It’s Tough Being a Kid These Days
April 25, 2007
Study says Naperville students face added stress of living with high expectations
April 25, 2007 ? As published in the Naperville Sun
By KATE R. HOULIHAN Staff Writer
It’s no surprise navigating the turbulent road of adolescence can confuse and stress out even the most “together” teenager. In recent years stress and a hectic existence have become a daily part of the lives of the youngest family members. But recent research conducted by a local partnership known as the Collaborative Youth Team indicates Naperville teenagers might face additional pressure: living up to the city’s nationally recognized image while overextending themselves in community and school activities.
High school can be tough anywhere, but a recent study suggests Naperville teens face added pressure living up to the city’s image.
Now, one of the goals of the Collaborative Youth Team is to take that research and move forward with ways to alleviate some of that “everyday stress” in the lives of Naperville kids.
A report, distributed in the Monday city manager’s memorandum, described the results of the two-phase focus group research that zeroed in on what kinds of “everyday stressors” Naperville youth faced.
“A clear picture emerged during phase one of the ‘everyday stressors’ for our community’s youth,” the summary report read. ‘While the normal and universal worries that come with this developmental stage in life exist and account for a lot of anxiety and worries by youth and parents alike, three additional stressors exist that reflect the culture of this specific community.’
Those were defined as “too much academic, sports and materialistic competition; over involvement in community/school activities and trying to live up to an image of ‘the perfect Naperville.’”
Focus groups consisted of parents, kids in grades six through 12 and adults who work for one of the 16 organizations or agencies included in the Collaborative Youth Team, such as school guidance counselors or youth ministers.
The mission of the CYT, which is facilitated and led by KidsMatter, is to impact the community by not only promoting, but advocating the health and well-being of both children and families through collaboration, according to the report. The research was conducted during the last year and a half. The Naperville United Way funded it.
National trend
People in Naperville need not fret that the city is facing a unique problem. In many ways, the report outlines a national ongoing trend of childhood evolving from days of make-believe play to scheduled activities that have kids - and parents - zipping from one end of town to another.
“We are seeing a change,” Collaborative Youth Team project manager Jane Wernette said. “The sandlot baseball games and kids running around in the neighborhood doing unstructured things has changed in the last 25 years. That’s not just a Naperville issue. It is something that all affluent communities deal with.”
“If you’re in an affluent community, you can afford to have your children in a variety of activities.”
Wernette said Naperville is fortunate to be able to offer a variety of activities in such multitudes, but when people start moving at a more frenzied pace, what once was good might become slightly less-than-good.
The report also took a closer look at those three stressors that might specifically impact Naperville youngsters. The need to stand out from others, or compete to be the best, was “recognized as the most significant stressor of the three explored.”
“I read through that, and I started thinking about the kids (who) were quoted,” said Darlene Senger, City Council member and parent to a high-schooler and college student. “I thought, oh, that could be my son or daughter.”
However, Senger isn’t quite sure Naperville kids are under more pressure than their peers across the country.
“Overall kids do incur stress,” she said. “Teens as a whole today are experiencing more stresses. Where we are with our economy right now, there’s more stress to get into college. There’s more stress to get a good-paying job.”
The report identified some of the driving factors behind competition-fueled stress as parents wanting the best for their kids, high achievement expectations and high enrollment at area schools. Those factors were broken down even further into academic drives, such as weighted grading and college admission. Factors of sports competition stress included high enrollment at schools, along with strong athletic reputations in the area and coaches wanting to win.
When it comes to living up to Naperville’s image as a model city, the report said “because Naperville is seen as having such a great reputation and is a city of high-achievers, kids feel compelled to be ‘perfect’ in order to fit in.”
Last summer, Money magazine rated the city as the No. 2 place to live in the country.
“The three stressors are right on,” said Kay Moravek, director of child services and education at Linden Oaks at Edward. “It’s certainly what I’m hearing.”
Moravek, who will be giving two presentations on stress and children this week and will average 20 to 30 such presentations a year, said kids’ stress in Naperville definitely seems to be tied to location, and the findings about academic-related stress in the research are “right on.”
“Every parent wants that straight-A student,” Moravek said. “I’ve had parents of third-grade students ask me ‘What if he wants to go to Brown (University) or Notre Dame?’”
Such pressure can have some serious side-effects, as Moravek sees in her presentations.
“What I think comes out at these presentations is because of these types of high stressors. Kids are finding new and different ways to cope with their stress, and it’s not healthy,” she said. “There’s a huge increase in self-injury.”
Community support
It’s not to say Naperville parents as a rule are exerting undue pressure on their kids. Jean Donovan, president of the Indian Prairie Parents Council and parent to a fifth- and sixth-grader, said while there are concerns about additional stress because kids are part of a success-oriented community, there’s an equal amount of support and nurturing from within that community.
“While there is some stress, there’s some wonderful parenting going on,” Donovan said. “There’s some genuine concern for kids to develop in a healthy way. There are exceptions to this, but I think kids realize success is a good thing, and there does need to be a balance.”
Donovan doesn’t deny the existence of the “perfect Naperville” ideal, but says in some ways that can be a benefit.
