Addressing Stress

Based on the size of the crowd that came out on a frigid night to the PT Council’s program on stress, anxiety must be running high in Scarsdale. The program included a panel of experts who work with children from elementary school to high school. On hand were Heathcote Psychologist, Jennifer Turetzky, Dr. Sara Levine, specialist in adolescent medicine, SHS Psychologist Ernie Collabolletta and Sue Peppers, Assistant Principal of Scarsdale High School.
 
These experts shared their thoughts on both the sources of anxiety and what parents might do to alleviate it.
 
According to Ms. Turetzky, stress manifests itself in two ways; good stress encourages us to do our best while negative stress derives from a failure to cope and causes students to feel overwhelmed.  At the elementary school many kids strive for perfection and have difficulty accepting anything less than a perfect grade. She recommends that parents give children more freedom and feels that parents should let children fail from time to time. Also, refraining from intervening will teach children to learn coping mechanisms.  Parents should share their own failures with their children so that they see that no one is perfect. By over-protecting children, she contends, we actually make them feel more fragile.

In addition, since children at this age are often highly scheduled, she sees a preoccupation with timing, schedules and logistics. She recommends giving children a feeling of control. By sticking to a concrete and dependable routine, children will feel secure about what time they will be picked up, eat dinner, and go to bed.

Through her work with middle school children, Dr. Levine finds that the main source of stress at this age comes from physical changes. As she explained, if she walked into a second grade classroom, it would be pretty obvious that the students were in second grade. However, in a class of seventh graders she could not tell the age of the students because some would appear to be ten years old, while others would appear to be fifteen. Middle school-age children yearn to be at the same physical stage as their friends but the reality is that everyone matures at different paces. 

Dr. Levine suggests that the best way for a parent to relieve the stress of a middle school-aged child is to pay attention to their children’s complaints and questions and to support their child’s growth. For instance, if a child often complains of headaches and stomach aches this may be a sign that they are feeling stressed. It is important for parents to know what is going on with their child so they can help. And lastly, a well balanced diet and enough sleep are crucial for children, especially in their middle school years.

According to Ernie Collabolletta, there are four main sources of stress for high school students: parents, teachers, peers, and students themselves. To many Scarsdale parents, a grade of B+ isn’t good enough and a “B” is almost as bad as failing. By their peers, students are often asked, “what did you get on the test?” Added to the pressure from parents and peers is the stress that students put on themselves to perform.

Like Dr. Levine, Mr. Collabolletta advises parents to emphasize positive problem solving and coping skills and to let their child learn how to fail. Most importantly, he believes that parents should teach resilience and demonstrate close and supportive relationships. Children who have strong relationships with their families are less stressed than those who do not. And, according to Choice Theory Psychology, people become depressed when they lack good relationships.

Mrs. Peppers then updated the group on some measures SHS faculty and school government are taking to reduce stress in the high school environment. Just this year, the school experimented with a new freshman orientation program, a homework help center, and a new protocol. The protocol states that if a student has a problem within their academic classes, they should seek help from their dean. To give students time-off from schoolwork, teachers are required to refrain from giving homework over vacation. And to make the work load manageable, the school has instituted a mercy rule. This new rule gives a dean the power to reschedule one assignment if a student has three or more tests or large assignments due on one day. There are many more ideas the high school is looking forward to testing in the near future. One is to eliminate testing days for one quarter and see how this affects students stress levels.

The discussion ended with an invitation to the audience to contact the panelists with their questions, thoughts, and ideas. Since the first step in solving a problem is acknowledging there is one, we commend the PT Council for devoting a session to addressing student stress in the community.

Arielle Shemesh is a senior at the Scarsdale Alternative School and she is currently doing an internship at Scarsdale10583.com