The Stress of Students’ Have Opened Our Eyes to Intervene

The amount of stress and coping skills with our adolescent students has sparked the interest of many researchers today. In such a fast-paced world can we control the amount of stress our children are experiencing? Stress is no doubt a factor that concerns a large majority of students, in our communities. With these children as our next generation to follow and to take over our world. It is important that we are raising our next generation to reach the best of their abilities. We will depend on these students to take over important matters and care for us as we age. This is an issue that has importance to all of us and will impact all of our lives.

Adults need to understand the stressors that our children are experiencing to better support our students. Ongoing research with studies on what is causing student stress and interventions for coping mechanisms, we can offer successful interventions to prevent issues before negative effects occur such as anxiety or depression. The school stressors that most students are facing on a daily basis involve academic performance and peer conflict. Elementary school is where children learn how to be students and have to learn academic and social knowledge in diverse settings.

A mixed-method of longitudinal studies with examining the daily school stressors and coping strategies of elementary school children. With having students that were between the ages of 7 and 11 years old reporting their daily school stress. These studies were measured for eight weeks in total and instructed individual stress and coping interviews as well. The results highlighted a relation with students’ exposure to their daily stress at school and usage of coping strategies. “Students frequently reported stress as a result of frustration and fatigue in the everyday learning process, as well as pressure to constantly switch gears and master curricula under time constraints.” (Sotardi 717)

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These findings suggested how young students respond to and successfully navigate with in-class learning challenges are linked to the daily stress experienced at school. According to Sotardi “Student Stress and Coping” using interview responses and reported scores were integrated with 53 students. These students were given a challenging task and were expected to begin a coping process by attempting to complete the task alone. Next, they were expected to seek help from their classmates. Lastly, they were expected to seek help from an adult after they completed the prior steps.

At the end of the coping process, 17 students were able to overcome the challenge of working alone. With the remaining 36 students that sought classmates, 9 were able to end the coping process and the remaining 27 that sought adults were able to end the coping process. Altogether the individuals that work independently were highly motivated students. The students that were able to overcome the challenge seeking help from classmates reported more stress than the students who either overcame the challenge of working independently or seeking the help of an adult. Students have also reported more stress as a result of an interpersonal conflict with peers.

Stress in one area of school life such as peer conflict in the classroom is closely related to stress reported in other areas of school such as learning challenges and even small annoyances can affect the focus of other events. “Furthermore, pessimistic individuals were more likely to respond to peer threats by making a mental shift (e.g., trying to suppress or ignore the problem) than by actively confronting the problem (e.g., making a verbal response, seeking help from others).” (Sotardi 717) There is less of a chance for the students to reach a resolution to peer conflict with using a mental shift for coping rather than confronting independently with a verbal response or seeking the help of an adult. Self-perception and self-esteem during this transition are greatly impacted by most adolescents at this time.

As students leave elementary school in the top grade as an older student, to then transition into junior high at the lowest grade and younger student. The achievement of self-perception and self-esteem were studied on adolescents in this time of transition. The data collected in the study was known as Michigan’s adolescence study that focuses on the changes in transition with also looking at the impact of the classroom and family environment. “Early adolescents’ self-esteem was lowest immediately after the transition to junior high school and increased during the seventh grade.” (Wigfield 555) During the young adolescent years, children have many biological changes going on in their body. Where this is the time that puberty associated hormones start taking effect.

Many adolescents become more negative about school and themselves, with also becoming more anxious about school and have lower academic motivations. School performance has a strong impact and plays a big role in a student's general self-esteem. Preventative social problem solving and the importance of intervention teaching can greatly benefit not only the behaviors of students but their academics as well. Children receiving a full year or even a half year of a preventive social problem-solving program in elementary school was compared with a no-treatment group at the level of entry to junior high.

The implications of strong support given to social problem solving and the preventive intervention for children were conducted in a project, referred to as Improving Social Awareness-Social Problem Solving. “The problem-solving skills suggested as mediators of responses to stressors can perhaps be considered as building blocks needed to develop appropriate schema for appraising the kinds of problems one might encounter, what one would like to see happen, how one can go about solving them, and the outcomes one anticipates” (Elias, et al. 272) The one year of training that included mediating roles for social problem-solving was related to a reduction in the severity of middle-school stressors.

