High School’s Stress, Pressure, and Suicide: Finding a way to cope.
No doubt, high school is stressful. Striving to get those perfect straight A’s, participating in extracurricular activities, playing sports, and getting the perfect score on the SAT, all of these create academic pressure. Can such surplus pressure lead to suicide among teens? Under these circumstances, students can experience high stress. Pressure and stress can be a handful for a student, but finding healthy tactics to deal and cope with it is not as hard as you think it is.
People say the junior year of high school is the most challenging because of the SAT/ACT test, increase amount of homework, a serious plan for post secondary school, school activities, and so forth. I am currently a junior at Central High School and I totally agree with them. From doing my homework, participating in after school activities, having a social life, and my family obligations at home — finding a balance between everything is not easy. Consequently, I am often stress as I try to find ways to maintain everything while being under pressure from my parents, teachers, and peers.
Stress is not uncommon among high school students. Furthermore, the “Stress in America” by American Psychological Association (APA) surveyed 1,018 teens from the age of 13 to 17 and 1,950 adults in 2013, revealed that teens are more stress than adults. On a stress scale of 0–10, where a 3.9 score is considered to be normal, teens on averaged scored a 5.8 compared to adults who averaged a 5.1 (American Psychological Association. “Stress in America: Are Teens Adopting Adults’ Stress Habits?”). These results indicate that teens are experiencing a higher amount of stress compared to adults. There are many stressors that teens experience such as family and relationships problems, but statistics have shown that academic performance is one of the major stressor for students.
APA’s “Stress in America” reported that school is a major source of teens’ stress, along with future academic. Students’ stress is rooted in the rigorous classes such as Advanced Placement (AP), grades, college admission, and finding the balance between schoolwork, extracurricular activities, social life, and procrastination. AP courses are challenging to students, especially those who are taking up to three or four classes, due to the amount of homework from each classes, plus the AP test in the spring. As colleges become more selective, students feel more pressure to perform, therefore taking AP classes and getting straight A’s and passing the tests, involving in sports and school activities, and getting the highest SAT test to present the strongest portfolio in a competitive admission. With so much going on, students struggle to balance between schoolwork, sports, school activities, responsibilities and free time because teens have poor prioritizing skill- the stress in teens increases as they struggle to deal with procrastination. Students are stress about these academic performance because of internalize pressure from parents, teachers, and peers.
Students of this generation face an increasing amount of pressure and challenges regarding to the strive for perfection in academic. As a student I know the pressure from parents, teachers, and peers. Parents are often the first to put pressure on us. Parents always want the best for their children, so they put intense pressure on them and push them toward this “hyperachievement” culture where success is defined by our GPA, test scores, and awards. Consequently, students feel inadequate because of their ‘mediocre’ performances. I have also fallen into this “hyperachievement” culture. I am currently applying to a very selective program and was ask to send in my transcript. After talking to my counselor about my transcript, I was not sure if I should feel proud that I made to the top 12% rank. A part of me felt that I could have done better and that I should have been in the top 10% or 5% instead. I kept thinking that “I could have done better” or “I should have push myself more so I could have been in the top 10%.” These thoughts were provoked by the relentless competition with my peers. When everyone seems to be doing well and I am just doing ‘alright’; I couldn’t help it, but feel apprehensive about my grades and that I must push myself harder and become more ‘perfect’ than them. This is something that not only I do, but other students do as well in. Teachers expect a high performance on schoolwork and are constantly reminding us of college; if you do not work hard then you’ll never get into college. With these high expectations, we have come to believe that in order to get into the top colleges we must take the ‘right’ classes and have the best grades to gain admission.
Nevertheless, it is argued that school is not putting enough pressure on students. The international ranking of Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries demonstrate that the United States is falling behind in education than other countries like China, Japan, Korea, and Finland (Ryan, Julia. “American Schools vs. the World: Expensive, Unequal, Bad at Math.”). This show that the education system in the U.S are not pushing students hard enough to do well in school, however, with the explosive growth in the number of students taking AP classes over the past 25 years and colleges have become more selective, the pressure on students is high. Since AP classes boost GPA and give college credits (if you pass the test), these are incentives for students to take AP classes. Along with the increase of students taking AP classes, the number of high students graduates had also increased over the years, according to the Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics, from 1991 to 2004 it had increased by 24% and is expected to grow another 5% before 2017, this is an additional 700,000 high school graduates waiting for college admission, but the number of colleges still remain the same (Wilde, Marian. “Are We Stressing out Our Kids?”). This result in with colleges being even more selective and create more pressure on students to perform and present the best. Such environment that center around hyperachievement can lead to suicide among teens.
