The main cause of stress for teens is school. Do you agree?

I agree that the main cause of stress is school. I have based my stand on an online article
Article on Stress
Stress may be caused by friction between student and parent. However, the root of the friction is school and academic results. In the above article, a tenth grader or in other words, a secondary four student, works hard so that her parents would be happy. "They’re looking at (her) to do something in (her) life that they couldn't do".
Parents may be expecting too much from their child. They pressurize them to do well in school, making school the root of the stress that teenagers are facing.

According to another article, Article B , 78% of the stress felt by teenagers is "school work". Some of the "other stressors that teens deal with" include "tests and homework". This is because there is " too much to do".

In the video/interview above, it also states that the main cause of stress is school and school is a bigger factor of stress as compared to other factors. The stress from school leads to other types of stress. To them, its is a major thing and sometimes, they do not understand why they have to go through all this stress.


As stated in Foo Ying Han's post, "Children from divorced homes suffer academically. They experience high levels of behavior problems. Their grades suffer, and they are less likely to graduate from high school." This would then cause their parents to scold them and pressurize them even further. Also, Foo Ying Han states that"Education choices - after high school, paying for college"  which show that teenagers are stress and concerned about their education, therefore proving that the main cause of stress is school.


From our survey, so far, 75 % of participants feel that the main cause of stress is school. They complained that "schools give too much homework" and "parents pressurize" them. Also, 88% of them agreed that Singapore is a competitive place to study in. They feel that "there is fierce competitions between students". This is because "everyone wants to get good marks" to secure their future. There are also some that feel that "we are treated like machines" in school, hence, many teenagers get stressed these days.


Therefore, I can conclude that The main cause of stress, is definitely school.


Rusydina (26)

The main cause of stress for teens is school. Do you agree?

In my opinion, I feel that there are much more other serious causes of stress for teens and therefore disagree with the above statement. I feel that there are many more other causes, such as family problems and relationship problems that were faced by many teens and therefore think that school might not necessarily be the main cause of stress for teens.

There is a statement stated in the report, Child Support and Custody in Singapore found on the website, http://divorcelawyersingapore.com.sg/child-support-and-custody/, "Socially, some of those children would initially feel rejected and withdrawn." This shows that the root of this problem faced by come of the children is because of their divorced parents and not school. 

In another article, What teens believe in divorce and marriage written by Shana Schutte, found in http://www.troubledwith.com/ParentingTeens/A000001248.cfm?topic=parenting%20teens%3a%20teens%20and%20divorce, another statement is made, "According to the Rudgers study, 'Divorce increases the risk of interpersonal problems in children. There is evidence, both from small qualitative studies and from large-scale, long-term empirical studies, that many of these problems are long-lasting. In fact, they may even become worse in adulthood.'" This shows how much stress and problems can be caused by family issues such as parents' divorce can cause to harm their children, which are normally teens. 

In "When mom and dad split", an article written by Amy Desai, J.D. found in http://www.troubledwith.com/ParentingTeens/A000000832.cfm?topic=parenting%20teens%3a%20teens%20and%20divorce, there were more evidence on how much harm one's parents' divorce can affect teens. The above screen shot had shown, 

"Research comparing children of divorced parents to children with married parents shows:

• Children from divorced homes suffer academically. They experience high levels of behavior problems. Their grades suffer, and they are less likely to graduate from high school.2
• Kids whose parents divorce are substantially more likely to be incarcerated for committing a crime as a juvenile.3
• Because the custodial parent's income drops substantially after a divorce, children in divorced homes are almost five times more likely to live in poverty than are children with married parents.4
• Teens from divorced homes are much more likely to engage in drug and alcohol use, as well as sexual intercourse than are those from intact families.5"                                                                                                                 This evidence provided in the article clearly illustrates how teens from divorced homes can suffer twice as many problems and face twice as much stress faced by teens with married parents. Therefore, the stress that the teens faced caused by their parents' divorce can result into dire consequences such as the teens' grades suffering, behaviour problems, committing crimes, living in poverty and engaging in activities such as drug and alcohol usage and sexual intercourse.                                                                                                                         I also feel that there are many other causes of stress other than divorce of parents and school faced by teens. These causes of stress includes 
  • High competition for jobs - the feeling that there are no jobs out there
  • Education choices - after high school, paying for college
  • Stress of living at home, but yet feeling old enough to be on your own
  • Financial pressures - part time work is scarce and parents don't have as much money as they did 20 years ago
  • Disfunctional families - teens from divorced families, alcoholic, or abusive families
  • Blended families - teens may feel out of place
  Therefore, through this short post, I hope that one is able to realise why school is not the main cause of stress faced by teens in my opinion. With that, I conclude my statement on why I feel that school is not the main cause of stress faced by teens. 

