At 18 years old, I myself, along with countless others, are under pressure. Enough pressure to last a lifetime. There are plenty of reasons as to why we are under pressure from every direction of life or… at least we think we are?

Of course, I cannot speak for everyone when I elaborate on why, where and how we are all under this increasing amount of pressure. The crux of it is, it is mainly from our only “trusted” form of education. I talk lightly on the “trusted” form of education because I believe you don’t require this to do well, but that’s another story for another day.

For now, let me go into depth about what makes us feel the way we do.

Unfortunately for some, this pressure comes with serious consequences, and no these are not the kind that just means an hour on the naughty step. These are the kinds of consequences that can leave people with next to no hope, no job and no security within themselves.

Now, if you are a parent read this next part closely, it should open your eyes. The harshest of realities is even if you think your precious child is completely stress-free and under no pressure at all. You’re wrong. They feel the pressures from the slightest change or expectations of them, these are just exacerbated from any kind of leadership or role model in their lives.

To start this off I would like to tell you that I am living as a teenager in recent times and the most pressured of times…

…(because we all know what’s happening now (covid-19)! However, these strangest times have had a profound effect on me, my peers and a lot of the teenage population attending a school. These pressures set in by teachers seemed to lift off. I wonder if this was from teachers not caring as much, or pupils being in a more relaxed environment? Whatever it was, the pressure seemed to lift.

Now I ask myself because of this and maybe you do too is, why? Why did pressure lift on teenagers when maybe it should have been put down on us harder? However, that’s another story.

Sorry for that tangent but it’s still relevant to the main focus of pressure, I’d like to focus more on the everyday stresses and pressure our teenagers face almost daily. Family, teachers, university lecturers and even friends to teenagers it all piles up regardless of forms of relief that they go through.

Asking around through my socials and peers teenagers all aged between fifteen and nineteen have said through a questionnaire that out of 20 people 29% being male. All but 10% said they all suffer from stress and 5% said they started suffering from it at age eleven. AGED ELEVEN!

That’s the single saddest part about it. At age eleven you used to believe in Santa Claus. But now its face down in their £1000 phone feeling stress. Monumental amounts of children and teenagers cannot afford these luxuries and they too struggle from stress and pressures from the modern world.

These pressures are not even eased when we leave our place of education…

70% say it’s their parents causing this pressure to build on them and making them feel depressed or stressed because of it. It’s this pressure that worries me for the next generation. I’m sure we can agree that some pressure is good, but pressure coming from places where teens should be teens is just unacceptable.

Of course, an argument can be made to this generation being the most cared for and therefore the least independent of generations. But in 60 years time, we will be the most independent and the teenagers in the year in 2080 should, in theory, be the least pressured if us as a generation learn from what we face if we don’t… it could mean disaster for them as well as us.

Coming back to my first point about pressure, we face it from everywhere and yes that includes yourselves. Possibly the biggest cause of it all is from themselves an intrinsic voice adding to the pressures of day to day life. Unfortunately, there is very little any extrinsic help will do for this, but we can lift pressure off just by offering that support and this could be any kind of support from workloads to just making them laugh it helps every time. For now, keep your own head up and keep the pressure as limited as you can.

Until next time, I owe you one.

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