Recent Comments:
Kids More Stressed Out Than Ever Before, Survey Shows {ParentDish}
Nov 8th 2009 12:52PM I just realized the article says only "one third" of kids think they are more stressed out than last year. Doesn't that mean that two-thirds do not think so?
The author of this blog considers it "startling" and newsworthy when only a third of tweens/teens feel their stress has increased in the past year?
Unbelievable and sad.
Kids More Stressed Out Than Ever Before, Survey Shows {ParentDish}
Nov 7th 2009 10:51PM No, Elizabeth, the generation where getting a "good paying job" only required high school was my parents', and a large percentage of that generation didn't graduate high school, because a high school diploma was considered a luxury when teens could be working and helping their families.
Unless you consider minimum wage to be "good paying."
People need to step back and look at what they are saying. Ever since young people started leaving their extended families to pursue their own living, they have spent the teen years wondering and worrying about how they would support themselves and a family. The difference I see here is that today's youth doesn't seem to believe it's right for them to get prepared to be adults. They think it's just terrible that the community is paying for them to learn a lot and encouraging them to be the best they can be. Even those who admit they are choosing a heavy load to boost their chances of success are whining about it. When I was young, motivated students were lobbying for more intellectual courses and pushing to get advanced placements. Not whining because our college prep teachers assigned a lot of homework.
Like always, there is the option of taking the easy road and just making enough money to get by. There will always be millions upon millions of jobs for the unmotivated, uneducated people in our society. At least nowadays there is a thing called "minimum wage" and lots of other laws that ensure that if you do in fact do a decent day's work, you aren't going to starve or be worked to death. If a young person decides that he wants more out of life, isn't it more accurate to say that he is bringing stress upon himself, than that he's being subjected to it against his will?
If you really think school is too hard, then next year, sign up for the easiest available courses and don't do the extracurriculars. Then you can have the childhood you apparently think is ideal. You can make up for it by going to a community college for remedial courses before entering a university, and then take a light load for 6 years instead of four, thereby effectively extending your precious childhood by nearly a decade. I mean, why are you in such a big hurry to pay taxes anyway?
What do young people really think their role should be?
Personally, I was always in a hurry to be a contributing member of society. I haven't heard one young voice on this thread indicate that they feel that way.
Unfortunately, I see this attitude extending beyond college age nowadays. They show up for a job interview and act like I need to kiss their asses and convince them why they should want the job I'm offering. These people are still refusing to grow up. And I'm not hiring children.
Kids More Stressed Out Than Ever Before, Survey Shows {ParentDish}
Nov 7th 2009 3:14PM Dan: I was in jr high / high school from 1978-1983. Why don't you do some research on what was going on in those days? Prosperous? It was literally the worst time since the Great Depression; double digit employment, inflation, AND mortgage rates - they invented "stagflation" thanks to Jimmy Carter in those days. In short, you could not be more wrong about every single word in your post.
As for the more advanced fields of study, yeah (maybe), and you learn the depth of all of those advances in high school? Right. If you were tested on a 1990 high school science or history textbook, you would most likely fail.
Funny thing is, when we were growing up, we always learned and believed that previous generations had it harder than we did. Today the mantra is the opposite - which is patently untrue. It's not helpful to tell kids this nonsense.
Kids More Stressed Out Than Ever Before, Survey Shows {ParentDish}
Nov 7th 2009 2:18PM Oh, and if today's kids are slogging so hard in school, why are today's college professors so disappointed with their shockingly low levels of competence? Why do I see resumes filled with errors in basic spelling and grammar? Why do kids have all the TV shows memorized?
Kids More Stressed Out Than Ever Before, Survey Shows {ParentDish}
Nov 7th 2009 2:07PM I would love to see a description of what these young commenters think my childhood / adolescence was like (born in mid-1966). Ha ha!
You youths seriously think your academic requirements are "excruciatingly" more difficult than it was 20-30 years ago? Ha ha!!
You know what? The marketers of cram courses and such are feeding you a line in order to enrich themselves. "Oh, you poor souls, it's so hard to be a student today, just pay us and we'll take some of the burden off." By the way, it used to be considered ethically wrong to prepare for an achievement test, including the SAT/ACT. Maybe that's why some teens had a little time for socializing in "my day" - because we really focused on our schoolwork and homework, so we'd actually develop competencies that wouldn't be forgotten after an evening of work and a night of sleep.
But the idea that so-called "kids" (many of whom would have been heads of household by this age in another time) should be able to go home from school and "relax" all evening? Where did that completely unhealthy idea come from? If you had nothing to do when you got home from school, you would find something to do - and an idle mind is the devil's workshop. Prove me wrong.
Kids More Stressed Out Than Ever Before, Survey Shows {ParentDish}
Nov 7th 2009 10:24AM You have little kids, so how do you know how you're going to feel about them when they steal your money and then call you a foul name for questioning them about it? Oh, you're sure your little darlings would never do that. Experience is the best teacher, and you don't have much of it.
I never "hated" any of the kids I've worked on raising, but I've felt the urge to bash their heads in a few times during adolescence.
