When the coronavirus pandemic began, Antoinette Taft’s son Noah, who was 12 at the time, disappeared into a world of screens. He spent hours alone in his bedroom, playing Fortnite and other video games. When Ms. Taft, 50, tried to coax him out, he became indignant and pleaded for a device. At his peak, he was online for 16 or 17 hours a day.

“I am embarrassed to say I found out he was setting an alarm to play with his East Coast friends at 4 or 5 in the morning,” said Ms. Taft, who lives in Albuquerque and has four other children.

She and Noah once had a warm, easy bond, but when the pandemic began she “could not get through to him,” Ms. Taft said. Noah, who is now 14, shirked his chores and schoolwork. When his mother tried to reason with him, he slammed doors and yelled.

For Ms. Taft, and for parents like her, maintaining a meaningful emotional connection with a teenager during the pandemic has been a herculean task. And the roots of that disconnect may lie in children’s emotional struggles: In a survey by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than one-third of high schoolers said they experienced poor mental health during the pandemic; and 44 percent said they felt persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness, an increase from nearly 37 percent in 2019. At the same time, estimates suggest that the average amount of time adolescents spend using screens may have doubled during the pandemic — a trend researchers believe may be contributing to teenagers’ poorer mental health.

Trying to break through to a teenager under those circumstances can feel impossible, but fortifying your emotional bond with your child helps in the long-run. Strong parental relationships are linked to higher levels of self-control in teenagers, as well as higher self-esteem. Research also suggests that adolescents generally like and admire their parents — and that they want to spend time with them, even as they are figuring out how to be more independent.

The New York Times spoke to several experts in adolescent development who shared their simple strategies for finding connection with your teenager, as many kids head back to school for the third time since the pandemic began.

Lower your expectations about what ‘connection’ actually means

When a tween or a teen is surly or standoffish, it may not simply have to do with their changing hormones; it is normal for young people to pull away from their parents as they develop. Research even shows, for instance, that adolescents’ brains are hard-wired to tune out their mothers’ voices in favor of other less familiar ones.

“Every single teenager is testing the boundary of independence,” said Dr. Jessi Gold, a psychiatrist at Washington University in St. Louis.

With that in mind, Julie Ross, executive director of the parenting education organization Parenting Horizons and author of “How to Hug a Porcupine: Negotiating the Prickly Points of the Tween Years,” said parents should temper their expectations about what strong connection during the tween and teen years looks and feels like. Yes, some teenagers remain very close to their parents, but it isn’t necessary to have deep, meaningful talks in order to have a healthy, trusting relationship.

“Teens aren’t especially ‘in sync’ with anyone, even themselves a lot of the time,” Ms. Ross said. Instead, she encourages parents to strive to be attuned to their teenagers, which can often be done by observing their body language or the way they are connecting with their peers.

Pay attention to their changes in mood or behavior, such as changes in how they are doing in school or differences in eating or sleeping patterns that last for weeks or months, which may be indicative of a larger problem such as depression or anxiety.

“If they are completely isolating themselves, or they seem really, really angry at everyone, across the board, those are red flags,” Dr. Gold said.

Be curious about their interests

Ms. Ross believes the best way to build connection with teenagers is by engaging with them about their interests. That doesn’t mean you have to share their interests, but she suggests that parents maintain an “attitude of curiosity.”

When one of her children was a teenager and was deeply into online games that she found incomprehensible, Ms. Ross was able to bond with them by asking questions about game strategy. But many banal interests can provide opportunities for connection. One of Ms. Ross’s clients became closer to her teenager by figuring out that child’s favorite Starbucks drink and delivering it after soccer practice. Dr. Katherine Ort, chief of service for child and adolescent psychiatry at Hassenfeld Children’s Hospital at N.Y.U. Langone, said it could be enough to just watch teenagers’ favorite YouTube or TikTok videos with them.

Keeping the focus of your conversations on a teenager’s interests can be particularly useful if your child is not much of a talker.

“Getting them excited about talking about something that is important to them can give you a lot of information and connection without advertising it as: ‘I would like to talk about X, Y and Z right now,’” Dr. Ort said.

Make it worth their while to turn off their screens

The strategies that can be helpful to adults who are on their phones too much can also benefit teenagers, such as experimenting with a screen fast or setting aside time for them to be away from their devices. Modeling those sacrifices is important, Dr. Ort added. Screen fasts can become a family affair.

If the goal is not simply to get your teenagers to scale back on screen time, but to entice them to willingly spend that time bonding with you, you have to make the alternative as engaging as the device, she said.

To figure out what that might be for your teenager, brainstorm together. Ms. Ross has worked with parents who’ve bonded with their teens over gross-out games like Cards Against Humanity, which appeal to their sense of humor and lighten the mood. Maybe your child wants to walk the dog together, or try a new restaurant. What matters is coming up with a screen-free option they express genuine interest in.

Try not to judge, and give it time

As Lisa Damour, a psychologist, wrote in The New York Times, one reason teenagers don’t talk to their parents is that they worry that their mother or father will have the “wrong reaction,” particularly if they are opening up about things such as doing poorly at school or experimenting with substances.

Of course, rules and structure are essential. And all parents will judge their children sometimes. But every expert interviewed emphasized the importance of giving teenagers a chance to open up, while not letting them off the hook.

“Teens will come to you more if they don’t feel like every time they do they get a lecture,” Dr. Gold said. “So try your best, when they talk to you, to validate their emotions and not judge them for what they are saying.”

For Ms. Taft, blocking off 15 minutes a day so that she and Noah can have an open conversation about his world — whether it is about something big, like an issue with friends at school, or about some mundane detail from his video game — has helped slowly bring them back together. They have also been going to online family therapy sessions, during which she has learned strategies for holding firmer boundaries around screen time.

Noah still spends around four hours a day online, more than Ms. Taft would like. But he also spent the summer going to a leadership academy and a fishing camp, where he was able to get outdoors and reconnect with peers. That has helped his mood overall, and Ms. Taft is feeling confident that the new school year will be a good one — for Noah and for their relationship.

“Slowly,” she said, “the communication has opened back up between us.”