What’s Behind Teen Stress?

There have been a flurry of articles about a) Tiger Moms putting unnecessary stress on their high school children and b) the recent teen suicides in the Bay Area. 

While I completely agree that nobody should ever have to face so much pressure that the only plausible solution is suicide – my heart goes out to those teens and their families – I do believe that the real problem is not the “pressure” but the type of work the students are doing and why they are doing it.  I’ll explain why below – stay with me.

Somewhere along the line a long time ago, parents “heard” that a student was admitted to Harvard because he was the MVP for a sport – so then all of the parents rushed to put their kids in a sport, or two, or three!  After school, kids’ schedules were mired in practices and private lessons for several sports: basketball, tae kwon do, dance, competitive basket weaving, etc.  The kids were neither improving their skills nor really enjoying the activities because they were so overscheduled.

Then, parents “heard” that a student got into Stanford because she took 10 AP classes – and you got it, all of the parents pushed their kids to take more and more AP classes to improve their kids’ chances of getting into Stanford.

But the problem we’re facing today is that nobody’s asking if the kids are learning or engaged in their studies.  Have you ever looked at the curriculum for AP classes?  I have, and it’s pretty dismal.  The students spend the entire school year preparing for the AP test in May.  Teachers can’t indulge students with fascinating tangents or interesting related topics because they can’t “waste time covering material that will not be on the exam.” Well, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that the AP classes are all about memorizing facts, practicing writing essays using the style and format required for the course, and spending 8 months drilling for that test.

Forget about exploring the subject or writing comprehensive research papers to give the students the intellectual freedom to engage in the material.  Nobody cares about whether or not the student finds the subject stimulating; all the parents and teachers care about is the score at the end of the year. Hmm.

Let me give another example. When parents “heard” that a student got into Yale because she started a club and participated in a few others at school, parents started pushing their kids to join clubs just for the sake of joining them.  The students often didn’t even go to the meetings and nobody kept track of attendance because it was all for show. Most kids that I work with tell me that they don’t really know what’s going on in the clubs and that they might show up for 30 minutes during lunch once a week.  Jack of all trades, master of none!

And finally, everyone knows that grades and SAT/ACT scores are the main criteria by which colleges determine who gets in and who doesn’t. So, parents pay oodles of money for their children to spend countless hours for tutoring in classes and SAT/ACT prep.  I remember a student who was in tears because she got a 2370 on her SAT I.  Hellooooo – a 2400 is a perfect score.  When she told me she was upset because 6 other kids at her school got a 2400, I was flabbergasted. Imagine not being happy with a 2370?

When our children are pressured into doing all of the above, it’s no surprise that they are depressed and stressed out. They are worried that they won’t get into their dream college if they don’t excel in sports, AP classes, SATs/ACTs, and get the perfect GPA. But they’re also stressed out because they’re spending their precious time doing things they aren’t engaged in.  If the students get to choose what classes are interesting to them and spend time exploring various fields and concepts, they wouldn’t be as stressed out. We’d have to pull them away from it!  Chasing impossible scores or grades is stressful because most students don’t succeed at that.  But reading books that they love or tinkering on projects that fascinate them is a healthy and innovative way to spend their time.

The good news is that the top colleges in the United States also recognize this. After all, colleges don’t want entering freshmen to be burnt out from 4 years of AP classes and overloaded extracurriculars.  These types of students only fizzle out when they arrive on college campuses.  Instead, these excellent universities want students who are engaged and as a result, are interesting young adults. Many colleges no longer give more weight to students who have more than a couple AP classes or after-school activities.  They know students can’t really be focused on 15 AP classes, 10 school clubs, and 12 volunteer gigs; it’s impossible. 

I recommend that college-bound students take interesting classes that give them a taste for potential careers, while also taking foundation classes so they enter college with a strong academic background. For extracurriculars, I help the students do one project that absolutely fascinates them (not their parents or what they think the colleges would like to see).  That way, they’ll have time to enjoy doing research and developing their projects. This makes for happier students who can learn more and do it with considerably less stress!