Tag: pressures

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Keeping It Safe On The Internet

For this week’s blog, I have adapted our October 24, 2019 entry, as it is still as relevant now as it was then and with so much emphasis on staying safe on the internet this week, it makes sense to reflect.

Here we go….  Lots to be said about internet safety. Our  podcast featuring Charlotte Aynsley, e-safety pioneer and expert,  sheds a whole lot of light on the topic as do many other platforms.  Last year, I attended an inaugural lecture of a law professor at King’s College, London, who talked about the importance of Internet Regulation the world over.

But here is the thing, is the message really sinking in, particularly with our teenagers?

After all the Internet is the global hangout, full of wonderful opportunities. What could go wrong? Back in the summer of last year, I actually heard a young boy say something to that nature—why would it be on the Internet if it is bad—and according to On Internet Safety guest Aynsley, this child is not the only one who thinks that way. There are many children growing up believing that everything on the Internet is true and right.

Though this might sound naïve, it makes a whole lot of sense to the young person whose internet experience is all positive until it isn’t. In the UK, the legal age for having a social media account is 13, though about 24% of children have accounts when they are 10 and twice as many when they turn 12.

A few years ago, a hysterical acquaintance shared that her underage daughter was asked to undress over the Internet.  But thankfully it was all curtailed before any damage was done. But what if it hadn’t been stopped.

Sadly, everyone’s story doesn’t have the same ending as my acquaintance’s daughter had, and mainly because few teenagers are aware of the emotional and mental impact that sharing sexually explicit images can have on them, their friends or others or that sexting, as it is called, is criminal if you are under the age of 18. 

Admittedly, this issue is not being policed as strictly as it could be, Aynsley points out, but all the same, consequences can lead to emotional and mental unrest and cause dire consequences for the future.

Another top issue that holds problems for teenagers online is body image, which impacts  girls disproportionately. The pressure on them to be perfect and happy all the time, as told to us by our two teen girls in On Being A Teen Girl Now, is magnified on social media.  Through polished selfies, this aim for perfection goes well beyond looks and enters how our teen girls are feeling about themselves.

Hence the rise in mental health issues amongst this age group. The key is education, Aynsley says and points out that transparency and honest and real life role models and experiences are of paramount importance.

And this honesty doesn’t just rest with the teenagers themselves, it has to live with parents and guardians, social media companies, the government, the police, everyone.

Staying safe on the internet, which can be a wonderful place, requires a joint effort to not only be aware of the problems stacked against us, particularly children and teenagers, but also be willing to tackle the issues.

The good news is that our podcast clears up the confusion around these tough topics and offers teenagers and their guardians practical tools and tips on the matters.  Listen to On Internet Safety on Apple podcasts and other platforms where podcasts are played.

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I Am a Sufferer of the Tired Teen Epidemic

This week I’m please to have Shannon Amos, The Untamed Optimist, share her blog on Students Overworking. It’s such a fitting subject for todays’s teens with exams galore and high participation in sports and all the rest and goes hand in hand with sleep deprivation, subject of one of our latest podcast.  Check out what Shannon has to say to students and parents alike about how to manage the overload.  And get more tips from UIO: On Sleep.

High school is the perfect time to get ahead in education before college and get an early start for your career; but it’s also proving to be a great time for students to overwork themselves to the point of exhaustion.

Students nationwide are being pressured by family, the school system, and themselves to do the best in school that they possibly can, yet many of them take this too far and overwork themselves, causing disruptions in sleep schedules leading to daytime sleepiness. This “tired teen epidemic” as I like to call it, is a way of acknowledging this unhealthy relationship with the idea of perfection and its association with high achievements in both the educational system and society. I myself have fallen victim to this a lot as of lately and completely understand the unhealthy situation these students have put themselves into to get ahead in school.

Colleges are seeming to get pickier and pickier with accepting their applicants and the pressure put on students to be the “best” in their grade or school is increasing as time goes on. Many students involve themselves in after school clubs, sports, and involve themselves in groups that not only engage them in their community more; but absorb most of their free time, making it difficult to relax and rest their bodies and minds while growing.

Lately, I have found myself coming straight home from school and eating before planting myself in the recliner or my bed and napping for what should only take 20 minutes but ends up being closer to an hour.

As an extrovert, I find socialising with people to be energising unlike many of my introverted friends that find school exhausting simply for all the social interactions they must make throughout the day. I find these interactions to be energising and often find myself feeling sluggish on days where I socialise less—which is strange because after a long day of conversing with friends I still find myself falling asleep as soon as I sit down!

Being expected to maintain good grades (whatever the standard may be) vs. actually following through with it are two separate battles that both take their tolls on me and a surprising amount of my peers, so I have no doubt that kids nationwide are struggling just as much.

The truth is, we live in a world where kids can relate to each other’s mental breakdowns more than they relate to their political views. Ask any kid their opinion on the amount of homework they are given and the expectations teachers and parents alike set for them and why they feel a certain way about the topic. Nearly every student my age has voiced a negative opinion on the expectations set for them and the affect it has had on their mental health, me included.

