Posted on 01/12/2010 11:48:42 AM PST by greatdefender
CHICAGO – A new study has found that five times as many high school and college students are dealing with anxiety and other mental health issues as youth of the same age who were studied in the Great Depression era.
The findings, culled from responses to a popular psychological questionnaire used as far back as 1938, confirm what counselors on campuses nationwide have long suspected as more students struggle with the stresses of school and life in general.
"It's another piece of the puzzle — that yes, this does seem to be a problem, that there are more young people who report anxiety and depression," says Jean Twenge, a San Diego State University psychology professor and the study's lead author. "The next question is: What do we do about it?"
Though the study, released Monday, does not provide a definitive correlation, Twenge and mental health professionals speculate that a popular culture increasingly focused on the external — from wealth to looks and status — has contributed to the uptick in mental health issues.
Pulling together the data for the study was no small task. Led by Twenge, researchers at five universities analyzed the responses of 77,576 high school or college students who, from 1938 through 2007, took the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, or MMPI. The results will be published in a future issue of the Clinical Psychology Review.
Overall, an average of five times as many students in 2007 surpassed thresholds in one or more mental health categories, compared with those who did so in 1938. A few individual categories increased at an even greater rate — with six times as many scoring high in two areas:
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
My bet is that, as ‘youths’ find it necessary to spend more and more of their time and energy keeping from starving to death, they just won’t find the time to be mentally ill.
I blame leftist TV and Public Schools.
>>A new study has found that five times as many high school and college students are dealing with anxiety and other mental health issues as youth of the same age who were studied in the Great Depression era.<<
Oh give me a freaking break. What this shows is that almost all behavior that used to be called “acting up” is now labeled with one of the many available “mental disease” labels.
Like ADD (or ADHD or whatever the latest catchphrase is). In my day we called it “hyperactive” and it was “treated” by the parent telling the kid “if you get another note from the teacher I am going to paddle your butt until you can’t sit down for a week!” And that WORKED!
Now, it is all meds, coddling and “therapy.” You think any kid will get off that gravy train? A built-in excuse for any and all actions: it doesn’t get any better.
Not surprising.
"The next question is: What do we do about it?"
I say we take the lead of pop culture: copious quantities of prescription drugs and alcohol. The survivors will eventually find God.
</sarcasm, kinda>
It’s also a product of “protecting self-esteem” by outlawing competition and rewarding everyone for participating, not just the winners (ie: giving kids “participant” medals for sports when they don’t win). When people don’t learn to handle adversity and how to learn from mistakes you get this kind of crap.
I have 3 teenagers (13, 13, 15), and it is very different than it was for me growing up.
When they were little, you couldn’t just let them run around outside by themselves. It wasn’t safe. I think mainly because there aren’t as many stay at home moms that check up on kids. I think it’s good for kids to be able to have some freedom and run around.
In school, there is a lot more homework. I never had much homework. I spent maybe half an hour doing some math and writing spelling sentences, and I was done. Now, kids have projects and essays and lots of math homework. They spend hours every night doing homework.
Then there is the competition to take AP courses in high school. I can’t believe how many AP courses my son wants to take next year, and he’ll only be a junior.
Even when they are 16 and can drive, there are so many restrictions. By the time I was in high school, my mom didn’t drive me around everywhere. My older friends were picking me up and taking me places. When I was 16, I had tons of freedome. I never worried about wrecks, drunk drivers, etc.
I just think kids today have more restrictions and less fun then I did when I was a kid. It’s no wonder they are so stressed out.
I agree. In fact, my mom always said to me that there will be winners and loseers. But the real winners are those who learn from their mistakes and got back on their feet”. I thank God that I had that self-displince to improve myself and became a responible citizen- unlike those around me, they call it “abuse”
The study is not without its skeptics, among them Richard Shadick, a psychologist who directs the counseling center at Pace University in New York. He says, for instance, that the sample data weren’t necessarily representative of all college students. (Many who answered the MMPI questionnaire were students in introductory psychology courses at four-year institutions.)
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It is a cliche that many pyschology students — and pyschologists — are drawn to the field because of mental health issues that they have or that they observed in their families. So . . .
this study is craaaaaaaaaap.
I have found that to be true for most who choose medicine as their profession.
I agree with both of you but think the problem is that with such extremes, kids are too confused. Kids are let loose to run havoc throughout school so no one can learn. They know nothing can be done to them so they don’t care. On the other hand there are much more restrictions on them. If kids had discipline at home, perhaps school would be a safer and more of a learning environment like it once was. With a good sound spanking or the fear of it, many wouldn’t be in so much trouble with the law. There needs to be rules and adults need to step up and enforce those rules. Kids do better knowing there are boundaries. Also, there’s too much MEEEEE! now days. Parents are too much into themselves to parent.
Luckystar - Mine is #3 in his senior class and has taken every honors/AP/dual college credit class he possibly could throughout middle and high school. He used to balk at honors in middle school but soon saw how horrid the regular classes were with all the goof offs and trouble makers. Now, despite the higher expectations in AP/Dual, that atmosphere is much less stressful because more of the students want to be there and aren’t disrupting class 24/7. He usually doesn’t have that much homework though there are days that he may have to study until bedtime, but it’s usually extra curricular activities that take way too much time.
very funny.
My kids are all in a private Christian school. We had way too many problems in the public school system.
My son was in public school until high school, and there was a whole different kind of stress there. In public school, there was lots of pressure to not do the right thing, and you were picked on if you were one of the good/smart kids. In the private school, there is pressure to get good grades and get into a good college. Different kinds of stress.
My daughters were in a different private school last year, and it was horrible. They just gaves tons and tons of homework. My 6th graders were doing more than my 9th grader. We switched the girls to a different school this year, and the new school is much more balanced.
I agree about the extra curricular activities taking lots of time.
I blame this on so many things. If I had to encapcilate most of it in 1 word though: Liberalism.
Or ... perhaps the psychologists have “expanded” the definitions of mental illness.
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