Adults often harken back to carefree days of their youth, but recent studies by the Metrowest Health Foundation, specifically their Adolescent Health Report Card over the last decade, have found that for teenagers, anxiety is on the rise.
The Metrowest Health Foundation’s Adolescent Health Report Card, most recently completed 2016 with results coming out this past May—surveys 24,385 students in 26 high schools in the Metrowest area, Franklin. In 2016, just over a third (36%) of teens in the Metrowest area reported life as being “very stressful,” in the past 30 days, up from 27.9% in 2006. Teen stress in the area is more likely among females, with almost half of female students surveyed (49%) reporting feeling very stressed in the past 30 days, more than double the levels reported by males (22%). In fact, the increase in stress seems to be driven by females, as over the past decade, stress among male students (22%) has remained level while stress among female students has increased from 35% in 2006 to 49% in 2016.
Larger shares of older students are feeling the pressure, according to the survey. While a quarter of 9th graders surveyed felt stressed in the past 30 days, that share grew to 48% among seniors. Sources of stress reported by students included:
• School issues (66%)
- Getting good grades (68%)
- Being able to finish all of their work and study enough (62%)
- Plans after high school (49%)
• Social issues (33%)
Bill Klements: Deputy Principal at Franklin High School says anxiety among students manifests itself in different ways, including issues off school avoidance and a lack of sleep as both cause and effect. The PCC, a supportive parents’ group to the school, has blamed out a push for academic performance and a concern over grades, post-secondary planning and filling a college resume with activities, clubs, leadership, sports, drama and honor society entries.
“Some (pressure) is from school, some is internalized, some is from family expectations,” says Klements. Klements notes that Franklin Public Schools, particularly the Assistant Superintendent, put a large focus on social-emotional learning.
“Franklin Public School teachers are incorporating skills for their students to use to provide that emotional support and resilience they need to face challenges,” he says. You can take a look at a video FHS has made on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPHRa8ODKs8.
Klements also says “The 40%” club “has had a tangible reduction in stress and improvement in school culture.”
FHS teacher Ron DiBona created the 40% Club, a club aimed at simply increasing happiness at the school, after he read Ben Tal Shahar’s book, Happier, that suggests that people control 40% of their relative happiness level based on their perception of events. Forty students showed up the first meeting. In an effort to spread happiness, students in the group this year wrote inspirational and encouraging quotes on every whiteboard in school, spent a morning greeting every person at the door with stickers, bubbles, posters, music and smiles, later repeating this for the middle school, chalked a giant “K” in honor of a beloved teacher who’d passed, formed a stadium sign to express gratitude toward school administration, cooked and served a meal to cafeteria workers, distributed lollipops at midterm examination time, baked sweets and made cards for custodial staff, and created a framed collage with student “thank you” notes arranged in a flower for their school secretary.
Recently, “The 40%” was nominated for and won a Champions of Wellness Award through the MIAA. On October 27th, they will accept the award at this year’s conference.
“We are super excited and proud to be recognized,” says DiBona.
“Our 40% Club works within this understanding to cultivate happiness in simple and small ways that show how much we have to be grateful for and happy about in our lives, things that we might otherwise not pay enough attention to,” says DiBona.
Ffion Titmuss, who just graduated last spring from Franklin High, says she joined the 40% Club, not so much because she was a happy person, but because the club was for people “who wanted to be happy, and I did value happiness.” She feels making time to think about happiness “matters as much as getting good grades and all the other stuff people focus on.” Titmuss says that students, including herself, tend not to get enough sleep, and “our instinct is to say it’s homework, but we’re doing it on top of sports, clubs and volunteering, and we’re trying to fit it in in less time than it needs.”
Erin Doherty, a senior this year, feels that time press as well, pointing out the difficulty of prioritizing. A naturally happy person, she joined the 40% club, because “it makes me sad to think that other people aren’t.”
Still, Doherty does feel the stress other students do, especially with technology “screaming for our attention.”
The 40% Club, says DiBona, drew “kids infectiously bubbly, to kids who are deeply existential thinkers about the meaning of life, so we got a pretty good cross section.”
Doherty says she enjoyed the act of spreading cheer. “Just starting out the day better gives them confidence, or happiness, to go throughout the day with a positive attitude. Even if you don’t know why, even if it just stems from that event, it just starts the ball rolling.”
“I think I’m a big proponent of the idea that small, things can make a big difference, says Ffion.
“The fact that they’re small things makes it sustainable,” says DiBona.
Over at Tri-County Regional Vocational Technical School, faculty are looking at ways to lessen anxiety and stress.
Tri-County Adele Sands says, “Absolutely, we’re definitely seeing an uptick of students with anxiety.” Sands is one of three full time adjustment counselors at the school of over 1,000 students.
“Some of the things, when I was growing up, that were far away and I didn’t have to think about – it’s part of their world. There’s an immediacy of information that I think is impacting (teens),” says Sands. “They know what’s happening in the world, every minute of every day. We’re all feeling that the world is not as safe as it was. There’s research saying it’s safer, but I don’t think people feel it.” Sands also suggests economic impacts affecting families are affecting students, and the rise of the opioid epidemic has an effect.
Last school year, in fact, Tri-County assembled a team of about 15 faculty looking into “trauma sensitive” schools.
“We have a group of teachers, both vocational and regular, and guidance counselors, who have gotten together and are doing some research on the best practices in creating a trauma sensitive environment,” says Sands. “I think right now their objective is to do as much research as they can around trauma, around school anxiety, around mindfulness. When they have a really good idea of what they are looking at, they’ll have a better idea how they can impact the greater school community.”
Issue Date:
October, 2017
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