There exists a common belief that the amount of stress adolescents undergo during their school years is overestimated and dramatized by popular culture. However, the extent to which teenage mental health issues are discussed today still remains insufficient in order to secure a proper framework of coping with stressors. Indeed, adolescence is a period in human life when individuals are expected to make life-changing decisions with pressure coming from family, peers, and educators. The situation becomes even more challenging considering the fact that teenagers also experience some major changes in their bodies, including appearance and hormonal development.
Thus, when outlining two major external stressors, peer pressure at school and work overload should be regarded as unique to adolescence. To begin with, it is important to emphasize that while peer pressure may become an issue at any age, this experience is especially dangerous in the school environment (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2020). This danger is predetermined by higher levels of self-consciousness among adolescents and the inability to avoid offense when they feel discomfort because, unlike adults, schoolers have limited options in terms of choosing a social environment. This stressor may result in low self-esteem, depression, eating disorders, and many other specific mental conditions (CDC, 2020). Work overload, in its turn, is closely related to the school curriculum that pushes students to their limits in order to encourage them to prepare for obtaining higher education. With the need to combine extracurricular activities, teenage social life, and academics, students struggle with chronic sleep deprivation, mental disorders, anemia, and chronic fatigue.
When speaking of coping mechanisms, it is of paramount importance to promote adolescent counseling and education for parents. Indeed, in cases when adolescents close themselves off from adults, they seek help from understanding people. In such cases, parents may be overprotective or judgemental, thus pushing their kids away. For this reason, caregivers and educators are to develop an explicit framework of healthy communications. Otherwise, adolescents will address self-destructive coping mechanisms such as drug and alcohol abuse.
Reference
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC]. (2020). Coping with stress. Web.