Parents are stressed to the point of crisis. Over the summer the surgeon general issued an advisory on parental stress in the United States highlighting what so many of us have been feeling for years. But it turns out our teens aren’t far behind.
Harvard just released a study that shows the vast majority of American teens — 81%! — are feeling life-impacting pressures in at least one of six areas, with 27% admitting to actively struggling with burnout (feeling acute stress in three or more areas). So, what is causing the stress — and how can the adults in their lives help? Here are the key takeaways.
The study measured six kinds of stress teens face:
Game plan: Pressure to have their future life figured out (e.g., college, career, relationships). This was the most prevalent pressure for teens, with 56% of teens reporting negative impacts.
Achievement: Pressure to be exceptional and impressive through their achievements. This was a close second to “game plan” stress, impacting 53% of teens.
Appearance: Pressure to look their best or present themselves in a certain way. Not surprising that 51% of teens (disproportionately girls) feel stressed about their appearance. The data also showed this is made worse by Instagram, TikTok, and Snapchat.
Social life: Pressure related to having an active and visible social life. Again, this is inflated by social media.
Friendship: Pressure to stay available and be supportive to friends (e.g., respond to texts/social media from friends right away). About 40% of teens experience this, and nearly 70% reported that social media increases the pressure they feel in their friendships.
Activism: Pressure to do good for their community or the world, or to be informed about different issues. Not surprising that in a world with a 24-hour news cycle and a constant stream of world events on social media, 32% of teens feel pressure to be doing more activism work.
One of the most startling takeaways from the study is that the pressure teens feel comes not just from social media, friends, or even themselves. Instead, teens cited the adults in their lives as some of the main contributors. Parents, coaches, guidance counselors — they all were more likely to add to the pressure teens were feeling than to be helpful in alleviating it. Given how stressed parents are, it’s not surprising that those feelings have trickled down to the younger generation.
So, what can we as parents do to help our teens? The majority of the advice offered by the team from Harvard is for parents to take a supportive role in helping their teens cope rather than trying to run the show. Parents can help guide teens to make decisions to prevent overload, but just as important is recognizing your teen’s effort over their outcome and empathizing with your teen rather than minimizing their stresses in comparison to your own.
Teens are always going to experience stress, and they need to learn to cope with it. But facing burnout in high school is an extreme that we have to work with our teens to overcome — before it impacts their mental health in a serious way.