Although these skills were not necessarily useful in the actual adjustment to the transitional stressors. Children lacking in these skills were more likely to have intense stressors. Students face many life circumstances at home and in their communities that can contribute to stress and coping. These stressors are often brought into the classroom, which impact the students learning, behaviors, and academic performance. “Mindfulness in the classroom context teaches young people coping and calming techniques that can be used across a student’s social ecology to help alleviate stress and cope with stressful situations” (Harpin 150) Mindfulness in an intervention that has been used in the classrooms with older children and adolescents to help with behavioral and academic outcomes.

A mindfulness program was integrated daily with a classroom of 4th graders with teachers providing data on student behavior and academic performance. The teachers reported significant differences in prosocial behaviors, emotional regulation, and academic performance in their students with also reporting a high satisfaction with the curriculum. This program is thought that the sooner you start the more beneficial will be with students as they grow into their adolescent years. The effects that stress can have on the academic performance of students can have both positive and negative outcomes. “Stress is the body’s reaction to a challenge.

Although stress is often perceived as bad, it can actually be good in some respects.” (Aafreen, et al. 1779) Stress is a natural response and is known to be the fuel needed to meet our daily challenges in our fast-paced modern life. The right kind of stress can sharpen our mind and reflexes to push us to accomplish an activity that needs or our attention or requiring an immediate response. This is a type of acute stress that in most cases students will either benefit and/or easily overcome. A student that experiences high levels of stress or chronic stress, regardless of age or grade, it can interfere with their ability to learn, memorize, and earn good grades. “Excessive stress could lead to psychological problems such as depression and anxiety. When stress is perceived negatively or becomes excessive, students experience physical and psychological impairment.” (Aafreen, et al. 1777)

At this stage, a factor with students is experiencing incompatibilities of their mental development with their physical changes or social environment. The negative stress can cause problems with inadequate adaptations. Due to a fast physical and mental development change, negative stress can also prevent one from being aware and controlling one's emotions, getting along with others, adapting to a change, and maintaining a positive attitude.

There has been a recent rise in depression among our adolescents’ today with looking into what some causes may be and more importantly, increasing the awareness to try and get a better control of this issue. “The odds of adolescents suffering from clinical depression grew by 37 percent between 2005 and 2014, according to a study by Ramin Mojtabai, a professor atJohns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.” (Sugarman) The National Institute of Mental Health is estimating that 3 million adolescents from age 12 to 17 have had at least one major depressive episode in this past year.

Teen depression appears to be on the rise and is affecting the urban, rural, and suburban populations equally. “Even as depression in teens is on the rise, it remains unclear whether it’s due to increased awareness and acceptance or environmental factors.” (Sugarman) The most significant impact that has been witnessed in the last decade is the arrival of social media. It is hard enough for teens having to endure hormonal changes, peer pressure, and high academic expectations, and now the added pressure of comparing lives to others online. When struggling teens use social media to connect with others to find social support, it can have a positive impact, but more often then not it’s used to measure achievements and failures. Social media has also caused a rise in cyberbullying that many of our students have become a victim too.

Cyberbullying has become a big problem today in which this occurs outside of the schoolyard and in students homes where this was previously known as a safe zone for victims. Although it seems to simple to blame social media and fact is it's not going anywhere any time soon. According to Torres that states that he doesn’t think that the current generation of students is less capable of dealing with stressors than the previous generations were, but he does think that teens are living in an increasingly challenging social and political environment. This is the post-9/11 generation, one that has grown up in an era of terrorism, school shootings, and economic turmoil.

College campuses have historically been places of political tensions, and that’s true today. “This is reminiscent of the ’60s in some ways,” Torres says. “Students and people are taking to the streets and protesting and demanding change and advocating for groups that aren’t getting what they deserve. And that causes stress, especially when the dialogue becomes defensive.” (Sugarman) With our generation of students being raised in this era, and experiencing a different world than our last generation is used to. It is clear that we all need to work together in taking in an account to offer an understanding of the diversity that students now are experiencing today.

Students face a multitude of challenges and they need support from prosocial adults to develop a set of effective and appropriate ways to cope with stress in the classroom as well as out. Educators and parents must develop a realistic understanding with different skills that children use and do not use to manage stressful situations. This type of awareness is beneficial to support academic success and to advocate for children's well-being. To have a rise in mental health cases makes this a serious matter and alarming to the importance it brings to all of us that our next generation stays healthy to succeed.

Any adult could be involved if they notice either a child struggling in school or a time that is needed to step in to offer advice. This type of help can make a huge difference and impact a child's life. With the understanding that these children are our next generation really is a big deal and has an effect on all of our lives. As we age we are going to have to put a great deal of trust in this generation, and we will have to have the hope that they are mentally healthy.

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