Written by: Emily Rainford
The lack of responsibility is an obvious advantage whilst being a teenager as well as beneficial energy levels. There’s no worry of paying the bills or doing the weekly food shop, you just get to live a life your parents provide for you. Yet there’s more to being a teenager than parties and relationships. There’s serious stress which isn’t necessary and can be avoided with help.
Being young understandably has its ups and downs but according to CAMHS young people aged 15 to 24 are more likely to experience mental illness than any other age group. This can be because of the pressures adolescents face such as academic stress, peer/parental pressure and social media standards. Social media has had a serious impact on young people’s mental health especially since 2020 during lockdown due to COVID-19. Beauty standards society has encouraged has overtaken the importance of health and has caused serious issues for teenagers including eating disorders. According to the NHS, 59.4% of people aged 17-19 years screened positive for an eating problem. This is exacerbated by the way appearance is emphasised online; young people’s minds often aren’t mature enough to understand the majority of what they see is unrealistic or even fake.
Another difficult situation teenagers cope with is thinking about the future. As a teenager myself, I know that spending time thinking about my life in 5 years can cause stress and panic as it’s so worrying to think about when you struggle to understand where you want your life to take you. And the truth is that most people have no clue where they want their life to take them, especially since there’s so much to consider. Do you want kids? Do you want to travel? Do you want to go to university? Most kids’ honest answer is, I don’t know. However, we are encouraged to make our minds up without any help or support.
Realistically, adolescents need help understanding and planning their future. The lack of teaching basic skills needed in adulthood is unacceptable and the fact trigonometry is prioritised over learning how to manage finances is distressing. Access to careers advisors should be much more approachable and regular lessons on basic skills need to be arranged to settle teens’ nerves about approaching adulthood. Becoming independent is a daunting task, yet there’s so little guidance when taking this step into maturity which needs to be changed.
Teenagers are known to be moody, lazy and irresponsible to name a few of the negative stereotypes associated with them, however, people fail to understand this is because their hormones are fluctuating and adolescents are learning how to deal with their emotions in a grown-up way which isn’t always easy. Despite this, it’s well known being a teenager isn’t all bad.
Finding out who you are as a person is extremely difficult. People often don’t figure this out until early adulthood however the stress of it unfortunately lingers over those approaching that age. There’s a pressure to fit in but also stand out which seems impossible and affects the way you live your life in ways as little as what kind of clothes you wear or what type of music you listen to. Teenagers are easily influenced by friends which can negatively affect a person’s mentality. As hard as it can be, young people need to understand they are their own person and they must live their own life without being influenced.
