Are teens stressed?
Recently a Chinese teenager spoke on media about the stressful life she had which then fuelled 33 million other young people to hashtag #17YearOldsReallyHaveAStressfulLife on the Chinese version of Twitter called Sian Weibo. In recent years mental health problems among young people in the United Kingdom have also exploded with our teens suffering with anxiety, depression, eating disorders and other issues. Many who do request help are told they have to wait or don’t meet the right criteria such as having an eating disorder.
Teenagers in our country and many others are stressed with schoolwork including exams, their future due to the possibilities of unemployment, family stress perhaps due to parents working long hours or a family member with a chronic illness, role models being unavailable etc; some teens do manoeuvre themselves through various stresses but wish they had adults who understood life as a teen or young adult is stressful. Sometimes as parents we can make comments such as ‘Back in my day…’ or ‘When I was a teen school/exams/life…’ so they may hold back from saying. They are also seeing their parents struggle to make enough for mortgage/rent/school trips/holidays/school uniforms etc and can feel responsible for some of that when that shouldn’t be their worry.
According to Mental Health Foundation (UK), 20% of teens may experience a mental health problem in any given year with half of mental health issues being formed by age 14 and three quarters by age 24. They also note that 70% of children, teens and young adults not getting the proper interventions that could aid them at the right time. Young Minds (https://youngminds.org.uk/) said that 1 in 12 young people self-harm; then noted 17% of deaths in boys and 11% of deaths in girls are from suicide. Papyrus (Prevention of Young Suicide https://www.papyrus-uk.org/) say that 200 school children per year commit suicide and it is the leading cause of death among young people. These statistics are shocking and we need to remember that many of these young people have to fight to get care.
Things need to change as our future generation do need support and appropriate care at the right time. When given the chance to talk and explain one can soon see the pressure young people are trying to cope with in life.