Says sociologist Ronald L. Pitzer: “Many young people experience high levels of stress.” They must deal with the physical and emotional changes of puberty. There are also the pressures of school. According to the book Child Stress! the typical school day “is fraught with problems and pressures creating stress—in academics, sports, in peer relationships and in interchanges with teachers.”
In some areas the threat of school violence adds to feelings of anxiety—not to mention the fears many youths now have of terrorist attacks and other disasters. “If parents are constantly talking about how scary the world is right now,” writes one teenage girl, “it’s going to make us scared.”
Parents should be a source of strength for their children. But, says
Pitzer: “All too often, efforts by children and teens to communicate
intense feelings are minimized, denied, rationalized, or ignored by
parents.” In some cases parents are immobilized by their own
marital tensions. “It seems like my parents were always fighting,”
says young Tito, whose parents eventually divorced. As the book Child
Stress! observes, “physical fights and verbal altercations are
not the only causes for trauma. Smoldering resentment that transmits
itself even when masked by honeyed words unsettles children.”
Of particular concern is the unhealthy way in which many—especially young ones—try to cope with stress. Dr. Bettie B. Youngs laments: “It is very depressing to find out that in their desire to escape from pain, teenagers take routes such as alcohol and drug abuse, truancy, delinquency, sexual promiscuity, aggression and violence, and running away from home—routes that lead them into problems more overwhelming than those they were trying to escape.”
