Well, I appreciate the acknowledgment of brains being wired differently and bad experiences affecting outlooks too. Try posting in the Health, Jobs and Finances forums. They could use more posters who realize livelihoods are on the line and all the consequences that go with that. Good luck!

Jesus can we stop using the word grief for disappointment. Keep some perspective. No wonder these kids can't handle anything.

Anonymous wrote:I suspected you may have had a bad Hs experience and I’m sorry for that and your other worries. But you’ve chosen to post on a seniors thread while not being able to have empathy for their full losses. Not the best place to be in that case. It just puts you and everyone else on defense.

PP again. Thank you 16:51. It was the worst time in my life so far. You could not pay me to go back! Also, because of my ASD and my brain being different I sometimes get stuck in very literal and black-and-white thinking, which is why it is hard for me to empathize with seniors losing prom and graduation while thousands of people are dying every day and millions are losing their livelihoods.

Anonymous wrote: I do not have any senior pictures other than the ones I was required by the school to take for the yearbook. I did not have any friends in HS due to social difficulties from being on the autism spectrum and having a very rare brain condition that was diagnosed in my 20s. I was bullied so badly that the administration had to get involved. Therefore, there are no pictures of me with friends at graduation. I did not attend prom or the all-night grad bash or the senior social for the one activity I was involved with. I did not even care about the graduation ceremony for the most part. It was beyond boring! I was so happy to leave when it was over and my parents did not make me stay to take pictures, because they knew how brutal HS had been for me. My mom recently confided to me that she was worried that I was going to commit suicide during HS because I was in such a depressed state at times.

I'm really sorry that your high school sucked. In your case, I can understand that having the last semester of senior year at home would have actually been a positive thing for you.

Anonymous wrote:
It's not a loss in the least compared to the 26 million people who lost their jobs or to the 56,000 people who lost family members, colleagues, neighbors, and friends to COVID-19. I'm really sorry, but I have very little sympathy for the seniors right now. I am furloughed until at least June. Several of my friends had to shut down their businesses that they worked so hard to build. They hope they can reopen someday. I have several family members who are high-risk, including my mom who is a cancer survivor and my grandfather who is 91 and lives by himself 12 hours from the rest of his family. I have much bigger things to worry about than HS seniors not having their special events.

You know what? My husband has ALS and is dealing with the loss of the ability to move his muscles, and breathe on his own.

My HS senior is still allowed to grieve the loss of his senior year. It's not a competition for who is suffering the most.

I suspected you may have had a bad Hs experience and I’m sorry for that and your other worries. But you’ve chosen to post on a seniors thread while not being able to have empathy for their full losses. Not the best place to be in that case. It just puts you and everyone else on defense.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You do you. But you can’t tell others how to feel. While well aware of what’s going on in the country which does help with perspective, seniors have a right to feel their loss too.

What are they really losing? They're still graduating. They're still going to get to get their diplomas and go on to college/jobs. They have the technology to stay in touch with friends. They're only losing out on the symbolic ceremonies.

Look, none of these kids knew that their last day of high school was going to be that day in March. They still have stuff in their lockers. It's a loss. Everyone of them is going to process this a little differently.

It's not a loss in the least compared to the 26 million people who lost their jobs or to the 56,000 people who lost family members, colleagues, neighbors, and friends to COVID-19. I'm really sorry, but I have very little sympathy for the seniors right now. I am furloughed until at least June. Several of my friends had to shut down their businesses that they worked so hard to build. They hope they can reopen someday. I have several family members who are high-risk, including my mom who is a cancer survivor and my grandfather who is 91 and lives by himself 12 hours from the rest of his family. I have much bigger things to worry about than HS seniors not having their special events.

Then go worry about them, get the hell off this forum, and leave the damn kids alone.

AND ANOTHER THING (pp here). You're not that special. Lots of us are out of work, losing our businesses, worried about family members have perhaps lost family members. Including the high school seniors. LET. THE KIDS. HAVE THEIR GRIEF.

+1 Perhaps the PP who is not worried about the kids loss can go throw her own senior pictures and any other graduation memories down the trash while she is at it.

