Jeremy L. Berg

USA TODAY.com News featured a story entitled How Stressed Are Kids?  More Than We Think. I care deeply about the world today’s teens inhabit and the unique challenges they are facing.  To the best of my knowledge and from my own personal observation, the world of teenagers has been changing over the last couple decades in a disturbing direction.  

The innocence of childhood is vanishing, kids are growing up faster and earlier, dealing with issues and questions at age 12 that used to be faced at age 18. The continuing breakdown of the family with parents consumed with their own struggles leaves many teens to raise themselves and at times their younger siblings. (See Chap Clark’s book Hurt:Inside the World of Today’s Teenagers for an eye-opening, strong and heart-breaking case for the “systemic abandonment of today’s teenagers” by adults.)

Among the biggest issues hitting teens harder these days is stress level. Teens are feeling great pressure from many directions — e.g., sports, academics, theater, jobs, relationships. Much of it is imposed upon them by overbearing parents, teachers, coaches and college recruiters. But even more is self-imposed by teens who want to impress their peers, please their parents and prove themselves. 

But USA TODAY asks more specifically: What is the greatest source of stress for teens today?  I’m all ears.  I have my own opinions based on my daily interaction with teens as a youth pastor.  I think I know what weighs most heavily on their hearts and causing them greatest worry and stress. Yet, the results of the study in this article surprised me and made re-examine if I really know what’s stressing teens out most.  Moreover, the study reveals that parents are also often mistaken in their assessment of their own kids’ stressors. So, before I reveal the results of this particular study, what do you guess stresses out teens most today?

Among findings:

•44% of young people say doing well in school was a source of stress.

•30% worry about their family having enough money.

•10% felt pressure over their extracurricular activities.

•8% say relationships with their parents were a source of stress.

The survey of 1,206 young people and 1,568 adults, conducted over the summer by Harris Interactive, found that parents underestimated the level of stress children feel and the causes of that stress, often thinking that family relationships or activities cause more stress than children say they actually do.

That doesn’t surprise psychologist Georgia Witkin of New York City. For her book KidStress, published in 2000, she surveyed about 1,500 young people and found that “parents were totally wrong about what they thought would stress the kids.”

School also was the major worry for children in her survey, while parents assumed children were worried about “the pressure of so many activities,” she says.

“They were afraid kids would be on overload,” she says. “That wasn’t even on the kids’ radar. They said the only stressful part of all the activities is that ‘my mother gets so stressed driving me around.’ “

Some observations worth thinking about.  First, I am much like the parents in this study who assumed “busyness” and involvement in multiple activities was a major stress for teens — racing from school, to after school sports, to work and to church and so on.  This study indicates that perhaps teens are better able to handle “busyness” than we adults are.  Yet, I am not totally convinced this study is accurate.  Maybe teens voted that way on a poll; but I have conversations with teens weekly that seem to indicate a tiredness, unhealthy busyness, and “run-raggedness” that screams to me: “Aaaah!  I have too much going on in my life!” (Students: Do you agree?)

Second, I wasn’t surprised that school concerns are one of the greatest sources of stress.  College admission is more competitive than ever and with rising tuition costs and economic recession students are trying to bolster their chances at scholarships by having a full and impressive portfolio of achievements and awards, solid GPA and high ACT scores. Parents often add to the academic pressure as they too will benefit largely from a financial scholarship!  

Third, one of the most interesting finds in this study was that our teens are not immune to the stress their parents are feeling. They feel it too.  

In the survey, 63% of the 235 parents who were among participating adults said they believed their stress levels had slight or no influence on their child’s stress levels.

But psychologists say that doesn’t reflect reality.

“If you ask the typical adult whether children are worried about the economy, you’d say, ‘Of course not. They only have to worry about school,’ ” says pediatrician Kenneth Ginsburg, an associate professor at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphiaand at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.

He says young people “absolutely worry about the things they see us worry about.”

This is a good reminder to all of us adults.  Our attitudes, values, behavior and response to life’s challenges and stress always trickles down to impact and influence how our kids will handle their own.  They see the worry on our face, they sense the anxiety we feel and it infects them.  So, we should not always try to shelter our kids from our problems (e.g., financial stress) but rather use it as an opportunity to talk about it and grow together.  As people of faith, this is especially the case.  What an opportunity to model how Christians can face tough times while continuing to trust in God’s provision and power to pull us through.  Why would we not want to bring our kids into that process?  

Fourth, and most importantly, this article just reminded me that we shouldn’t need official studies by psychologists to inform us of the issues causing most stress in kids lives today. How sad if we do!  Rather, if we really want to know what’s eating away at our kids, why not just ask them?  This is the biggest take away for me.  Let us sit down face to face with our kids and ask them how they’re doing.  Let’s ask what is the biggest thing their worried about these days and how we can support them in that area.  And, perhaps, we as adults and parents can allow them to help and encourage us in the things we’re stressed out about.  They care about us too.  

I wanted to test the polls accuracy with my own mini-poll on Facebook.  Here’s my polls results.  Do they match the USA TODAY.com study?

Several teenagers may read this post via Facebook.  (Others have taken my POLL.)  I would like to ask you personally to comment on the following question if you’re willing:

What is the biggest source of stress in your life as a teenager?  What do you think about this study’s findings? Does it match your experience?  Thanks!