Anxiety, Stress and Depression

ANXIETY, STRESS AND DEPRESSION
IN ADOLESCENTS

By Tom

An overview

As a beginning teacher, you will be better served to recognize the causes, symptoms and treatments for anxiety, stress and depression among your adolescent students. These problems are increasingly common for today’s generation of young students as issues such as high-stakes testing and lofty social expectations continue to gather momentum.

An anxious or depressed student cannot learn as quickly or as easily as a classmate who is mentally at ease, meaning that a student’s personal fears or concerns can have a direct effect on his or her classroom performance. This section of the blog will attempt to inform new teachers about psychosocial factors such as depression, stress and anxiety that affect adolescent students in tens of thousands of classrooms across the United States.


But first, some theory

Charles Darwin, best known for writing his Orgin of Species in 1859, was one of the first experts to shed light on anxiety and depression in children and adults. He argued that one could communicate fear through facial expressions or body language, but many other psychological thinkers of the period dismissed his theories. Darwin also offered a distinction between anxiety and fear, which few others had done up until that time. “If we expect to suffer, we are anxious,” Darwin wrote. “If we have no hope of relief, we despair.” (Klein 13)

Darwin’s pioneering research paved the way for Sigmund Freud, whose theories touched subjects that never before had been analyzed from such an angle. Freud said anxiety could begin at infancy and resulted when someone had a great deal of tension-producing stimuli that they could not effectively release. The origin of the overwhelming stimuli could be internal or external depending on one’s stituation, Freud said. (Klein 15) Yet Freud’s emphasis on the “id,” sexual urges and suppressed feelings did not jibe with many psychologists, including his own daughter, Anna Freud. Psychologist Harry Stack-Sullivan argued that fear is “exclusively human” and “preternaturally social,” emphasizing culture’s role in fostering anxiety instead of unconscious foundations.

Searching for patterns in adolescent anxiety and depression

It is difficult, if not impossible, to pinpoint who will suffer from anxiety and depression, along with when they will suffer it and why it will emerge. Yet some trends such as family history, gender and life conditions may help you to keep a careful eye on some of your students to watch for signs of trouble. By doing so, you could help to prevent or reduce a lifetime of struggles. That is because researchers have said, “We do know that the majority of those reporting major depression indicate that it began in adolescence.” (Craig 93) Furthermore, “Rates of depression are increasing in young people and many depressions have an onset in adolescence.” (Craig 84)

But what can you look for as a new teacher with 20 or 30 students to guide in each of your half-dozen classes? First, try not to be overwhelmed yourself. Use your school’s guidance counselors and veteran teachers for their knowledge and expertise – severe depression is a mental condition that requires professional attention before it deteriorates into something worse, which this report will address in the next few sections. Here are some simple things to keep in mind as a new teacher looking for patterns of stress and depression in your students.

• Anxiety and depression may negatively affect a student’s performance. Search for signs of trouble in a student’s homework or if their energy level in class has seemed to go markedly down. This could be a sign of stress or something worse, as most experts agree that severe anxiety and depression hurts a person’s ability to function in important roles.
• Depression is recurrent and prone to multiple episodes. Keep a particularly close eye on any students who have struggled with depression in the past school year or who have gone through traumatic events at home, such as coping with the loss of a loved one.
• Depression affects females in adolescence more than males. A recent research project showed that the anxiety level for boys and girls was about the same at age 11, but by age 13, the anxiety level for girls had increased dramatically more than that of boys. The project’s lead researcher, Dr. Primrose Letcher, said girls were especially vulnerable if they and their parents struggled to get along. He said the main factors for adolescent depression were temperament, parental and peer relationships, social skills, life events and previously troubled behavior. (Farouque 1)

Root causes for anxiety, stress and depression in adolescents

As a teacher, you might occasionally feel helpless that your students are suffering internally despite your best efforts to enrich their lives. Yet many causes of adolescent depression are simply bigger than the classroom and extend far past the school’s walls.

Much of the angst felt by teenagers is because they do not know their place in the world. In this way, adolescent stress and depression is interconnected with other psychosocial factors such as the trouble to establish self-identity and to build self-esteem as an adolescent. One of those issues cannot be analyzed without at least acknowledging some connected factors. “A host of new drives and needs assails the boy and girl during the adolescent years; many of them they understand imperfectly and suffer inevitable frustration because they do not even know what they want so intensely, much less how to attain it,” Thomas Staton writes in Dynamics of Adolescent Adjustment. (Staton 236) It’s stress inducing to even comprehend the thought as an adult: To want something so badly, yet to not know exactly what it is that you want.

