Being a teenager isn't easy

By Jayden Hollander - Year 13, Otago Boys' High School

All adults seem to think the same thing. All are stuck with the same mentality as the one next to them: ‘‘Us kids have never had it so easy ...''

Now I don't know about other teenagers, but not once have I ever been told why adults think this, yet I'm told it all the time.

Life's stressful, man, for everyone. No matter who you are, how old you are, or what you do.

Adults seem to stress over their jobs, supporting their families, worrying about the rent, bills and all that other nonsense.

But for us teenagers, we seem to have the weight of the world on our shoulders, and for a 16- or 17-year-old that can be all too much to handle.

The pressure we get from school is huge.

The expectation we get from our families, teachers and sometimes ourselves to do well in everything we do can really take its toll. All this homework, all these assignments, all these exams we have to worry about from day to day are the last thing us teenagers need while having to clean the house, clean our room, mow the lawns and even walk the dog.

All these responsibilities put on us by our parents, as well as the stress from school, are really not healthy.

Having to focus on multiple internal assessments and assignments in multiple subjects is stressful enough, but then you hear your teacher say: ‘‘In your exam this'', and ‘‘In your exam that''.

It can be incredibly overwhelming.

The pressure from life, school and our parents isn't the worst of it, though.

A teenager's social life can be the best thing for them, but more often than not it can also be the worst.

We teenagers are constantly focused solely on impressing our peers.

We'd almost do anything for it.

Girls spend hundreds of dollars on make-up to look good, just so they can be liked and accepted.

Boys as young as 13 or 14 guzzle down protein shakes and other somewhat dangerous supplements, just because it's considered cool.

Every time I scroll through Facebook, I see selfies from young girls pushing up their breasts, trying to look sexy and be noticed.

Boys out flexing, not only their muscles but their belongings as well, showing off what they have in hope of impressing others.

Every single weekend I see teenagers putting photos and videos on their Snapchat Story of themselves and their mates drinking for everyone to see, just so they can look cool in front of the people viewing them.

We all try so, so, so hard to impress our peers that we lose sight of what's important.

Bullying on social media can be the biggest danger for adolescents.

Adults never had to worry about logging on to Facebook, Instagram, ask.fm and other social media sites and seeing nasty messages being sent to them by other kids.

On average, over 4400 teenagers

commit suicide every year, and for every suicide there are 100,000 suicide attempts, the majority from bullying, according to the CDC.

I can't even express the amount of disbelief I feel at those statistics.

At 16 or 17 years old, we're considered too young to drink, too young to smoke, too young to do anything that adults are able to do to relax and let their hair down.

Yet we're expected to behave and act like adults?

I still park up on the couch on a Saturday morning watching cartoons with my bowl of Cocoa Pops. How am I meant to know what I want to do for the rest of my life!What about the thought of living without our parents or any other adult to look after you? Having to take on all those adult responsibilities? I'm sure as hell not ready for that.

Not so much yet, but towards the end of the year and the start of next year, we're going to have to start getting mentally prepared for university, worrying about student loans, getting a job to pay for living expenses.

We kids today have so many things on our plate, so many things to worry about and so many things to focus on.

Add a Comment