The effects of stress on young people can be very challenging. Young people have a lot of external pressure to deal with nowadays. An example of this would be school and social media.
Issues/problems
School
When I start a new school, will I make friends? Will I be able to find my way around the new school? How will I cope with the work?
Currently, we have the new year 7’s who will be starting a new school in September. Due to Covid-19, they haven’t been able to have an actual tour of the school, only a virtual one. Normally, they would have had a day at the school and would be a little familiar with the environment. Not all their friends will be going to the same school. At this moment in time, they might not be aware of anyone that they know going to their new school.
They will also be worried about the school day, how do the lessons work? Where can I go at break and lunchtime? All these things are currently causing a lot of young people anxiety about starting the new term in September.
Even the young people that are returning to school in September have an unusual set of additional worries about the new term. How will it be when I get back to school? Will I still be able to mix with my friends?
Some young people will not want to return to school in September as they have not been there for six months. Why should I go to school now, what is the purpose of being there? It is going to be a challenging time for young people, parents, and school.
Exams
School also comes with some major life-changing decisions. At 14, young people are asked to choose their GCSE’s, most of the young people I speak to, don’t have a clue what to pick as they don’t know what they want to do later in life.
After GCSE’s they then have what A levels do I choose. At this time a lot of young people don’t know what to pick. If you don’t need specific exams for a career, pick something that you will enjoy.
The next decision is going to university, which isn’t right for every young person. Quite often schools lead them to believe they must go as everyone goes and everyone needs a degree. There are other opportunities out there to pursue, ie apprenticeships
These choices can increase the effects of stress on young people.
Friends
Making friends and having friends can be challenging for some young people. If I am starting a new school, will I make friends? Will my friends invite me to things? Do my friends really like me? What do my friends think of me?
These are all questions I hear a lot in the counselling room. How do you know what other people are thinking, whose thoughts are they anyway? It turns out these thoughts belong to the young person. These thoughts are triggered by a young person having low self-esteem.
Young people post and see a lot of things on social media. Sometimes they see their friends out but they weren’t invited along. Immediately, they think they haven’t been invited because of something they have done. Actually, they haven’t been invited because of the other person, not because of them but this doesn’t help how the young person feels about themselves.
Family issues
Young people talk about the pressure they feel to make their parents proud. As parents, you don’t always understand how young people interpret the things that are said. Sometimes, parents can focus on a negative when actually there are lots of positives that could be brought to the attention of the young person.
An example of this would be, one exam result that isn’t as high as the other eight, why focus on the one negative and ignore the eight positives?
Some young people do not have a relationship with both parents, whether they live together or not. Young people can struggle if they do not have someone they feel they can talk to.
Social Media
Social media is an additional pressure for young people. They see celebrities doing things and living life in certain ways. Young people can start to think everyone lives like this when we know that is actually not true.
They can feel left out when they see friends doing things on social media that they were not invited along to. This can be very damaging to a young person’s view of themself and their self-esteem.
Social media can lead young people to believe they must be a size 0 or must wear these clothes or act in a certain way to be accepted. This puts unnecessary pressure on both the young person and their families. Not all families can afford to buy designer clothes and trainers and not everyone can be a size 0. Young people can start to feel they will not be accepted by their friends if they do not have all the designer gear.
When young people upload pictures to social media, they can judge how popular they believe they are by the number of likes the post receives. A lot of people like pictures and things without even taking much notice of it, which is quite sad but true.
Low self-esteem
‘What people think about me’ is a big thing young people bring to the counselling room. Why are they focussing on other people rather than themselves? How do we know what other people are thinking? These thoughts come from within as we don’t know what other people are thinking.
Thoughts like this are very damaging to a young person’s view of themselves and their own self-worth and can increase the effects of stress on young people. If we can help a young person to value themselves, it will give them the confidence to believe in their own ability.
Solutions
If you are, or you know a young person who is currently struggling with some or all of the issues mentioned above, I can help. I will work with the young person in a non-judgemental way to understand how things are from their perspective.
We will focus on their worries and thoughts and look for ways to rephrase them. I will look at coping strategies that the young person can use to be able to deal with these worries in a different way.
It’s not about making the worries go away but being able to deal with them when they cross your mind. Worrying about things is normal, it’s when the worry takes over our whole thought process that it becomes an issue. By giving tools to deal with things differently, I can help reduce the effects of stress on young people.