Conflict in the Lives of Adolescents

I think one of the biggest conflicts in the lives of adolescents is the amount of pressure that is on them.  I think high school and even college kids are oftentimes being pulled in so many different directions at one time that the amount of pressure they are under seems insurmountable.   For starters, at the age of about fourteen high school freshmen are told they have to get good grades so that in four years they can be competitive when they try to apply for colleges.  School becomes a competition and parents and teachers put pressure on students to get good grades, take honors and AP classes, volunteer, and participate in extracurricular activities, all so they can compete with all the other students in the country and get accepted to college.  Recently there also seems to be a push for all students to go to college, and while I think that all students should have access to higher education, I don’t think college is for all people and those students are left to feel like failures.  Then four years later some students work so hard for four years, get accepted into the prestigious universities they dreamed of, and cannot afford to go to college.   

Meanwhile, while students are supposed to be getting straight a’s and participating in all their other activities they also want to have friends, relationships, get a license, get a job, and watch Netflix in sweatpants all weekend.  There is also a lot of pressure on students from social media and reality television to look a certain way, dress a certain way, and act a certain way.  Adolescents are afraid of being different, they don’t know who they are yet and they make every effort to be who they think everyone wants them to be, and the kids who are themselves usually end up getting bullied.  Many adolescents experiment with drugs and alcohol, some of them have substance abuse problems.  I think that high school and college are the most difficult years in life, maybe because I haven’t experienced anything beyond that yet, but I think after working full time and going to school full time I’ll be as prepared for life as I’ll ever be.