General News teens more stressed than adults

I think it is a different kind of stress. Adults are stressed with paying bills, taking care of kids (if they do have kids), and working. Teens are stressed with school, peer pressure, finding themselves...

 

I doubt it. Most teens don't have much to be stressed out about.
"Uhhh I hate this test."
"Uhhh I don't want to go to school."
"Uhhh I need to charge my iPhone."

Most parents deal with more stress than teens because of work and taking care of children. I know my parents go under much more stress than me. It's quite shameful to assume one is the center of attention when their parents are the ones going through much more trouble. I'm not saying this applies to every teen and adult in America, but from my perspective it shows the vast majority. Then again, I live in a very well-off suburb with good living conditions. Most of the kids here are spoiled as fuck.

 

It's not so much what it is that you are dealing with, but how it affects you that determines how stressful something is. For instance, some people have no qualms about holding hands in public, where as others freak out at the thought of doing so. Stress is very much a subjective thing, therefor trying to look at it objectively is a pointless endeavor.

 

And it's bad to assume that kids are oblivious to all that. I sure as hell wasn't.

 

Although a lot of teens are under a great deal of stress, it could be because it's easier to find in teenagers; most go to school where it can be monitored and collected for statistics, the quality and availability of mental-health is much higher compared to adults who aren't so easy to monitor and don't have the same access to psychologists.

And I agree with Sarcastic Luck; many, if not most teenagers know about the stress parents go through, and teenagers do understand that. However, a lot of adults don't believe and willingly ignore the problems teenagers go through. Those petty issues aren't exactly the pinnacle of teenage problems; sexuality, bullying, eating disorders, mental disorders, workload, money (yes, kids often are just as badly affected by parents' poverty as the parents), poor education, etc, are actually what kids are worried about.

And Skaros, I go to a very rich and high-quality school, and we still have problems. We have enormous amounts of school-work, mental health issues, abuse at home, have to make decisions on what we want to do with life, and a lot of other problems that aren't frivolous and are definitely worth noting. Although I don't necessarily believe teenagers are more stressed than our parents, we definitely have a lot of valid reasons to be stressed.

 

A lot of the stress that adults experience with paying pills, amongst other things, can inadvertently affect their children too - that is something people often overlook. If a teenager's parents are constantly stressed, short-tempered and unhappy, that will certainly affect their attitude as well. Living in well-off suburbia doesn't make you immune from these problems.

As Sarcastic Luck rightly points out, children and teenagers are definitely aware of the problems adults experience - I was painfully aware of the problems my mother had with debt and depression.

 

This^^^

Also, teenagers have the impending doom of all the stress of being a grown-up and even getting to that place where they even have bills of their own to pay. It's scary.

 

While the numbers probably aren't exact, it definitely makes sense to me that teenagers on average are experiencing more stress than adults. I'm in 10th grade at a prep school my parents can barely afford and causes them stress, something that I am very aware of and has stressed me out for years. For the most part my friends are very aware of their parents' stress as well.

In school my friends and I experience a lot of stress from a ever increasing workload and pressure to be perfect for colleges, which will only quadruple during junior and senior years. My friends and I have a bigger workload and are much more pressured than my parents and some adults I know were when they were in High School. I think this is partly because of a worse economy and the huge stress about colleges. However, it definitely differs from person to person and depends on the individual's situation and coping skills.

 

There is no doubt that adults have more pressing matter to be concerned with, but I can believe the idea that teenagers encounter more deliberating types of stress overall. Working adults are often portrayed as suffering through the most "stress" in comparison to other age groups; however, the average working adult does not encounter that much "stress" in the way that the term is often used. They would encounter large amounts of physical stress and fatigued, but, unless an adult is supporting a household that boards the poverty level, most individuals in their late thirties, forties, and fifties aren't stressed about putting food on the table.

Someone in their twenties or early thirties would be more likely to be stressed about making ends meet because they are still at the beginnings of their careers and plausibly don't have the most optimal amount of income; however, someone in their middle age whose career is still at such a level of dangerous fragility is most likely in that position because of an occupational issue rather than a matter of age. Likewise, twenties and thirties are often the most stressful years for parents as well. Raising children should not be a burden throughout their entire childhoods. Should a teenager still be causing a parent great stress and forcing them to be in a position where they have to micromanage them constantly, then there is an issue with the parenting that was carried out in that house from the beginning.

There is so much fragility when it comes to the lives and directions of younger individuals these days that anyone who serious about having a successful career is going to experience. Education has gotten so unreasonable competitive and expense these days. Breaking into the workforce has become more difficult than ever. Unless we compare a teen who is apathetic about their education and an adult who is struggling within their career, a middle aged individual shouldn't be under as much stress as their younger counterparts.

 

The amount of stress shown on inhabited by a person is very circumstantial as well as extremely varied. Key thing to remember: People are different. Different people have different...not views...focal points...viewpoints from each other. People see things differently. People have different perspective (there was that word I was looking for!) So the amount of stress a teenager is feeling and/or experiencing may see minuscule to a passerby, but the seemingly voluminous amount is crushing the adolescent.

 

Adults *typically* have the ability to handle the stress, or at least find ways to handle it. If it's better or not, that's up to each person.

It definitely evolves. I was a stressed kid. Now that I'm an adult, I am still stressed, but in very different ways.

