With the world in a mental health crisis, teenagers stay at the center of this issue. Even with thousands of mental health advocates and programs, tensions around mental health in teenagers still exist. This predicament leaves two questions: What causes these rates of poor mental health in teenagers, and what can we do?
Poor mental health in teenagers has numerous causes. Some of these include current brain development, home life, and academic and social relationships. Each one of these mental health conditions comes with its own unique situations and struggles; however, each one deserves recognition.
One of the leading causes of poor mental health in teenagers comes from academic stress. Around 30% of high school students experience depression, and a major reason comes from the stress of curriculum, deadlines, and accommodation issues. (Drug Invent Today, 2018) Together, scholastic stressors cause a cycle of declining mental health. (Stud Educ Eval., 2020)
“…students claimed that academic-related pressures such as ongoing study, writing papers, preparing for tests and boring professors were the most important daily problems. Exams and test preparation, grade level competitiveness, and gaining a large quantity of knowledge in a short period of time all contribute to academic pressure. Perceived stress refers to a condition of physical or psychological arousal in reaction to stressors,” The article, College students’ stress and health in the COVID-19 pandemic: the role of academic workload, separation from school, and fears of contagions, said.
Another reason for poor mental health in teenagers comes from brain development. During the teenage years, adolescent brains will change in order to adapt to their environment more than at any other time in a person’s life. Since the brain does not fully develop until a person’s mid to late twenties, a teenager’s brain cannot weigh advantages vs. disadvantages, evaluate risk vs. reward, plan ahead or control emotional impulses. Teenagers have an increased chance of risk for impulsive and risk-taking behaviors without much forethought of it. Within the brain, hormones and emotions peak, putting teenagers at risk for painful experiences. (Armstrong, 2016)
“These have meaningful effects on all aspects of life during adolescence, like new attention given to social relationships, strong desires and impulses, seeking positive and rewarding experiences, delayed executive functioning and increased ability to learn and adapt to new situations and expectations that accompany the transition from childhood dependence to adult competence and responsibility,” Jordan Smith, Adolescence: A Distinct Stage in Brain Development, said.
A key sense of a teenager’s well-being and self comes from the people that surround them. Having social support from healthy friendships/relationships promotes a healthy sense of self, protects mental health, reduces stress, lessens the tendency to internalize problems and provides companionship. (Understanding the Link between Social and Emotional Well-Being and Peer Relations in Early Adolescence: Gender-Specific Predictors of Peer Acceptance. J. Youth Adolesc. 2010) Without healthy friendships, teenagers typically experience poor mental health, poor sleeping patterns, low self-esteem, and increased difficulty in everyday activities such as school. (A. Pinkham, personal communication, October 25, 2022).
“During secondary school, teenagers have the tendency to engage in a kind of hyper-focus on peer groups and social status, and an important negative consequence of this occurrence is a general lack of interest and engagement with school and academics,” A. Pinkham, Personal Communication, said.
As mentioned earlier, the people a person surrounds themselves with have a strong impact on their mental health. This also relates to the fact that a leading cause of poor mental health comes from home life and family dynamics. A lot of a person’s development and mental health stems from their family relationship and home situation. From abuse to neglect, the relationship between the parent and the child has a strong correlation with an individual’s mental health. (A. Pinkham, personal communication, October 20, 2022)
“Within adolescence, however, the dynamics between the teen and its parents begins to shift as new challenges emerge, such as puberty and cognitive-emotional development,” Jordan Smith, Socialization: An External Mode of Adolescent Identity Development, said. “While teens do look up to their parents for guidance in navigating adolescence, the changes experienced can create problems within the relationships as well.”
Knowing the information provided means that everyone has a responsibility to help others and attempting to make a difference when it comes to mental health. Though someone cannot heal a person’s mental health by themselves, they can always extend a helping hand, they can attempt to have a positive impact by checking up on the people around them, treating everyone with kindness and grace, offering a shoulder to cry on and just listen to someone when they need it. As a last message to those struggling with their mental health, you can always do something about it. You can always reach out to someone you trust and receive help from a professional.