Kids More Stressed Out Than Ever Before, Survey Shows {ParentDish}
Nov 7th 2009 10:16AM I agree with you, and I want to clarify that I didn't mean to imply that people don't remember stress. I remember it pretty clearly as well. But when I was 15 and under the influence of the growing-up hormones, my measure of my stress at that time would not have been objective. Hence my ability at that time to say whether my stress at 15 was higher than it was at 14 would have been questionable. This is pretty normal for that age. Once those hormones settled down in my later teens, I was able to see the world (including myself) a lot more objectively. But at 15, I would not have believed the extent to which my feelings were affected by those temporary changes. Frankly, from age 11 to 16, I could get suicidal urges from being reminded to wash the dishes - and I'm not kidding. Does that mean washing the dishes was too stressful for me, or that I was temporarily insane because of hormones?
Kids More Stressed Out Than Ever Before, Survey Shows {ParentDish}
Nov 7th 2009 9:15AM None of the "horrible" stressors that people lament about here are new. Every single one of them was there when I was a kid 40 years ago, and I knew about all of them, probably more than average. Global warming had been theorized, and in addition, diappearance of the ozone layer, a new ice age, deadly diseases that have now become much more survivable, overpopulation to the point of mass starvation within our lifetime, and best of all, nuclear world war, which could kill us all instantly or wipe out the world food supply in days. Yeah, anyone else remember those days? Do you really think we didn't know we were going to have to grow up and get a job and make ends meet? That we didn't have academic and peer pressure at school? That we didn't have to work to earn our pocket money and plan & save for college? That we didn't know our parents had money issues? That parents didn't fight in front of their kids? Hello! On top of all that, we had a lot of chores on average and our parents were more likely to use "scary" punishments. If you don't remember these things and you're over 20, then that proves my point that people don't clearly remember past feelings. They may have a sense that they "were" stressed, but not the specific level of stress as compared to today's stress level, which is what the survey asked for.
I would say there are differences, but they go both ways. My kids started "school" at 2, and I was nearly 5 when I first entered any kind of group care (KG), unless you count my siblings. So I was "free to be myself" for twice as long. But on the other hand, maybe that was why KG was pretty traumatic and I never did come to like school. Another difference is that kids' food has a lot more unnatural stuff in it, including hormones, preservatives, artificial colors, etc, and kids eat more sugars and are fatter nowadays, all of which physically impact emotions and make it harder for a child to exercise self-control to keep up with responsibilities and stay out of trouble. On the other hand, a lot more kids are medicated nowadays, so maybe the unnatural substances balance each other out. Kids today think money is tight because it's tighter than it was 2 years ago, but what kids don't realize is that the previous 5 years or so, they lived a charmed life as far as finances go. The "things" we could afford as kids don't even compare to what today's kids take for granted. And socially, older generations (especially women) were expected to (a) make peace with their parents, maintain contact, and help and support them in their declining years, and (b) make whatever physical and behavioral adjustments might be needed to attract a mate and keep [him] forever and adjust to almost any personality type / behavior in order to be able to raise a "happy" family, among other things. Nowadays, it's anything goes - you don't have to be married to become a parent, you can live together until it no longer suits you, you can be "happily divorced," etc., and there's relatively no stigma on you or your child. And it's fashionable to hate and blame your parents and demand that the government take care of them while you shrug your shoulders and shower more goodies on yourselves and your kids. Today's kids are taught that if they don't like what's behind door #1, they can go back and choose door #2 any time they want. They don't even realize that it hasn't always been that way. And remember the days when we worried when there wasn't enough rainfall during growing season, because it could mean food prices would double or triple within months? How about the days when one's family's whole livelihood depended on the year's weather? What if you had that to look forward to that for your whole adult life? Or is that not called stress?
It can easily be proven that today's kids don't have more objective reasons to stress compared to the past. But what does seem to be recent is the attitude that it's too much for them and they shouldn't have to deal with it. Stress is part of growing up. Young people need to be acknowledging and dealing with it and moving forward. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Embrace challenges. That's the ony way you'll ever rise above them.
Kids More Stressed Out Than Ever Before, Survey Shows {ParentDish}
Nov 5th 2009 2:54PM These "studies" and "surveys" get dumber and dumber.
You are asking tweens and teens if they are more stressed than last year?
1) Stress fades in the memory, folks. Do you really think they accurately remember how they were feeling 365 days ago? Do they also remember what they had for dinner that day? Or how the weather was? Hello!
2) Puberty and adolescence have always involved increasing awareness of the stresses of life - it's part of growing up. Besides . . .
3) Kids that age are all about "OMG, Me, Now." It's hormonal, they can't help it. Of course they think that the stress they feel this minute is more than 90% of humans, including themselves, have ever felt.
Dumbest "survey" I've ever heard of, and that's saying something. Where's the money for these things coming from? Oh, this is from the American Psychological Association - people with psychology degrees asked these dumbass questions? I'm not even sure what to think about that.
Vigilante Saves Kids From Parent Abduction {ParentDish}
Nov 4th 2009 10:28AM It's nobody's business besides the legal custodial parent to decide in which country the child is "better off." Elian Gonzales was better off with his father, who happened to live in Cuba. My kids are better off wherever I am.
