The first year of the COVID-19 pandemic was a tumultuous time for adolescents across North America. Social and family lives were upended, schooling was often in flux, activities and milestones were canceled, and the political and medical uncertainties dominated societal discourses. A growing research base demonstrates how the pandemic impacted young people across 2020 and 2021, but there is less work on how they made meaning and incorporated these interpretations into emerging identities. This study integrates surveys in the spring and fall 2020 with interviews in winter 2021 to explore how 18 United States and Canadian adolescents made meaning across time, with a specific focus on the impacts on their family, peer, and school lives. Four main themes were demarcated in the analyses: personal growth and maturation from experiences of the pandemic; concrete skill development, new learning strategies, and new activities tied to remote schooling; redefined or reimagined social identity and connections; and stressors of the pandemic as opportunities for deeper appreciation of family relationships and values, even amid increased tension and conflict. These findings highlight potential ways that adolescents’ demonstrated resilience through their meaning making, which could contribute to strengths-based understandings to complement the current attention to negative outcomes.

COVID-19 大流行的第一年对于北美各地的青少年来说是一段动荡的时期。社会和家庭生活被颠覆，学校教育经常变化，活动和里程碑被取消，政治和医疗的不确定性主导了社会话语。越来越多的研究表明这一流行病如何影响 2020 年和 2021 年的年轻人，但关于他们如何创造意义并将这些解释融入新兴身份的研究较少。这项研究将 2020 年春季和秋季的调查与 2021 年冬季的访谈结合起来，探讨 18 名美国和加拿大青少年如何随着时间的推移创造意义，特别关注对其家庭、同伴和学校生活的影响。分析中划分了四个主题：疫情经历中的个人成长和成熟；具体技能发展、新的学习策略以及与远程教育相关的新活动；重新定义或重新构想社会身份和联系；即使在紧张和冲突加剧的情况下，疫情带来的压力和压力也是加深理解家庭关系和价值观的机会。这些发现强调了青少年通过意义创造表现出韧性的潜在方式，这可能有助于基于优势的理解，以补充当前对负面结果的关注。即使在紧张和冲突加剧的情况下。这些发现强调了青少年通过意义创造表现出韧性的潜在方式，这可能有助于基于优势的理解，以补充当前对负面结果的关注。即使在紧张和冲突加剧的情况下。这些发现强调了青少年通过意义创造表现出韧性的潜在方式，这可能有助于基于优势的理解，以补充当前对负面结果的关注。