This is Ask Lisa, a podcast to help people understand the psychology of parenting, now in the midst of a pandemic.

Psychologist Dr. Lisa DeMore, author of two New York Times best-selling parenting books, takes your questions.

And I'm co-host, Rina Ninan, a journalist and mom of two.

Some of what we talk about comes from raising children ourselves. Most of the time, I'll be getting

answers to your parenting questions. So send your questions to Ask Lisa at Dr.Lisademore.com.

Today we're going to talk about coronavirus and the impact on kids' social

development. So, Lisa, I found this article incredibly amusing in the New York Times. The title is,

we're all socially awkward now. And it says that people, you know, now they're deprived of interactions with their peers and their social skills are going to start to atrophy.

And this is yet another side of the pandemic.

I'm wondering if you agree with that.

You know, I saw that article and I was looking at it and I was like, oh, man, they're talking about grownups, right?

Who actually had fully developed, presumably,

fully developed social skills before the pandemic. And right away, my thought went to, okay,

what does this mean for kiddos who are still developing their social skills? And now we've got

this big pause on the normal circumstances that we put kids in to help them do this.

So that's been heavy on my mind.

You know, we actually got a question from an email from a listener.

And I want to read it to you.

It says, I'm a mother of 15-year-old.

Prior to the pandemic, she definitely tended toward being more introverted.

That being said, she has a great group of friends,

the same friends since fourth grade, and enjoys seeing them. However, she always has had difficulty

...