English speaking and writing assessment the stress factors that affect teenagers
Do you remember when you were a teenager? Perhaps times have changed since then; nowadays there are about a hundred and one things that young adults have to stress about. Now you may be thinking that is another long rant by a moody teenager complaining about how unfair their life is, however it’s not, this is such telling you the realities of what teenagers go through.
One of the main issues is stereotyping, we cannot seem to go anywhere without at least one person stereotyping what our life and personality is like. Only 30% of typical stereotypes made on adolescents, such as drug abusing, shallow, rude or violent behaviour, are actually true.
Whilst you might believe your teenage years were the golden years in your life, this is not the case for this generation’s young adults, however many parents are oblivious to their teenage child’s worries, insecurities and problems.
Now imagine you’re a fifteen year old girl, when you wake up in the morning you need to spend at least half an hour in front of the mirror, maybe even more on bad days, in front of the mirror. But you just cannot get your hair to be straight enough or for your stomach to look smaller. Once you arrive at school you have to face classmates “subtly” bitching about you like you do not even exist. It makes you feel even worse about yourself as you do not know what you have done wrong or how to make people like you.
When lessons start and as per usual your teachers are comparing you to students in older years, pressurising you to do well in the tests and repeatedly reminding you that your GCSEs are drawing nearer. You just cannot escape this academic pressure set on you. They say that you should just do your best, however what if you’re best is not good enough? What if your best does not make your parents proud of you? You hear your classmates telling each other how drunk they got at the weekend; you’re wondering whether you’re the only one who does not get invited to these parties and gets drunk with the rest of your class or the only one who has not gone far with a boy. This makes you hate yourself more and wish you could be anyone else, but you.
Lunchtime arrives, and it’s the same old dilemma in the canteen: sandwich or pizza? Cake or salad? How healthy is it? How much fat is there in it? How many calories does it contain? You’re afraid to indulge, in case you gain weight, get called the class pig and become even more of a social reject.
Then you get home, time to face your rude, obnoxious parents who try to understand what is going on in your mind, you want to scream at them everything that is worrying you and ask them for help but you know that they will not understand and will just be even more ashamed of you. They blame how you act towards them to hormones and bad attitude, when really it’s down to them; their constant comparing, shouting and criticising.
This is just a minute part of a teenage girl’s life; now imagine you have to go through this every single day. The real difficult thing to grasp is however, is that issues much older people go through seem to be happening to younger and younger people. So just think before you judge or stereotype a teenager you see, think about what they could be going through and if you were in their shoes how you would be feeling.