Foo Ying Han (8)

2A

The main cause of stress for teens is school. Do you agree?

In my opini0n, I do not agree with this statement. Stress for teens could VARY from school to family problems. However, I believe that school is NOT the main cause of stress for teens; there are many root causes far more serious than school alone. 


 From websites and researches found from the internet, I can conclude that school is not the main cause of stress for teens.

From an article “Singapore: Suicide Among Teenagers Increased”, it shows an innovative study conducted by 3 doctors from the local institute of mental health. They examined suicide rates among teenagers.

Snapshot from article 1

As shown from the snap shot, they found out that teens in Singapore are mostly troubled by family issues or their own personal love life. They concluded that “FRICTION with parents and breaking up with boyfriends or girlfriends are the main factors that push Singapore's under-20s over the edge.”

Dr Fung said suicide is usually caused by a mix of factors. He also said 'But from our study, academic stress wasn't a major reason. It's usually relationship problems, especially with their parents.'

They could range from being reprimanded to being troubled by spats between their parents, said Dr Fung, deputy chief of IMH’s department of child and adolescent psychiatry.

The Samaritans of Singapore, which runs a help-line for troubled people agress with the

findings:

snapshot from article 2

The rest of the article also stated the findings of an American professor, David Shaffer who said, ‘Two main factors trigger suicides: getting into trouble, such as cheating, and losing a boyfriend or girlfriend,'

Lastly, Dr Fung also suggested, 'Educating their peers is the most important because who knows teenagers best? It's their friends.'


From this, don't you agree that relationship problems could be one of the main cause of teen stress? Can you imagine that teens go to the extent of killing themselves because of this problem? 


(http://acr.hrschool.org/mainfile.php/0117/88/)

Here's a video about the effects on teens with divorced parents.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6XwUSq4Uk4

I think the effects are mostly due to being stressed out due to the relationship friction between her parents and having her parents to fight all the time and eventually get divorced. Do you think the girl in this video would openly tell her friends that her parents are divorced or just resort to other means to ease the pain of a broken family?  If you're in the girl's shoes, would you openly or proudly announce that your parents are divorced or just keep it to yourself instead of seeking help? OR Have you ever met anyone who just openly tells you that she/he have divorced parents? Not many right?



Apart from the article and video, I found an online forum called TEEN STRESS 911 and one of the questions posted is "Have you ever been a victim of Bullying? Or Do you know anyone who has been bullied? Please, share your story." 

From the many responses, one of the many caught my attention: 

http://www.teenstress911.com/fourm.html#/20120129/let-us-know-how-you-are-dealing-with-your-str-1227646/

Jessica shared her friend's consequence after being bullied for a long time. He committed suicide in the end as he battled with his inner stress for so long and could not handle the situation any more. This shows that teens could go to the extent of killing themselves because of bullying.

Thus, from the 3 sources, the article, video and forum, I can conclude that there are more serious root causes of stress than school alone. Although school do give us stress, however, it does not give us that depth of emotional damage than other causes such as DIVORCE, BULLYING and FRICTION IN RELATIONSHIPS. This long-term and tormenting emotional damage could haunt the victim more than you expect. The impact of stress from school can be lessened by friends and other solutions like listening to music. However, who can the victims of divorce, bullying and relationship problems turn to? They would try to resolve their problem themselves isn't it? And most of the means used to ease pain have not shown a positive consequences so far...




Lee Li Xuan (17)