To the teachers & parents,

How much do you guys know about teenage stress these day? If you guys actually think about how stressed we get you guys do something that affects our life, then some loved ones who died would still be in this world.
Seriously, though. Don’t you see how tired we are when we enter your classroom, teachers? Don’t you see how annoyed we get when you guys waste our time to do stuff we want by making us do chores and giving us more work, parents? Can’t some of you see what we’re experiencing? Do you know what is killing some teenagers that you guys cause?

It’s stress.

The dictionary, they define stress as, “When a person is in a lot of pressure, when they are worried, or nervous,” and you parents and teachers are main reasons why teenagers are experiencing it. Some of you guys might be rolling your eyes, thinking, “Oh, not this topic again,” but to us, it’s very important. In this world, around 45% of teenagers are experiencing stress from school, and about 8% of teenagers are experiencing stress because of parents.

Stress is caused by the Insula (or the insular cortex), which is in the brain. It’s a key role to PTSD (Post-traumatic stress disorder, which is a mental health condition after a terrifying event), and it is where it connects to the body’s pain and emotion.

Teachers, you guys are the main reason why we teenagers are experiencing stress. Depending on the school, a lot of you are having higher expectations on teenagers, and because of it, you guys increase the amount of homework, and give teenagers too much pressure. Teenagers who experienced this felt either embarrassed or ashamed of themselves, and a few teenagers self-harm themselves, get mad at themselves, and sometimes, suicides happen because of it.

For example, in May 2015, a 15 year old teenager whose name was Morgan Falconer killed himself. In front of his parents he was a bright and enthusiastic person, but he told his friends that the GCSE exams are giving him too much pressure. Most people believed that he killed himself because of the amount of stress he got from the coming GCSE exam.

There are more examples of teenagers who killed themselves because of school, but why aren’t you teacher preventing it? Every time, when you teachers walk in a classroom full of students these days, can’t you see how tired they look? Teachers, by decreasing the amount of homework or pressure, you would do us teenagers a big favor. By you guys decreasing the amount of our homework, we could spend more time with our friends, with our families, and it will decrease the amount of stress we’re in.

Parents, you guys are another big reason why we’re experiencing stress, too. The main reason why we’re experiencing stress from you guys is because some parents (Especially mothers) push themselves too hard to make their child(ren) have a better future, better school and sometimes, you parents tend to get stressed out by the amount of work they have to do, and you put the stress on us. In other words, you give us more stress. From 1975 - 1998, more mothers with children worked, from 55% of the women population, to 78%.
Also, the average working hours for men and women increased. In 1969, men worked for 43.7 hours in a week, and women worked for 34.3 hours in a week. After 29 years, the average working hours for men decreased to 43.2 hours, but the average working hours for women increased to 36.1 hours in a week. This is a bit proof of why more teenagers get stressed every year.

Every year, as more parents work for their families, some teenagers get stressed because some parents relieve their stress to them.

Parents and teachers, do you know what stress can lead to? Stress can lead to depression, sadness, tiredness, self-harm, and mainly suicides. According to The WHO, they announced that suicides increased by 60% worldwide, and that people from age 15 to 44 are at the top on the list of the amount of suicide rate, which meant that youth suicide is increasing by a lot.

Can’t you think of any way to reduce the amount of teenage suicide by a lot? For example, Morgan Falconer’s dad setted up a charity called, “The Ollie Foundation,” to give teachers suicide awareness training. He felt ashamed that his son killed himself from stress, and realized how serious it is. All of us should do the same. To prevent it, please give teenagers a easier life, and care about their feelings. This is what everyone in this world should care a lot more about. Forget about the government, forget about yourself for a minute, Everyone should start caring moore about teenage stress. To prevent it, please stop increasing homework and assignments, and please don't give teenagers a lot of stress. Instead, care about us teenagers. Think about decreasing amount of teenagers getting stressed. By decreasing the amount of stress we have to deal with, a lot of teenagers won’t feel suicidal, depressed and tired every day. So please think about us, and please help decrease the amount of stress teenagers have to experience.

Thanks,
Rui S.