 

It's because teens only have as much security as their parents are willing/able to provide. They not only need to deal with teen life, but gaining momentum for their adult life as well. An adult who has financial and social stability has a lot on his or her shoulders, but by then they are able to deal. Teenagers, not so much. That's why I doubt it when people say "high school is the best time of your life." It can be a good time, but I for one am happy it's over and I'm on the way to cruising altitude.

 

I'm mildly surprised, but when I think about it, that makes sense.

As a teenager, there's constant pressure - grades, friends, figuring yourself out, family, money... The problems our parents had, with finances, their marriage, etc were all things we noticed and that effected us, too. I remember worrying a lot over that, even though I couldn't change it. On top of that was the constant worry about grades, making sure you were involved, trying to make sure you were absolutely fracking perfect because you had to go to college, and if you didn't, obviously your life would be ruined. People on all sides, parents, teachers, friends, constantly reminded you that these were the years that would make or break your life, because they decided EVERYTHING.

Consider all of this, and combine it with the reality that most teenagers have no clue how to cope with these feelings, worries, pressures. They're walking bags of hormone soup and get upset over things they know are stupid and they don't know what they're doing or thinking half the time but are constantly being told they need to make sure they don't screw up because their future WILL die a horrific, fiery death... They can barely cope with crushes, so add everything else?

It was scary as all get out. And our futures didn't perish in Mt Doom if we screwed up a little, but none of us realized *that* until we graduated.

So, teenagers being more stressed out than mom and dad? I can buy that. Lots of pressure for your own life, awareness of your family's problems, no coping methods to speak of...

*shudders* Twenties, here I come...

 

I'm thirty-one. My first thought when I saw this was "Um... DUH?!?! This required funding and scientists and resources to figure out?"

There is not enough money on the ENTIRE PLANET to pay me to go back to high-school. Or childhood in general, actually. College, maybe. IF you throw in biweekly visits from a massage therapist, an endless supply of chocolate, and get rid of those pesky core education requirements so I can focus strictly on my major and not have to waste time on things I had absolutely no interest in back in high-school.

Been a teen pretty well sucked monkey balls. IF you're blessed enough to come from a financially comfortable home, have enough friends to be happy but not so many that you have to be fake all the time, and have parents who are supportive of both your dreams and the whole of your personhood, I can perhaps maybe see those teen years being kinda awesome... but I don't know anybody who is that lucky.

Me? I hated it. Every single minute I didn't spend dreaming or writing or performing was a living hell, and it would have been horrid even if I hadn't been subject to a psychotic, abusive father on a daily basis. Just normal teen stuff is HARD. Toss in the ever-increasing work-loads applied by teachers these days (it's insane, and the majority of it is UTTERLY pointless), expectations of parents (who tend to obsess about things that don't matter as much as they think), pressure from friends to conform to the local norms, romantic issues, etc etc etc, and you have a recipe for stress levels that any honest adult would run from in blind terror.

I loved college, actually. It was the first time in my life where, yes, I had teachers, but at the end of the day the only person making me study was me. The only person making me be responsible with my money was me. The only person reminding me about appointments & lessons was me. The only person concerned about my weight/diet/activity level was me. The only person freaking out over my preparation level for a test or a recital was, you guessed it, me. And surprise, surprise, I went from skin-of-my-teeth-D-minus-gpa-barely-graduating high-school to the Dean's List my first semester, and never looked back. For the first time, I was doing (mostly) what I actually wanted to do, was interested in learning about, and I had the ability to set up a schedule that suited my body's natural rhythms. After freshman year (crammed all those core ed requirements in), I refused to schedule any class before 10am, because I am a bloody damn night owl and I like it that way. Plus, performer. Rehearsals routinely ran past midnight, and I need sleep at some point.

College had its stresses, of course. A-hole professors, drama-queen dorm neighbors, keeping track of my book stipend to make sure I actually spent it all so I wouldn't have to return it, classes that made my brain bleed, etc. But they were all pressures that *I* had chosen, not things I had no control over thanks to my parents' decisions. That alone made everything a thousand times more manageable.

But by the end of it, I was still saying "I want to go have normal problems for a while. I want the most stressful thing in my world to be balancing the household budget and deciding what to make for dinner."

As a straight-up-no-question-adult, I can say without even the slightest hesitation that this is the least stressful time of my entire life to date. And trust me, I've got stress. We live paycheck to paycheck, at least every other month I have to figure out which bill I can skip so that everything else gets paid. My husband works two full time jobs and I work part time, and we just barely make ends meet. We have no extras, not even cable. Internet, you say? I work over the internet, it's a requirement, not a luxury. We don't eat out, we don't go to the movies, and we have savings plans so that we can take our son to the aquarium/zoo/mini-golf/etc this summer without trashing the budget. I'm 5.5 months pregnant with our next kid, so I'm just plain TIRED all the time into the bargain. I'm bipolar, high-functioning autistic, and my body always hurts because I have Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, which few doctors have even heard of, let alone ever treated. My mother in law is 73, thinks she knows everything about everything, expects to be driven anywhere she wants to go at the drop of a hat, and periodically threatens to move out because we don't love her enough. Oh, and she has no survival skills or understanding of how expensive life got since she last went grocery shopping, so moving out isn't really a functional alternative, or trust me, I would have shown her scrawny ass to the door YEARS ago.

So yeah, I've got stress, I've got mountains of stress. I still wouldn't trade it to have my teen years again. Not for all the money on earth, the tea in China, the chocolate in Switzerland, the shoes in Paris, and the rednecks in Kentucky.