American kids have so many opportunities, but everyone seems to be going around thinking they always have to be doing more and more all the time. Some of the Americans I’ve met are just showing off, but some of them really think they are failures if they don’t invent a cure for cancer before they’re 21. Why are you all so insecure and stressed? Is it that you just value over-achieving? Or what?
P.S. I like the idea of this website. I’ll write again. I have some things I’d like to tell my father.
Jan, age 17. Heerenveen, The Netherlands
I cause it and cure it the same way, by eating. Stressed spelled backwards is desserts!
As a freshman I have experienced major challenges to meet the high expectations and an overwhelming amount of schoolwork. I have experienced a lot of stress, physically and emotionally, due to the loads of homework, never-ending tests, projects and sports, and of course, issues with peers.
What do we do when a friend calls us late at night, saying that she’s had a couple drinks and is driving around trying to get more? Scold her and go back to bed? Call the police? Her parents? Spend the night worrying that taking action will make her mad- and not taking action could make us partly responsible if something happens to her? What?
Lauren, Providence, Rhode Island
Sometimes it feels like the world is on my shoulders, which in a way it is. I just get so tired. I never feel like I am caught up with anything.
