Who knows if life in the 21st century is more stressful than a life in which one might be eaten by a sabre tooth tiger or find that half of the village contracted the Black Death overnight.
But what we do know is that there are stresses in our era, and some teenagers seem to feel these issues quite strongly: exams, relationships with friends and with the opposite S, domestic problems, and peer pressure to smoke, drink, take drugs and have S. (I use the abbreviation S as otherwise this email will be blocked by many schools for using “inappropriate language”)
To compound matters, the teenage years themselves are difficult, a time when teenagers are neither children nor grown-ups and when many have a tendency to feel and express rebellion. Sadly, there have been a number of recent cases where teenage stress has led to suicide.
Teenage stress is clearly a highly relevant and serious issue and it is vital that we find ways to help teenagers, firstly to identify the causes of it and then to both understand and cope with it.
But the question is how. When someone is stressed, then their own perceptions become warped, and it is impossible for them to see their position in the world and how they might change it.
So the answer is to work with students before they become over-stressed (on the basis that clearly some stress is good – as one psychologist put it to me while I was looking into this subject, if you are not stressed you are probably asleep).
The manual “Coping with Teenage Stress” approaches the subject by giving teenagers insights into what stress is all about, and then asking them to participate in explorations of the concept. Through this is opens the way to class discussion of the many sources of teenage stress and includes practical work in the form of quizzes, games and questions for class work. It also offers practical help for stressed teenagers with numerous suggestions as to how they can relieve stress and also where they can go for help if the underlying problem is too much for them alone.
It is detailed, practical, there are many more topics that you’ll need to cover (so there is plenty of chance to choose the topics you particularly want to cover) and it comes in a copiable format, which makes it usable in chunks, with as many students as you wish. You can also obtain the volume on CD so that it can be put on the school’s learning platform for all colleagues to access it and use it, no matter which department they are in.
Cat No: 978 1 86083 702 9; Publishers Ref No: T1713emn; Sample pages can be viewed on http://www.pdf.firstandbest.co.uk/pshe/T1713.pdf
Prices
- Photocopiable report in a ring binder, £25.95. plus £3.95 delivery
- CD with school-wide rights: £25.95 plus £3.95 delivery
- Both the Ring Binder and the CD £32.94 plus £3.95 delivery
- Prices include VAT.
You can purchase the book…
- By post to First and Best, Hamilton House, Earlstrees Ct., Earlstrees Way, Corby, NN17 4HH
- By fax to 01536 399 012
- By phone with a school order number on 01536 399 011
- On line with a credit card at http://shop.firstandbest.co.uk/product_info.php?cPath=40&products_id=542