In A Tribe Apart, author Patricia Hersch identifies academic pressures as a major cause of anxiety in today’s adolescents. Hersch cited surveys in which up to 75 percent of high school students admitted to cheating at least once. Many of those adolescents defended their decisions because of the pressure – and the accompanying anxiety – to compete in a high-stakes environment to attend the best colleges in the country. A Girl Scouts of America survey showed that “Their major concerns were ‘the social expectations of the adult world which all have to do with pressure: the pressure to obey parents and teachers (80 percent), to get good grades in school (78 percent), to prepare for the future (69 percent) and to earn money (62 percent).’ ” (Hersch 101)

Another character in Hersch’s book, Charles Sutter, feels pressure from both sides. On one hand, he feels anxious about the academic demands that he will need to meet, particularly because he is African-American and he feels that this forces him to face more skepticism among adults. Yet he also feels pressure and anxiety to belong with his peers, who sometimes shun his successful academic career as an attempt to “act white.” Again, these issues introduce race and peer pressure and several other issues beyond mere adolescent anxiety, but Charles’ story helps to illustrate that today’s high school hallways feature far more complexities than those of generations past.

Extreme cases: Suicidal thoughts in adolescence

The worst nightmare for many teachers is losing a student. Yet suicide, sadly, is a tragedy that continues to affect far too many high schools across the country. A beginning teacher cannot be expected to possess the same expertise as a licensed counselor or social worker, but he or she should trust their instincts based on daily interactions with their students. Keep in close touch with your school’s guidance counselors and never ignore your “inner voice” that tells you a student might be facing serious problems.

Suicide was the third-leading cause of death this decade for young adults and adolescents ages 15 to 24, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. That age group accounted for 9.9 deaths among every 100,000 teens and young adults. Between the age range of 10 to 14 years old, the rate was 1.3 deaths per every 100,000 subjects, or 272 deaths among 20.9 million children in the age group. No data was available on attempted suicide rates, but some leading experts believe that those rates are far too high. “Attempted suicide has become a phenomenon of truly epidemic proportions,” David K. Curran writes in Adolescent Suicidal Behavior. Such acts are cries for help, he says, and many teens who attempt suicide might try to attempt it once again if their conditions go untreated. (Curran 15) Many of those who attempt suicide have endured a similar experience, experts say: They might have moved frequently, changed schools often, repeated grades, suffered from drinking problems, lost close friends or family members or had someone in their inner circle attempt or commit suicide. (Curran 54)

Closer to home: Interviews with a Chicago-area student and educator


Sometimes we can learn more from a candid conversation than a scholarly journal or a leather-bound book. These interviews were conducted with a Palatine High School senior named Brian, 17, and a veteran Palatine teacher named Dana help to shed light on the causes of anxiety and stress among students today. (Note: Their last names have been removed because of class policy.)

PART I: A CONVERSATION WITH BRIAN, 17,
A SENIOR AT PALATINE HIGH SCHOOL

Q: Do you see among your friends or classmates that some people really struggle with depression?
A: Yeah, I do. I see some of my friends, not so much [suffer from] depression, but more just stress and anxiety. Especially this time of year with colleges and schools, and especially in this time of life, too, with hormones flying and boyfriends and girlfriends and all that drama, I do see it.

Q: It’s not always in-class causes, then?
A: Oh, no. A lot of it is things that go on outside of class and on the weekends. It gets carried over into class and I see it affect their schoolwork as well.

Q: So what are the biggest stresses that you see among people your age now?
A: Definitely college. … Up until now, you’ve pretty much been spoon-fed what you had to do. You had to go to school, you had to do this. People are just freaking that I don’t know what I want to do yet. Should I go to college? Can I go to college? It’s just very stressful. … It’s kind of mind-blowing sometimes.

Q: Where does finals rank in that list?
A: They’ve always ranked pretty high. But also you see a lot that when people get into college, they see the letter that they’ve been accepted, that they’ll just blow off school.

Q: What about ACTs?
A: ACTs are a big part of stress. I remember back when we all had to take it at the school, people were freaking out and saying, ‘This is going to determine if I go to college.’ But in reality, it’s a lot of other things, too.

Q: You hear about the extremes of depression. Do you see a lot of that?
A: Not in my inner group or who I hang out with, no. I just see the normal, ‘Oh my gosh I’m so stressed because of school.’ But it’s not to the point of suicidal or anything like that.