I am the PP. Please think before you judge people. You do not know their story. Here's mine. I do not have any senior pictures other than the ones I was required by the school to take for the yearbook. I did not have any friends in HS due to social difficulties from being on the autism spectrum and having a very rare brain condition that was diagnosed in my 20s. I was bullied so badly that the administration had to get involved. Therefore, there are no pictures of me with friends at graduation. I did not attend prom or the all-night grad bash or the senior social for the one activity I was involved with. I did not even care about the graduation ceremony for the most part. It was beyond boring! I was so happy to leave when it was over and my parents did not make me stay to take pictures, because they knew how brutal HS had been for me. My mom recently confided to me that she was worried that I was going to commit suicide during HS because I was in such a depressed state at times.

By the way, I am actually very worried about the kids. I'm worried about them getting the virus and about the adults in their families losing their jobs or getting sick. I am worried for the juniors who were supposed to visit colleges and take SATs and ACTs this spring. They are going to be impacted by this more than the seniors. The seniors already have their acceptances! I am worried for the kids who will be taking 45-minute AP exams from home and are not sure if colleges will even accept them. I am worried that the seniors who go to college will not be able to start on time. In my opinion, that's much more detrimental than not being able to have a graduation or prom.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You do you. But you can’t tell others how to feel. While well aware of what’s going on in the country which does help with perspective, seniors have a right to feel their loss too.

What are they really losing? They're still graduating. They're still going to get to get their diplomas and go on to college/jobs. They have the technology to stay in touch with friends. They're only losing out on the symbolic ceremonies.

Look, none of these kids knew that their last day of high school was going to be that day in March. They still have stuff in their lockers. It's a loss. Everyone of them is going to process this a little differently.

It's not a loss in the least compared to the 26 million people who lost their jobs or to the 56,000 people who lost family members, colleagues, neighbors, and friends to COVID-19. I'm really sorry, but I have very little sympathy for the seniors right now. I am furloughed until at least June. Several of my friends had to shut down their businesses that they worked so hard to build. They hope they can reopen someday. I have several family members who are high-risk, including my mom who is a cancer survivor and my grandfather who is 91 and lives by himself 12 hours from the rest of his family. I have much bigger things to worry about than HS seniors not having their special events.

Then go worry about them, get the hell off this forum, and leave the damn kids alone.

AND ANOTHER THING (pp here). You're not that special. Lots of us are out of work, losing our businesses, worried about family members have perhaps lost family members. Including the high school seniors. LET. THE KIDS. HAVE THEIR GRIEF.

+1 Perhaps the PP who is not worried about the kids loss can go throw her own senior pictures and any other graduation memories down the trash while she is at it.

Some real a-holes here. People, including HS seniors, are allowed to grieve for what matters to them. Yes, people are out of work. Yes, people died. And those are both absolutely horrible things. And yet, humans have capacity to have feelings about more than one thing at a time. But you can't tell others how to feel, and trying to do so helps no one.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow I am a senior English teacher and so many of my students are absolutely devastated right now — some of you posting on this thread are downright mean!

Most schools are scrambling to try to find ways to help them feel special. And they SHOULD feel special. I’m disheartened to read so many parents disagree.

Devastated? Oh please! They should watch the news out of NYC and NJ (where I live) to get some perspective. That's devastating. Not being able to have some dance and ceremony is not devastating. Maybe it's kind of disappointing, but not devastating! If this had happened during my senior year (2008) and I was being a sour puss over senior stuff being canceled, my mother would have screamed, "Grow up and get the f*** over it!" in my face. She actually did that to me a few years ago when I was upset over not getting a new job that I really wanted.

I am actually an HS teacher too and some of my students are actually relieved about not having the prom and all-night grad party, because they did not want to go and their parents were going to force them to go. A lot of them also made comments about how graduation was going to be boring, because they had attended previous ceremonies due to being in band or choir. I don't think the kids are as upset as they are being made out to be. They are being more mature than most adults about this.

Yeah... devastated. And that's totally age appropriate. Being mature and devastated are not mutually exclusive: they can be deeply upset at their own losses right now (which are losses, especially when you think of the range of things they're missing out on -- a 'normal' starting college journey being one of them) while at the same time be able to understand the gravity of the pandemic in its entirety. They can do both. Let them have their grief without belittling it as "not mature!"

