Being a high school student is one of the most stressful times in life that everyone can relate to. Between working and school, students tend to feel overwhelmed by everything going on in their day-to-day lives. Learning how to manage your time can relieve stress among students.
How To Manage Your Time
Finding the right balance between school and other extracurricular activities is a must to get through high school. Students are going to experience major times of stress at least once and there’s things you can do to prevent it.
Separating school and home life is very important. A big stressor for students is when their schoolwork gets mixed in with their free time. When it comes to assignments, students need to make sure they’re turning in work on time. A 50% or higher in the grade book is way better than a zero, so it’s important that students turn in their work ASAP. This helps relieve stress by not building up work as more is assigned during class and for homework.
Taking time off for yourself to catch up on work is also a must. Some students use a ‘mental health day’ to complete any missing work without the stress of doing it at school.
Work and Sports
Nowadays students work a part-time job along with going to school. This could create lots of missing homework due to long working hours which results in poor grades. The built-up assignments will make students feel stressed about their grades. This adds lots of stress to students’lives and severely affects their overall mental health. Choosing to work during school has many benefits, but can be very stressful. Finding the right balance between working and school is crucial when it comes to students’ mental health. By having a steady, flexible job, they can relieve lots of their stress.
Students also have to learn how to balance school and sports. Coaches tend to be persistent in having their players show up to practice and on time, but this can be stressful for some students having to manage everything else.
Student Andre Joukhadarian says, “I prioritize my sports until I seem to fall behind in a class which is when I reach out to my coaches and explain that I need to figure it out and get the extra help. Usually this leads to increased focus and energy toward classes but for the most part school stress and after school stress stay separate.”
College Decision Stress
From the beginning of freshman year, students are already asked where they want to go to college. A decision that they make at 16-17 impacts the rest of life and future careers.
Parents also play a big part in stressing their children out about college. They obviously want what’s best for their children, but they need to know where to draw the line. Students are already reminded almost everyday by their teachers about applying for colleges and finding the right one, coming home to parents repeating everything stresses them out more.
Parents Stress Out Their Children
In high school, students are preparing to start their next big step in life, college and adulthood. Parents tend to believe that their children have it easy since they don’t have serious responsibilities, but they’re wrong. Students ages 13-18 can only handle so much stress build-up in their developing brain. Adults tend to stress about the smaller things in life whereas students have to worry about their past, present and future.
Parent Laura Czech says, “I try my best not to stress my kids out about school. I know that times are a lot different now compared to how they were when I was growing up. I also believe that communicating with your children about school and their future is also very important so you both can have an understanding of one another.”