Q: Do you have teachers that notice a student’s stress level and back off a little bit?
A: Usually most teachers if you talk to them and say what’s going on, they’ll completely understand. They’ll either back off on the homework and give you an extra day to finish it or something. But usually teachers are very lenient and accepting towards that.

Q: What about your classmates? If you see somebody who’s really stressed or struggling, do classmates come to their side and offer to help?
A: Yeah. It’s just a nice thing to do. I know that with my friends personally, if someone’s feeling down or out of place, we all kind of talk to him individually and see what’s going on in his head and make sure he’s all right.

Q: I guess it’s hard to say for you, but do you feel like the stress level in today’s high school is higher than it was 10 years ago and 20 years ago and 30 years ago?
A: I would say yes because of all of the new changing times and expectations now for college. We’ve all been hearing that it’s harder to get into in-state schools and that’s affecting a lot of student’s stress levels as well.

Q: Has your stress level gone higher or lower since freshman year?
A: Definitely it’s gotten lower. You’re used to school, you just go with the flow now. The real stress is just college and the future. You have more experience under your belt.

Q: Do you know what’s next for you?
A: I want to go into biology. So far I’ve only been accepted into one school, and I’m waiting on the other ones [Wisconsin, Michigan State, UIC]. But I know that I want to go into biology. My goal is to become a marine biologist and study animals.

PART II: A CONVERSATION WITH DANA, AN ENGLISH TEACHER AT PALATINE HIGH SCHOOL

Q: Do you see stress rise and fall at certain times of year in general, or is more of a case-by-case situation with your students?
A: I think it’s more of a case-by-case thing. I think overall it might rise, like around Homecoming week, or individually if you have someone who’s involved in dance show or in the playoffs or something. But I think it’s more of an individual thing. … With my juniors, I definitely see it right around the PSAE in April.

Q: What do you do when you see stress affecting a student’s work?
A: I usually talk to the student, call the parent, follow up with the counselor. It’s like a three-step process. The counselors will get in touch with the other teachers and get in touch with the parents, also. Usually the counselors are pretty good. … Even if [a student] is just having a really bad day, I would still send an e-mail to a counselor just to say, “Here’s what’s up.”

Q: Do you feel like today’s high schools have more stress than 10 years ago or 20 years ago?
A: I think it’s completely different, especially with technology. Like for example, a girl in my class was just talking about the guy who broke up with her through a text message. That, or e-mail, Facebook, all of those things, we didn’t have them 10 years ago. I think all of that does make it more stressful. … I think it makes it harder for them to do work at home. There are so many things socially that you have to do to maintain social status.

Q: I know teachers feel pressure from No Child Left Behind and all of these high-stakes testing requirements. Do you see that stress trickle down to your students?
A: No, not so much. For them, no. For us, yeah, we feel it a little bit.

Q: You teach both freshmen and senior classes. Do you see a difference as far as who’s coming in with more weight on their shoulders?
A: It’s different. It’s just overall a different type of stress. … With the seniors it’s college and what some of them are going to do with the rest of their lives, it’s graduating, a lot of them are starting to be more social. … With the juniors, it’s this upcoming test in April that determines the rest of my life. Everyone always stresses that junior year is your most important year. I think that’s another thing that kind of stresses out juniors. … With the freshmen, there’s a lot of immaturity. I think their stress is mostly social, but they also are trying to figure out how to study and how to succeed on quizzes on tests, how to manage their time and get involved. I think once freshmen get over that, it’s a different challenge sophomore year, and then that’s overcome and there’s a different challenge junior year, and so on.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. Craig, K. and Dobson, K. (1995). Anxiety and Depression in Adults and Children. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
2. Curran, D. (1987). Adolescent Suicidal Behavior. New York, NY: Hemisphere Publishing Corp.
3. Farouque, F. (2005). Teen angst, it’s like more of a girl thing, seriously. Melbourne, Australia: The Age.
4. Hersch, P. (1998). A tribe apart: A journey into the heart of American adolescence. New York NY: Ballantine Books.
5. Klein, R. and Last, C. (1989). Anxiety Disorders in Children. Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications.
6. Renier, L. (1984). Stress in the Female Adolescent. DePaul University Masters thesis, 2-15.
7. Rutter, M., Izard, C., and Read, P. (1986). Depression in Young People. New York, NY: The Guilford Press.
8. Staton, T. (1963). Dynamics of Adolescent Adjustment. New York, NY: The Macmillan Company.

-By Tom Musick