challenge of reorganizing family functioning, from the spaces that each family member used at home, to the responsibilities they could individually take. The presence of adolescents at home created opportunities for them to take on some responsibilities and duties at home, such as chores, for example. While some specified that the roles were well distributed among other members of the household (such as siblings), some others reported performing roles that seemed not developmentally appropriate, such as being responsible for the greatest share of household chores or for taking care of younger siblings during the day. Some adolescents even indicated that they had to combine household chores and online classes:

My mum seized the chance of having me home so that I could help her more with stuff like cooking lunch… Never in my life had I cooked lunch or washed the dishes, but [now] I was always tidying up... Always, with the classes in the background. (A. 17)

Some participants described these new roles as something they assumed as a natural part of the new adjustments: “I realized that complaining did not help at all, and that the earlier you finished [chores] the quicker you were free” (A. 7). For some others, the chores were even perceived as beneficial: they described feelings of happiness and purposefulness:

My dad and my mum started working, so I told her [my mum] to leave my sibling with me, at home. Then I was in charge: I looked after my sibling, cleaned up the room, washed, sometimes did practically everything... I did it happily because I was helping my family, and I had something to spend my time on. (A. 6)

There were different experiences on how to combine chores with studying. While for some, chores were perceived as getting in the way of online classes, for others they “helped to stay focused and not distracted” (A. 15).

The disruption of individual activities out of the home (e.g., going out to work or school) also blurred the family structure, by causing sudden changes in the household composition. For example, sometimes grandparents or adult siblings were reincorporated to the household, or visits to parents who did not live at home were interrupted. In some cases, this created changes in the main caregiving figures for children at home.

Adolescents ended up spending most if not all their time at home with family members. In some cases this increase in time spent together led to changes in the quality of relationships. Many adolescents reported an increase in conflict with other family members. For instance, one participant indicated that the continuous presence of his father was highly stressful: “My dad also started working here on the computer and all that stuff... I could not bear him... and my dad was more and more stressed” (A. 2). Given these blurred boundaries, another participant expressed the desire to “live alone in a forest, because I couldn’t bear my mum, or my brother, and dad barely talks” (A. 17).

Other adolescents however indicated that being at home together improved their relationships with their family members. One adolescent specifically mentioned that being at home allowed them to share more and strengthened their relationship:

[…] to accept that we were living through this and we had to move forward together. Then I started to bond more with my dad... With my mum the mother-child relationship was deepened, because I got to speak about many more things with her. (A. 19)

In these ways, the lockdown stirred up the family system. It changed dynamics, roles, and relations, and required quick adaptation from adolescents and family members to cope with the new challenges posed by the pandemic disruptions.

Development will (try to) find its way

Despite the findings that adolescents were in crisis; support systems often failed; lines between different contexts were blurred; and schools continued their ‘show’, the adolescents showed signs of normative development. Even under mandatory social distancing circumstances, developmental needs and tasks claimed their place in adolescents’ lives. Moreover, adolescents seemed to show a capacity to bounce back in their wellbeing over the year in which normality was restored.

Social domain

As adolescents struggled with the fact that their peer relationships were not as usual (broken support system), they also used all available means to remain connected in the social domain. Most adolescents reported staying in touch and making new connections by using social networks. A significant portion of them reported constant digital contact and permanent availability for interaction, particularly those with well-established friendships before the lockdown:

The fact of having 24/7 availability, to call a friend at, I don’t know, 12:00 at night, knowing that he is awake, either to talk for a while, to unwind, maybe to game, something like that. (A. 19)

Looking for other alternatives, like not meeting with my friends, but talking in a call, or sometimes we made like coffee or cooked together while in a call, or I don’t know... we talked a lot, watched movies with my friends. So, it was like searching for other options, like finding a way, so everything would not be so strict. (A. 14)

On the return to face-to-face education, most of the adolescents identified the possibility of having more contact as the greatest benefit of return: talking, going out, seeing each other, being able to meet other people. The return represented a possibility to recover opportunities for socialization that were normative and that the adolescents hoped to reestablish. It is worth noting that the supportive role of family members, especially during the return, was barely mentioned, compared to the emphasis on the importance of friendships and peers: “Meeting again with my classmates, going back to the routine we always had, playing ping pong… every break we have done the same, and it is what I have liked the most, and meeting up again, hanging out again” (A. 13).

A drive for interaction was also evidenced in accounts by school staff. They identified in adolescents a search for socialization: seeking attention, physical contact, and affection from their peers: “They could touch each other, give each other hugs, also with the teachers’’ (S. 17). This can also be seen from the perspective of reestablishing normality. Staff mentioned that they observed the adolescents’ need to socialize and hypothesized that their catching up with well-being over the months after the return was due to the fulfillment of this developmental need, enjoying the freedom “that goes on in normal life” again (S. 13).

