The life and times of a 21’st century teenager

Are they schizophrenic patients in a 1950s asylum? Are they trained, special agents on a military camp? Are they robots, or perhaps masterminds of the academic world? Believe it or not, these are merely teenagers, and this is a typical day in their life:

The pressure put on modern teenagers is immeasurable, one of the largest flaws in our schooling system. Departments of education, along with universities, are essentially telling ambitious teens that their futures revolve around a specific test or task, causing levels of anxiety amongst teens to skyrocketrise exponentially. Additionally, a school environment is an unforgiving place, with pupils feeling compelled to fit in socially, make their parents proud by achieving in school and on in extra-curricular—all on top of the consuming pressure of school itself.  

This is precisely the reason why two meta-analytic studies involving thousands of children show that anxiety has increased substantially since the 1950’s. In fact, the studies find that anxiety has increased so much that typical school children reported more anxiety than child psychiatric patients did during the 1950s. These findings appear in the December issue of the American Psychological Association’s (APA) Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. “The results of the study suggest that cases of depression will continue to increase in the coming decades, as anxiety tends to predispose people to depression,” says psychologist and study author Jean M. Twenge, PhD, of Case Western Reserve University. The only thing more ghastly than this is the conventional, day-to-day schedule of a teenager.

From morning training to school, from school to extra lessons, from extra lessons to afternoon training and then from training to a mountain of homework: this exacting schedule equates to limited or no time for the fun and relaxation a kid needs. Teachers, coaches and even parents are putting far too much pressure on these teenagers to do it all. It boils down to a common misconception, that these teenagers are specialists in every domain they participate in. There is also little or no communication between teachers and coaches or even between teachers of different faculties. The student’s math teacher will give him an entire chapter of Euclidean geometry to do, and five more teachers will add to this pile; the learner will then proceed to go straight to Cricket practice for two hours, and then pre-season hockey for another hour-and-a-half. The minute after this learner wolfs down his meal, an AP lesson is starting. With no communication, work is piled onto this learner, and then the entire cycle repeats itself with a new day. 

This is precisely the reason for the Teenage Burnout Epidemic: a staggering 65% of South African teens are experiencing mental health issues associated with burnout, according to Mail&Guardian . These teens are not agents at a military camp, they are not programmable robots and they are certainly not masters of academia and sport. These are a group of people who, now more than ever, need time to enjoy their youth.

We tend to forget that teenager are, well, teenagers. A group in our society that needs to savourenjoy the dying embers of their childhood. Let us allow for that enjoyment by alleviating this pressure and expectation that is put on them and allow teenagers to be who they really are.