Story by Olivia Polkowski / Cromwell High School
Teens in our society are flourishing, high accomplishing, multitasking, and driven individuals. However, for many, “Doing it all” leads to compromises with their health, both physically and mentally.
Adults that are in teens daily lives, should foster and demonstrate healthy habits. Prioritizing regularly family meals, sleep, proper exercise or simply, some self-reflecting relaxing time, helps create that healthy balance with life and school work. All of these skills should start to accumulate in teens lives now.
Mrs. Cali Thorngate, a school psychologist at Cromwell High School states, “Over-scheduling can affect anyone in a negative way. We all need downtime, we all need social interaction, we all need physical activity, and life is all about finding a balance of these things. When that balance gets skewed, it can do a lot to our physical well being and our mental well being, in terms of making us feel like we’re on track and getting our needs met.”
Emily Sousa an over scheduled high school student, explains her struggles by saying, “As a teenager in high school, I find it challenging to take on all different tasks from school, to work, to sports, to chores at home and with all this different pressure, over scheduling is a big part of my life, that I need to work on.”
At the high school level, there is a higher expectation to engage in a lot of activities and that balance gets thrown off. Kids do best when they’re engaged in 1 to 2 activities at a high-level and any more than that, can spread a student too thin and they can’t give their full energy to what needs to get done and achieve their goals. Teens today are being consumed by all the activities they are tending to constantly and this does have an effect on their overall system and life.