“It’s just how we as a community go about achieving that and keeping it in the right perspective,” she said.
Kitty Murphy, Naperville Unit School District 203’s assistant superintendent for student services and special education, said the research did lend some credence to what the district already suspected.
“I think that largely the results confirmed some of what we felt, and that was part of the reason for our class-rank decision,” Murphy said. District 203’s high schools stopped calculating class rank starting with the 2006-2007 school year.
As part of its development of state mandated social-emotional learning curriculum, the district’s social-emotional learning committee has undertaken the task of defining what a “healthy school day” is.
“We have only begun that work, but that has come out of the work of the CYT,” she said. “This obviously fits right into it. Certainly, a lot of what they saw are things we’ve seen, as well.”
Parental influence
Parent Marcy Reeb, 43, knows it’s easy to get stressed out in Naperville. The mother to Hill Middle School eighth-grader MacKenzie and Brookdale Elementary School third-grader Caroline, Reeb said in Naperville people tend to live through their children.
“Parents have to be so careful in saying that the kids are doing it because they want to or because the parents want them to,” she said. “And that’s tough.”
Reeb, a 15-year resident of the city, said MacKenzie doesn’t care much about the “Naperville image” and doesn’t worry about things like makeup. That’s just her personality, Reeb says, and she’s not stressed out because she’s cut back on the amount of activities she participates in.
“Kids know what they want. And you really have to listen to them. I grew up playing every sport in the world, so when my eighth-grader wanted to go into music, I had to change my paradigm and accept her for what she wanted to be in.”
Donovan’s son Bill and daughter Kelly are both involved in sports and District 204’s accelerated learning program Project Arrow. To her, it’s all about balance and getting kids involved in what they have a true passion for.
“I think that it’s OK to have high expectations for kids,” Donovan said. “They’ll rise to the occasion. In general kids want to strive. I know for my kids a lot of time that’s what motivates them. It’s just not pushing them too hard.”
Senger said balance can be tricky when a parent wants kids to be the best they can be and have a solid work ethic while simultaneously remaining relaxed and balanced. She has encouraged her children during their downtime to read a book, get outside - do anything they can think of that’s relaxing.
Of course, stress can never completely go away. Wernette said having some stress in one’s life is simply part of the world.
“We’re trying to look at if we can reduce everyday, unnecessary stress,” she said.
Reeb believes, as kids get older, their focus on what they want to participate in narrows as opposed to when they are younger and testing the waters on all sorts of activities. Without such explorations, kids won’t know what they like or dislike. But Reeb also makes it known that just by being themselves and trying, her kids are a success.
“If they want to try it, I just want them to try it,” Reeb said. “If they make the musical or don’t make the musical, to me the success is they tried. I don’t want them to ever limit themselves. You never know until you try.”
Working toward a solution
That kind of mentality of success fits in well with what the Collaborative Youth Team may want to do with its research.
While there is no “one-size-fits-all” solution, the summary report states “the CYT believes the first step for any solution is to ensure the adult population is aware these stressors exist, at varying levels, for all our kids. Then, in our roles as individual parents as well as members of various community stakeholder groups, we can start to look at our collective actions and words and reflect on whether they are contributing unnecessarily to the stress level our young people experience in many aspects of their lives.”
It’s a weighty task, by all accounts.
“We’ve decided we need to change the culture,” said Moravek, who also serves on the Collaborative Youth Team and is part of the subcommittee designing education coursework for the future. “That’s a huge venture. We’re changing the culture in an environment that’s been touted as the place to live. But it’s unrealistic to think everybody’s going to have an A student. Everybody’s not going to have a perfect ballerina.”
Wernette said no one person or group is responsible, so to speak, for stressing kids out.
“Everyone recognizes there’s a lot of players in the game,” she said.
The CYT will talk to groups that deal with kids, be it principals, program directors at the Naperville Park District, parent-teacher associations and even City Council members.
“For most people this is not a surprise,” Wernette said. “This is not new information. They’re saying this is what they’re seeing in their daily lives. We’re asking them to think about, in their lives, their roles in a constituency group and their roles as individuals and how they can look at what they do.”
The idea is to inspire kids to be their personal best, versus “the best.” Such a move might help send a message to kids feeling a bit overwhelmed about their schoolwork, making that perfect basket on the court, or needing the same $200 jeans or iPod as their neighbor.
“When we celebrate them and not just their accomplishments, when we invest in them as individuals, that builds that support structure and that good feeling and that helps reduce everyday stress,” Wernette said.
A healthy, ongoing dialogue, coupled with each organization in the team working within its own area of expertise, is one plan. Wernette said the CYT also wants to work together on a long-term basis to identify communitywide ways to tackle the issue. Wernette stressed the Naperville United Way’s help in funding the project and tackling the issue of looking at youth in the community. An added benefit to this project has been bringing local groups such as the city, school districts, Linden Oaks, KidsMatter and others together to network.
“This has been a great opportunity to come together around the table,” Wernette said. “We can support each other’s work. This is a group of partners that will continue to work hard to promote the health and well-being of our community’s young people.”
Contact Kate Houlihan at 630-416-5224 or KHOULIHAN@SCN1.COM
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