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You do you. But you can’t tell others how to feel. While well aware of what’s going on in the country which does help with perspective, seniors have a right to feel their loss too.

What are they really losing? They're still graduating. They're still going to get to get their diplomas and go on to college/jobs. They have the technology to stay in touch with friends. They're only losing out on the symbolic ceremonies.

Look, none of these kids knew that their last day of high school was going to be that day in March. They still have stuff in their lockers. It's a loss. Everyone of them is going to process this a little differently.

It's not a loss in the least compared to the 26 million people who lost their jobs or to the 56,000 people who lost family members, colleagues, neighbors, and friends to COVID-19. I'm really sorry, but I have very little sympathy for the seniors right now. I am furloughed until at least June. Several of my friends had to shut down their businesses that they worked so hard to build. They hope they can reopen someday. I have several family members who are high-risk, including my mom who is a cancer survivor and my grandfather who is 91 and lives by himself 12 hours from the rest of his family. I have much bigger things to worry about than HS seniors not having their special events.

Then go worry about them, get the hell off this forum, and leave the damn kids alone.

AND ANOTHER THING (pp here). You're not that special. Lots of us are out of work, losing our businesses, worried about family members have perhaps lost family members. Including the high school seniors. LET. THE KIDS. HAVE THEIR GRIEF.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You do you. But you can’t tell others how to feel. While well aware of what’s going on in the country which does help with perspective, seniors have a right to feel their loss too.

What are they really losing? They're still graduating. They're still going to get to get their diplomas and go on to college/jobs. They have the technology to stay in touch with friends. They're only losing out on the symbolic ceremonies.

Look, none of these kids knew that their last day of high school was going to be that day in March. They still have stuff in their lockers. It's a loss. Everyone of them is going to process this a little differently.

It's not a loss in the least compared to the 26 million people who lost their jobs or to the 56,000 people who lost family members, colleagues, neighbors, and friends to COVID-19. I'm really sorry, but I have very little sympathy for the seniors right now. I am furloughed until at least June. Several of my friends had to shut down their businesses that they worked so hard to build. They hope they can reopen someday. I have several family members who are high-risk, including my mom who is a cancer survivor and my grandfather who is 91 and lives by himself 12 hours from the rest of his family. I have much bigger things to worry about than HS seniors not having their special events.

Then go worry about them, get the hell off this forum, and leave the damn kids alone.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You do you. But you can’t tell others how to feel. While well aware of what’s going on in the country which does help with perspective, seniors have a right to feel their loss too.

What are they really losing? They're still graduating. They're still going to get to get their diplomas and go on to college/jobs. They have the technology to stay in touch with friends. They're only losing out on the symbolic ceremonies.

Look, none of these kids knew that their last day of high school was going to be that day in March. They still have stuff in their lockers. It's a loss. Everyone of them is going to process this a little differently.

It's not a loss in the least compared to the 26 million people who lost their jobs or to the 56,000 people who lost family members, colleagues, neighbors, and friends to COVID-19. I'm really sorry, but I have very little sympathy for the seniors right now. I am furloughed until at least June. Several of my friends had to shut down their businesses that they worked so hard to build. They hope they can reopen someday. I have several family members who are high-risk, including my mom who is a cancer survivor and my grandfather who is 91 and lives by himself 12 hours from the rest of his family. I have much bigger things to worry about than HS seniors not having their special events.

Anonymous wrote:Wow I am a senior English teacher and so many of my students are absolutely devastated right now — some of you posting on this thread are downright mean!

Most schools are scrambling to try to find ways to help them feel special. And they SHOULD feel special. I’m disheartened to read so many parents disagree.

Thank you for chiming in, and thank you for being there for your students. I have a senior. My guess is that he's sharing more with his peers and some teachers than he is with me about his feelings about school. I know he feels the loss.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You do you. But you can’t tell others how to feel. While well aware of what’s going on in the country which does help with perspective, seniors have a right to feel their loss too.

What are they really losing? They're still graduating. They're still going to get to get their diplomas and go on to college/jobs. They have the technology to stay in touch with friends. They're only losing out on the symbolic ceremonies.

Look, none of these kids knew that their last day of high school was going to be that day in March. They still have stuff in their lockers. It's a loss. Everyone of them is going to process this a little differently.