Stressed Kids

Last night I was at the Board office, I attended the Mental Health Week initiative, the topic was Stressed Kids. Over 20 community agencies were represented, along with Children's Mental Health Ontario, which sponsors the Change the View video contest. The winning video was by Lankesh Patel from North Park Secondary School in Brampton, Ontario.

One student in the audience told the School Board representative that she wrote her 4 exams during the first 2 days of the exam period last semester. She said it was stressful and said this was not fair. The audience murmured agreement. She's right, it's not fair.  However, it is a reality that exam schedules sometimes fall that way. It's easy to forget as an adult, how a teenager deals with stress. Life experiences teach stress-coping skills.

When I asked my students what stresses them, they were voluble in stressing over final exams, writing tests, presenting in front of people, deadlines, subjects like math or science, fitting in at school, and twitter (sub-tweets).

When I thought of that student's exam experiences and compared them to my own stressors, I realized that in the years since high school, I have become more resilient to stress. As the years pass, my stressors change,  and I change and adapt to them too. Adults have developed an ability to manage stress in many forms.

Teenagers can use help learning to manage their stress. As a teacher I do this daily: I sequence my lessons, chunking topics into bite-size pieces, I review difficult topics, I assist in study skills, I show students how to prioritize their time, I remind them that high school is a passage, not a destination.

These are the four A's of Stress Management:

• Avoid - A lot of needless stress can simply be avoided. Plan ahead, rearrange your surroundings and reap the benefits of a lighter load.
• Alter - One of the most helpful things you can do during times of stress is to take inventory, then attempt to change your situation for the better.
• Accept - Sometimes we have no choice but to accept things the way they are.
• Adapt - The perception that you can't cope is actually one of the greatest stressors. That's why adapting — which often involves changing your standards or expectations — can be most helpful in dealing with stress.

May Clinic on Stress: http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/stress-relief/SR00037
Winning video: We Are All Equal -  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGXC7xvUD5k