Article on stress among students
Answers
Stress is the body’s natural response to challenges. When a student experiences high levels of stress or chronic stress, regardless of her age or grade, it can interfere with her ability to learn, memorize, and earn good grades -- as well as lead to poor physical, emotional and mental health. By learning about common stressors, a parent can help to mitigate negative or chronic stress in a child’s life.
Poor Sleeping Habits
Students who don’t have healthy sleeping habits or don’t get enough sleep at night are more likely to feel stressed than students who get plenty of sleep, according to the National Sleep Foundation. Sleep allows a student’s body and brain to recharge, and it helps to keep the immune system strong. Inadequate amounts of sleep can make a child more aggressive and limit his ability to learn, concentrate and solve problems. The National Sleep Foundation recommends that young people sleep 8.5 to 9.25 hours per night, and that they maintain a regular sleep schedule.
Academic Pressure
In preparation for standardized tests, more and more teachers are assigning homework to children who are as young as six years old. In the "CQ Rearcher," professor Wendy A. Patterson shares that education professionals suspect the state and federal academic standards placed on schools and teachers to be the cause of an increased amount of stress experienced in the classroom throughout elementary, middle and high school. According to Denise Clark Pope in a February 2005 Stanford University report, the pressure that students feel from parents and schools raises stress levels so high that some teachers regard student stress to be a "health epidemic." To cope with the pressures, Clark Pope explains, some high-achieving students resort to cheating or "finagling the system."