High school and college students are stressed out, but we already knew that. A new study points out that it’s not just run-of-the-mill stress, though. Young people are anxious, ill and facing other mental health problems like “hypomania” and “psychopathic deviation.” The study was conducted by Jean M. Twenge, Ph.D., author of Generation Me: Why Today’s Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled—and More Miserable Than Ever Before. She is also co-author of the Narcissism Epidemic.

Students’ psychological health has declined significantly over decades, according to researchers who used the same questionnaire that was administered in a similar study during the Great Depression. Some psychologists attribute the problems to high—even unrealistic—expectations about achievement, success and, especially, materialism.

Critics of the study contend that maybe young people are just more aware of their issues or of the services available to them. But who can argue that young people are not inundated by pressures to be perfect? The volume of “stuff” available and pushed on us is unprecedented. If kids don’t have the same technology as their friends, they won’t receive group messages, they’ll be left out of online games, etc. Young people have become obsessive about their looks as ads for procedures dictate physical ideals. There’s a medication to grow fuller eyelashes…as if the worries about fuller hair, lips and breasts weren’t enough. It’s hard to feel “good enough” anymore, and we all know the teen years are painful even without these additional pressures.

So, what’s a parent to do? I am constantly trying to balance between unrealistic expectations and high expectations in areas such as academics and personal responsibility. Sometimes making it through alive is good enough. Perfection is unattainable, and we’ll have happier kids if we can teach them this. Fortunately, I have my kids to remind me of this occasionally. At the beginning of this school year, I noticed one of those huge plastic security tags on my son’s shorts as I was dropping him off in the parking lot. I said, “You can’t go in like that.” He considered his options, climbed out of the car and shrugged. “Who cares?” Share this Post

     

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