“The truth is, we live in a world where kids can relate to each other’s mental breakdowns more than they relate to their political views.”

The thing is, schoolwork is becoming more and more of a chore for kids like me, and it really starts to take its toll early on in the school year. Even just a few months in, I personally find the workload to be overwhelming and the stress caused by it amounts to much more mental fatigue.

Worrying about getting good grades, keeping them up, staying involved in clubs and sports, maintaining an active status in your community, and pulling all-nighters to finish that English paper that’s due tomorrow are all reasons why students today are losing sleep. But losing sleep is just half of the problem. The act of losing sleep leads to less energy to put toward learning which often leads to less excitement about involvement in the first place.

Sadly, this tiredness tends to come out as just that—falling asleep in class, sleeping in late, and my guilty pleasure: napping immediately after getting home. This is often seen as laziness by adults that—while dealing with their own stressful responsibilities—don’t have to deal with this school related stress.

“Acknowledge that when you are trying so hard to do your best that you push yourself beyond your limits, you are no longer doing your best.”

One thing I have done lately is acknowledged that while I am perfectly capable of getting straight As and maintaining them, it is not necessary for me to get them to be considered a “good” student. Many high school students feel this immense pressure to be “perfect” academically and feel like failures when unable to keep up this excessive expectation.

To any students who are finding themselves beyond stressed out with school, work, and other responsibilities, know that it is completely valid for you to take a break. It is unreasonable to expect “perfect” grades or an extensive list of community involvements and it is 100% okay for you to take a step back to relax, even if it means putting off some of that extra work to do so.

Many students fail to acknowledge their past achievements, constantly feeling as though they have not done enough to deserve a break, leading to being overworked and burnt out. Acknowledge that when you are trying so hard to do your best that you push yourself beyond your limits, you are no longer doing your best.

To any parents of teenagers or students in general, give your kid a break. Students tend to overwork themselves trying to be the “best” they can be and fail to see how it is actually doing them more harm than good. Don’t create an avoidable barrier between you and your child because you don’t acknowledge their past achievements and make it clear to them that their best should be enough—even if it’s not “perfect”.

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Never Leave Home Without Good Character Traits

Good character traits are paramount when it comes to overcoming pressure or challenges. It’s the difference sometimes in whether to give in or stick to our own values or whether to give up or keep it moving.

With the unprecedented pressures on teenage girls nowadays, I am delighted to hear of the return of emphasis on character building. The first podcast in our new series, with Paralympian Elizabeth Wright, who advocates character building throughout schools in the UK, deals with the topic. It is out May 15.

Meanwhile, talking about character building brings a breath of fresh air to the debate on how to address some of the modern-day pressures we all face. Sadly, for some time now personality traits have served as the moderator for what is acceptable and what is not.  And when someone is either out of character or displays bad character traits, we often hear: that’s just the way she is.

Call me old fashioned but I call it bad company, bad character. Surely, it is unreasonable to pass off unkindness, rudeness, disloyalty and the lot as just the way someone is.

When I was growing up, I think the emphasis on character building was still on trend, if you will. It might have been losing its steam, but I knew the importance of good character traits in not only building good solid relationships, but also in achieving success in any undertaking.  Another story on whether I always displayed good character or not, but I did understand it.

If I wanted my parents to trust me, then I had to be honest and if I wanted my friends to trust me, then I had to be loyal. And the one time in my teenage life (surely there have been others) when I wasn’t loyal, I suffered painful emotional consequences seemingly for ages. I won’t go into the situation and hope others involved have long since forgotten, but this betrayal of sorts called my integrity into question. All I will say is that there was a popular boy involved. Never mind.

Anyhow, not only did I take a harsh fall from the throne of grace in the eyes of a friend or two and possibly a relative, I crashed landed in my own mind’s eye. It took years to rebuild my own self-esteem and to forgive myself for the deed, even if it was small. But the point is this: without integrity, I might have never known that I was out of character. 

Good character traits can and often do serve as a radar in relationships. Also, good character traits can see us through an achievement and aid us in the worst of times.

When it comes to achieving, I’ve always been slightly above average and slightly below excellent, but where I sit in the great in between is powered by my character traits of perseverance, optimism, reliability, conscientiousness and self-discipline to name a few. Though I wouldn’t take nothing for my journey, there are bits about it that I didn’t really appreciate–having to go to choir rehearsal every Friday night (okay one or two out of the month), lead a song when I could not sing, and attend Sunday School every Sunday morning and participate in the discussions.

But these activities, like them or lump them, fed into my character and drove me to pick up the phone as a young media specialist in New York City and pitch a story, even if I did dread it; sing from a stage in Poland to an audience, who insisted I had the voice of Whitney Houston until they heard it in song; do the right thing in enormous sticky situations, although I didn’t always feel like it; and most recently dig deep and speak up on a overcrowded broadcast platform, when I felt a bit mismatched.

Through these experiences and others, I have come to learn over the years never to leave home without my good character traits. As for the bad ones, I’ve resorted to waiting awhile to keep them in check and I must say the benefits have been enormous.