2. Embracing Lockdown
All young people described the positives of lockdown, and most made a conscious effort to engage in self-care and make the most of the situation.
2.1 Enjoying new opportunities. All participants identified some positives of lockdown when asked about their experiences. Some said they enjoyed having more free time, and welcomed this opportunity to have “more time to relax” (Sofee) and “rest a bit more and… get away from the stress of school” (Bruce). The majority of participants also commented that they enjoyed using the extra time to engage in existing hobbies such as playing games online or with siblings, watching television, and baking: “a positive is like, I get to stay home and that and like I get to catch up on my favourite TV shows and I just get to do loads of fun stuff” (Elsa). Others also described using lockdown as an opportunity to “find new hobbies” (McEye) or learn a skill: “I’ve got a lot more like practical abilities like I can cook, I can cook pasta after it and yeah I can do a lot more” (Gerald); “we got table tennis… and then we got badminton, volleyball, archery, foot tennis, football…” (Jeff).
2.2 Opportunities to build quality relationships. The majority of young people talked about the perceived impact of lockdown on their relationships, with many enjoying the opportunity to spend more time with their family and strengthen their relationships:
I’ve got, like, to spend more time with like, my family… Because usually we just like, would say bye in the morning, then when we come back, we’d just go on our phones and stuff, and not really speak to each other but we’ve had, like, more time together and stuff so that’s good… me and my sister are a bit like closer and stuff because we have more time together to like do things (Sofee).
When asked about the positives of lockdown, one participants answered: “family bonding definitely. [Mum’s] my friend now” (Jeff); although a couple of participants highlighted there was an adjustment period: “there’s a context of us all trying to learn how to do something in a completely different way and not rub each other up the wrong way… [but] I think as a family… I think I’ve got a bit better relationship with them” (Alfred). However, lockdown did encourage a couple of young people to take stock of their lives and appreciate their friendships: “I guess I’ve come to see how lucky I am to have all these friends” (Peter).
2.3 Self-care and coping. Participants described actively engaging in self-care strategies in an attempt to care for their wellbeing or cheer themselves up. This included activities such as art, playing games, watching television, and reaching out to friends. A common strategy was finding activities that would just “pass the time” such as using social media, in order to prevent boredom. Some young people also recognised the strategies that would not be beneficial for their wellbeing:
If I did feel frustrated, I think I’d just probably forget schoolwork for that day because I could catch it up on another day. I’d probably just listen to music or something, just to try and cheer me up or like read a book because I know that just watching TV would just not help that much (Olaf).
Several participants emphasised the importance of trying to have a positive mind set in order to care for their wellbeing. Two participants felt that setting goals helped their wellbeing, while others thought that keeping a positive attitude or hopeful outlook was beneficial: “you shouldn’t worry about it too much because it’ll just make you panic even more about it, and just like, try to stay focused and stuff” (Sofee). Some participants seemed to find accepting the situation and acknowledging that they had no control over it was a useful strategy, although it could be difficult: “it was hard to try and, you know, stay positive about it. But I guess there was nothing else we could do” (Isabel).
Conversely, participants also found that some things boosted their wellbeing or made them “happier”, although they did not engage in them specifically for this purpose. This included talking to their friends, being outside, spending time with their pets, baking, playing games, watching their favourite television show, and playing on video game consoles: “what’s helped me is, spending time with everyone… calling my friends, and being on the phone and stuff and still being able to talk to them” (McEye); “go out on a walk or on like a run or something, that made me feel better, or like stroke my dog and stuff” (Sofee).
However, not all participants’ found it easy to cope, and the coping strategies they implemented were not necessarily adaptive. One participant commented that they had felt that “it’s been harder to like, cope… it’s been harder to cope with, just cope with school, like coping with your behaviour” due to the fact that “loads of things have changed”, and explained that they would “eat” in an attempt to make themselves feel better (Mr Miyagi).