A stressful and overachieving environment like the Palo Alto Unified School district had encountered teen suicide. Starting from May 5th 2009, a 17 year old male student of Gunner High school jumped in front of an oncoming Caltrain, it followed by June 2nd, a 17 year old girl and again August 21st an incoming freshman. Then two more suicide cases followed in 2010. Just last year in 2014, three students at one of the nation’s prestigious school, Palo Alto High School in California also jumped in front of a Caltrain, killing themselves. These series of events are known as suicide clusters- defined as a group of three or more suicides in close time or geographic proximity- in the Palo Alto Unified School district (Bruni, Frank. “Best, Brightest — and Saddest?”). As one of the highest ranking school, the fierce competition, stress and pressure is high and alive. The cause of these tragedies is complex, but academic performance and pressures have been found to be strongly related to teenage suicide problem and are one of the main causes leading to it. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in 2003 the rate of suicide was 6.74 per every 100,000 Americans between the ages of 10 and 24, it increased to 8.15 in 2013. They also report that 17% of American high school students had considered suicide in the previous year and 8% said they’d attempted it (Bruni, Frank. “Best, Brightest — and Saddest?”). These alarming statistics show that over the last decade, the suicide rate among all teenagers has seemingly risen a bit and 8% even attempted it. Death is a tragic for the family and friends left behind, so students shouldn’t resolve to it, instead find coping strategy for stress and their problems.
High school is not easy for anyone. Under the stress and pressure students feel overwhelmed however, students should understand that taking a little break from it is okay. The APA Stress in America survey revealed that about 42 percent of teens don’t know how to manage and cope with stress, but even so coping strategies are not complex and difficult (American Psychological Association. “Stress in America: Are Teens Adopting Adults’ Stress Habits?”). APA suggested that physical activity is the most effective way to manage stress. Physical activities just doesn’t mean playing a sport or going for a run, it can be walking, hiking, biking, skateboarding, and yoga. There are other coping strategies beside physical activity, such as finding hobbies that is enjoyable like listening or playing music, drawing. Talking to parents or a trusted adult is a great way to relief stress too. They can also help find new coping strategies. There are numerous of coping options that students can find and enjoy.
Students pressure by society to succeed in academic leads to a hyperachievement culture that often stress students about their grades and their performance for college admission. This is very dangerous regarding to suicide among teens. Concerning this, students should learn how to manage stress and understand that it isn’t difficult. There are many, many ways to deal with stress to prevent suicide as an option. As I continue my junior year, I know that it well be very stressful, but it’s the way I manage it, will get me through the year.
sources:
American Psychological Association. “Stress in America: Are Teens Adopting Adults’ Stress Habits?” PsycEXTRA Dataset (2013): n. pag. American Psychological Association, 11 Feb. 2014. Web. 6 Dec. 2015.
Bruni, Frank. “Best, Brightest — and Saddest?” New York Times, 11 Apr. 2015. Web. 06 Dec. 2015.
Durisch, Anna Barchetti. “Education and Suicide.” Global Education Magazine. Global Education Magazine, 8 Mar. 2015. Web. 6 Dec. 2015.
Dwyer, Lucy. “When Anxiety Hits at School.” The Atlantic. Atlantic Media Company, 03 Oct. 2014. Web. 07 Dec. 2015.
Jayson, Sharon. “Teens Feeling Stressed, and Many Not Managing It Well.” USA Today. Gannett, 11 Feb. 2014. Web. 06 Dec. 2015.
Ossola, Alexandra. “High-Stress High School.” The Atlantic. Atlantic Media Company, 09 Oct. 2015. Web. 07 Dec. 2015.
Ryan, Julia. “American Schools vs. the World: Expensive, Unequal, Bad at Math.” The Atlantic. Atlantic Media Company, 03 Dec. 2013. Web. 06 Dec. 2015.
Wilde, Marian. “Are We Stressing out Our Kids? | GreatKids.” GreatKids. GreatKids, 6 Dec. 2015. Web. 06 Dec. 2015.
Pictures:
http://blogs.arcadia.edu/studyabroad/2012/02/13/school-work-and-other-thoughts/
http://studentroomslondon.com/2015/02/26/how-to-battle-student-stress/
http://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/stress/2013/stress-report.pdf
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/02/11/stress-teens-psychological/5266739/
http://cdn.c.photoshelter.com/img-get2/I0000kCM8mVjWKEg/fit=1000x750/CHINA-HighSchool064.jpg