Interaction with peers seemed to play a facilitating role in the transition back to normal, particularly for those adolescents presenting issues linked to social anxiety, who felt encouraged by their peers to socialize: “They contacted me– I wasn’t going to reply, because I felt ashamed, so they talked to me again” (A. 17). This supportive role was also reported in relation to readapting to school and learning: “[…] with the help of my best friend. She really helps me to do assignments when I don’t understand something, because she is good at it” (A. 16).

As would happen normally, during the pandemic and beyond adolescents experienced changes in their peer connections and meaningful relationships. Some participants mentioned achieving greater closeness with friends or making new connections during the lockdown and more easily on the return to school. However, difficulties in friendships were also mentioned: one student referred to a reduction in the number of peer relationships, and others reported conflicts that disrupted relationships with best friends, mainly caused by gossip or the involvement of third parties. However, and interestingly, in several cases these disruptions led to new, often more meaningful relationships, implying some reevaluation processes of friendships:

I realized that the people I talked to left me out, that I was actually never necessary in that group... I tried to get closer, but they formed a group apart from me... But the good thing was that I started to share with other people, some classmates I had never spoken to. And I found that there were many more people I shared many points of view with, but I had never shared with them. (A. 19)

I really learned to select my friends better, because there were many times during the pandemic that I realized those were not friends, but rather people to hang out with or to gossip with sometimes, something very superficial... I started to understand how to find deeper friendships. (A. 14)

In general, socialization with peers was a predominant need for adolescent participants and was very much evidenced in the reopening of society. There were only a very few participants for whom remote education was preferable to in-person education (i.e., those with a home-schooling situation implemented even before the pandemic, or adolescents who described social anxiety issues). These students perceived the presence of peers and the school context in general as stressful in the return to normal. However, for the vast majority of adolescents the return to face-to-face interactions with peers constituted an improvement in their connectedness with friends and provided opportunities to establish new relationships (e.g., with romantic partners).

Individual domain: personal development

Adolescents sometimes reflected on their personal processes during lockdown and beyond, in a way that showed that they experienced insight into different domains. Several participants described becoming more self-aware, regarding their own behavior, thoughts, and relationships. One participant mentioned, for example, that “being alone” helped them discover themselves better: “I could discover myself... because I know what things make me uncomfortable, I know which things I can say I like, and which ones I don’t” (A. 1).

Another participant mentioned that the pandemic made them “value time better”, moving them to reflect on what was important for them: “I lost a lot of time and now I am making the most of it; I lost two years and now I am living these stages” (A. 14). Some adolescents were able to reflect on the impact that safety measures had had on their self-concept: “It was also a bit hard to take the mask off, have confidence again: this is me, have I changed or not? And I decided to accept myself as I am” (A. 19).

Most adolescents described processes that involved personal growth or reaching “maturity” during the pandemic years, for example by being able to make their own decisions more consciously, even in small daily things, in connection with their need to recover a more normative autonomy. One adolescent for example mentioned getting up earlier so they could pick up a friend on the way to school, and explicitly stated “that is also a decision” (A. 7).

It is worth noting that this overall tendency to adapt was not free of complaints and struggles. For some participants, although they reported benefits of the return, some mental health complaints still persisted at the time of the interviews, and they were still having difficulty adapting to school: “[I still feel like] I will explode any moment in the classroom” (A. 1). In the same vein, although staff reported a perceptible decrease in the seriously concerning behaviors observed in the first months after the return to school, the difficulties had not completely vanished and “kids are still explosive” (S. 5).

However, all things considered, school staff remarked that adolescents in general organically bounced back to more adaptive behavior as the school year went by, with some pointing out a clear contrast between the first half of the year and the second half after the winter break. This conveys the idea that development finds its way thanks to the more normative conditions of the current context: “In the beginning there were many crises [episodes of children presenting difficulties at school], but over time that is fading away” (S. 14); “Even those we thought started really badly– we feel they finished very well” (S. 15).

A graphic summary of the findings is presented in Fig. 1.

Fig. 1

Conceptual summary of themes and school functioning in Chile during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Figure 1 illustrates the experiences of adolescents during the school closure and in the return to face-to-face schooling, as reported in the themes of our study. The adolescent is placed in the center, surrounded by relevant social systems in different spheres of the environment (home system, school system). Theme 1: The mental health crisis is represented during the school closure with a sitting adolescent, given the conditions offered by the surrounding systems described in themes 2, 3 and 4. Theme 2: “Broken support systems” are represented by broken arrows. Other supports that were present but described as less substantial are represented by dashed arrows. Theme 3: “The school agenda must go on” is represented by a large to-do list during the school closure, decreasing in size during the reopening. Theme 4: “Blurred boundaries” is represented by school, family and youth coexisting in the same space (home system) on the left. The social systems are better differentiated in the reopening. Theme 5: “Development will (try to) find its way” is represented by the change of the adolescents’ mood from left to right, provided that the conditions for normative development gradually improved in the school reopening.