Highschooler Stress

By: MuhammadShaheer Imran

Maleeha Imran, 12th-grade student, is currently stressed on getting into a good college. When asked to describe her stress she said,”I  have a lot of essays to write and no time to write them”. She also said, “I am not sure if my decisions are correct”. She said she would rate her stress on a scale from one to ten a six.

High school students appear to have at least some levels of stress. To find out more about high school stress, a survey was done by researchers from NYUCN led by Noell R.Leonard on private school students’ stress and it assessed the students’ coping skills, academic engagement, family involvement and expectations, mental health symptoms and substance us. After conducting the survey 49% if students reported having a great deal of stress, 31% of students reported to have some levels of stress and 26% reported to have clinical symptoms of depression. Three of the main causes of stress for the students were homework, grades, and colleges. 48% of the students said that they had at least three hours of homework every night. Parents seem to also stress the students. After interviewing Maleeha Imran’s mother about parental stress, she replied, “Parents do seem to cause some students to be stressed because they always ask of them. they are a big cause of students’ stress”. Aside from stressing their students with all of their demands, some parents would even prevent students from going to physicians and other specialists in fear that the student would be counted as unfit into going to a college of their choosing. Students have to come up with ways to deal with all their stress. When coping with all of their stress, students methods differ from each other. Some of the notable methods of coping with stress are: sports and exercising, preventative activities such as good planning skills and maintaining a balanced perspective on school and grades. However, some students resort to alcohol and illegal substances, most commonly marijuana. Around 38% of students resorted to alcohol and 34% resorted to illegal substances. When talking about how the stress felt, one student mentioned,”I feel like I just want to be alone and sleep”. Maleeha Imran says that she feels the same way sometimes because of stress. Stress in high school can ruin the students’ adult lives.

One way we can help high school students that we can use right now is preparing them for high school. If students come prepared knowing what to expect from high school or at least partially, it can help them for their entire adult lives. Hopefully, students won’t have to resort to drugs or alcohol in the future.