Stressed out! A new poll confirms it: from money and grades to drugs and violence, today's teens face tremendous pressures.

• Author: Brenna, Susan
• Position: Brief Article

PARENTS WON'T LEAVE ME ALONE NEED MONEY MUST PASS CHEM EXAM DRUGS? SEX? SATS ... SATS ... SATS SHE DOESN'T CARE TRYOUTS FOR TRACK TEAM DOES SOMEONE HAVE A GUN?

Elizabeth Ging's day starts with a rush; she's got to fly if she wants to snag a parking space at school. She leaves her home on the north side of Chicago at 7 a.m. and drives to the south side, where she's in 12th grade at the University of Chicago Laboratory School. In this, her college application year, she's taking advanced placement calculus and AP biology. Her school is so competitive, says Elizabeth, 18, some of her classmates have already completed every advanced science and math course offered, so now they're taking college courses. "In my grade, for me to be in AP calculus is nothing."

Her school is small enough that all the seniors know each other's business, which increases her sense of the competition breathing down her neck. Elizabeth dropped tennis to concentrate on college applications this fall, but she still volunteers several hours each week at a day-care center for the children of mothers who are trying to get off welfare. After that, she has an average of three to four hours of homework a night.

"I'm just really overwhelmed," Elizabeth says. "I even compete with my parents about who's stressing more. My dad's a lawyer, so I'm sure he's more stressed than I am. But there are some days when I wonder."

Elizabeth is not alone, and she knows it. "I think that, nationally, any serious student is under the same stress I'm under," she says.

She's right on the mark. According to a recent New York Times/CBS News poll of American teenagers, young people today are under enormous stress. The poll's findings, which are confirmed by other studies, surveys, and UPFRONTs interviews with teens across the country, suggest that the stress level endured by teenagers today makes the teen angst of previous generations look like a day at the beach. (See "Poll".)

In the poll last October of 1,038 young people ages 13 to 17, 43 percent said they were having a harder time growing up than their parents had.

PARENTAL EXPECTATIONS

The causes are myriad. Chief among them is the booming economy, which has boosted many families' standard of living, ratcheting up expectations of their kids. Students are under intense pressure to get good grades, to excel in extracurricular activities, to get into a competitive college, and eventually to snare a high-paying, high-status job.

Another stress factor is the fear of violence. Just over half of the teens who were polled say they believe a murderous rampage could erupt at their schools, despite new heavy-duty security measures from cameras to guards.

Perhaps. most alarming is the poll finding that just under half the respondents say they know someone their age who has tried to commit suicide.

Kay Redfield Jamison, a psychiatrist and author of a book about suicide, calls it "absolutely terrifying" that so many students have considered or attempted suicide. While teen suicides have declined slightly from a 1994 peak of 11 per 100,000 15-to-19-year-olds to slightly more than 9 per 100,000 teens in 1997, suicide remains the third leading cause of death among that age group. Unintentional injuries and homicides are the first and second causes.

When you add to all this the anxiety over sex, drugs, and drinking, it's easy to see why teens are stressed out. (For tips on coping with stress, see page 12.)

In the New York Times/CBS poll, it was the affluent teenagers who were substantially more likely than those from more modest homes to report that their lives were harder. Affluent teens feel the pressure to make sure they do all the right things so...