Cases of stress among teens have significantly increased in the past ten years among teens between the ages of 12 to 17 years. This stress is exhibited in form of anxiety, depression, and feeling overwhelmed; all which negatively impact on their health and normal functioning in different situations. Some scholars have dismissed the findings arguing that some of the aspects are based on as being the result of stress are actually as a result of positive trends in positive mental health and concentrating on harder evidence while expecting to provide early interventions. However, on a critical analysis of the dismissal, it is evident that they fail to put into consideration on the fact that findings on trends of rising teenage stress coincide with those on biological stress indicators.
The human pollution can be described a suffering from stress epidemic due to the rising cases of stress globally. This epidemic is affirmed by the fact that stress-related disorders and diseases have also been on the rise. Furthermore, it is imperative to note that unannounced physical causes of stress have also risen which is a worrying trend. For this reason, the fallacy that children have increasingly become too sensitive or fear of facing challenges cannot be used as a basis to explain this trend. To have a better understanding of the causes of this rise, it is important to focus on the psychological causes of the stress such as; uncertainty, lack of control and fear. The impact of this causes is dependent on the individual social standing of the teens.
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Social disconnect, a condition caused by socio-economic disadvantage, childhood adversity, a decline in social mobility and consequences of the rise in inequality often make the teens more vulnerable to stress as a lifetime problem. Teens with this problem often suffer from stress deregulations which they acquired from childhood and is activated by the epigenetic changes they encountered (Keating, 2016). Children in higher social classes are under pressure to succeed which makes them vulnerable to stress resulting from the fear to slide down the social ladder. Future uncertainty is another significant cause of stress among teens whereby the uncertainty causes anxiety; hence, they are unable to live a psychologically comfortable life. A good example is teens in undocumented immigrant families especially in the era of the current United State president due to the fear of the families being separated when some of the family members are discovered and deported.
Parents also play a critical role in contributing to stress among their children through the worry they have concerning their children’s future. Such parenting actions may cause the children to feel that their future is uncertain and therefore develop childhood stress that they hinder their ability to regulate stress in future (Keating, 2017). The uncertainty of the future leads to lack of optimism among the teens and therefore trigger stress that may lead to disorders or stress-related diseases. Curtailing this trend of rising stress among teens will require solving of the broader issues affecting most societies such as; income inequality, limited youth involvement in societal issues and limited investment towards human development.
There is need to focus on the teen in order to help them in building their resilience through; developing social connections to mitigate the impact of stress and protect them from stress precursors, assuming a mindfulness habit to limit uncertainty by focusing on the present and finally care from adults. It is worthy to note that reducing teen stress requires the support of all stakeholders ranging the parents, school and the community at large. This conciliation shall help in eliminating stress as a lifelong burden and therefore promoting a psychologically and health stable future society.
References
Keating D. P., (2016). The transformative role of epigenetics in child development research. Child Development , 87 (1), 135-142.
Keating D. P., (2017). Born Anxious: The Lifelong Impact of Early Adversity – and How to Break the Cycle. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
