Intro to High School: Facing the Stress
By: Arianny Suriel
Tags: Teenagers, Academic Stress, High School, Stress

Lesson 1: The Clock is Ticking

Image Source: Daria Kisleva/ the McGill Tribune

What does high school mean to you? Was it a time of exhilarating freedom, a period of personal evaluation, or a distant nightmare? For some, it may have been all of the above.

While high schools are differ depending on the country and customs of an area, the core values are, for the most part, similar. High school is to prepare the youth to venture into adulthood and feel better prepared to handle the “real” world. Part-time jobs, extensive academic programs, and social relationships are usually linked to high school for many youths. But, how has high school changed over the decades, and is it for the better?

20 years ago….40 years ago…60 years ago…what was high school really like? Well, for one part, the number of classes available was limited, and the amount of time dedicated to classwork after-school was also more manageable. Today though, students are expected to enter college with an adult resume full of the most prestigious classes, an impressive list of clubs, in combination with skill sets useful for their future career.

Don’t get me wrong; being fully prepared for your future is absolutely splendid, especially if you are passionate about what you want to do. Schools create an environment where you can access so many outlets to grow social connections and learn about the world to become well-rounded individuals. The only concern is…how much of the individual’s mental health is being sacrificed so that they can be “well-rounded”?

Image Source:SpringerLink

Image Source: Longdom Publishing SL

One over-arching theme presented in high school is academic achievement — a large goal being attaining success. This success-driven mentality, though, can lead to academic stress. Further down the line, academic stress can then manifest into anxiety, depression, and students’ loss of motivation.

To corroborate the diagrams depicted above, some statistics worldwide can help see the truth behind academic stress. According to a study in China (“A Review on the Relationship Between Chinese Adolescents’ Stress and Academic Achievement.”), students spend more than 16 hours a day to increase their chances of making it to college. Even with such effort, in 2019, of the almost 865,800 who took the national college entrance exam in China, only 366,700 were accepted into colleges. Likewise, a study performed in India (“Academic Stress, Parental Pressure, Anxiety, and Mental Health among Indian High School Students.”) showed that in a sample pool of 190 teenagers, 63.5% were suffering from academic stress. Neglecting self-confidence, as well as social and self-attention, can result in failure instead of success.

Living exclusively for school and continually fearing failure is devastating for all hard-working students, but there are other contributing factors behind these worsening occurrences of stress.

Lesson 2: Parental Pressure

Image Source: cehs News

Other than the school’s competitive nature, local area circumstances and parents are other key contributors to stress. Many parents do not want their children to be left behind in the whirlwind of life, which can cause them to be stricter and more authoritative about school. Some parents even go to the extent of removing all “frivolous” activities — like enjoying time with friends and participating in activities not related to school. This “tough-love” strategy may morph into an unhealthy cycle of telling their teenagers to improve.