COVID-19 has put the population to test with a relevant impact on children and adolescents. For the latter, in our country, research has focused its attention on the consequences of prolonged social distancing, highlighting the emergence of various forms of psychological distress. At the global level Distance Learning (DL) has been indicated as the cause of this discomfort. On the basis of these premises, the author proposes a reflection not so much on adolescents but on the role played by adults in exploiting (or not) this suspended time in order to question themselves on some fundamental matters linked to them as authoritative reference figures. The hypothesis is that an opportunity has been missed due to the excessive crystallization of discourse around DL.
Keywords: adolescents; COVID-19; distance learning; psychological distress; adult educators