Privileged Kids Who Have Zilch - A good article worth relating to. Must read!

Pre-College Issues High School Life
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<p><a href="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/06/25/CMG5EJ6PF71.DTL%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/06/25/CMG5EJ6PF71.DTL&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Today I stumbled across this article about kids who seem to have it good - good education, parents, friends - but still feel empty inside. They don't show the typical symptoms of the "depressed adolescent", but for over 25 years the author has been increasingly treating teenage patients whose overinvolved coaches, tutors, and parents have caused them to feel anything but good. Here are some good quotes</p>

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he fact that many of these teens are highly proficient in some areas of their lives helps mask significant impairments in others -- the straight-A student who feels too socially awkward to attend a single school dance, the captain of the basketball team who is abusive toward his mother, the svelte homecoming queen who consistently sees a "fat ugly duckling" in the mirror.

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Absent the usual list of suspects -- bad divorces, substance abuse, immobilizing depression, school failure or delinquent behavior -- their parents are frequently surprised by their request to see a therapist. It would be a stretch to diagnose these kids as emotionally ill. They don't have the frazzled, disheveled look of kids who know they are in serious trouble.</p>

<p>Nevertheless, they complain bitterly of being too pressured, misunderstood, anxious, angry, sad and empty. While at first they may not appear to meet strict criteria for a clinical diagnosis, they are certainly unhappy

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A talented 13-year-old seriously considers hacking his way into the school computer system to raise his math grade. An academically outstanding 16-year-old thinks about suicide when her SAT scores come back marginally lower than she had expected. A 14-year-old boy cut from his high school junior varsity basketball team is afraid to go home, anticipating his father's disappointment and criticism. He calls his mother, and tells her that he is going to a friend's house. In fact, he is curled up on my couch, red-eyed and hopeless. He believes he has nothing to live for

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<p>With so much pressure we're facing today to be whatever other people want us to be, its important that we take care of ourselves FIRST. So with upcoming freshman and soon-to-be seniors, read this article and take into perspective everything that'll be going on in the next couple of months. You won't be alone, and it won't be the end of the world.</p>

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<p>Only people who can't see in front of their noses make things heavy.</p>

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<p>Your right. I'm dropping my Valedictorian track with 20 AP's, 7 science classes, 7 math classes (in four years), no lunches, and Caltech aspirations. I'm gonna drop out at the end of next year, so that it's legal, and work doing something menial so that my brain is free to find myself. That way, I only have to worry about homelessness and the high crime area near the bridge I'll live under.</p>

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<p>"A talented 13-year-old seriously considers hacking his way into the school computer system to raise his math grade. An academically outstanding 16-year-old thinks about suicide when her SAT scores come back marginally lower than she had expected. A 14-year-old boy cut from his high school junior varsity basketball team is afraid to go home, anticipating his father's disappointment and criticism. He calls his mother, and tells her that he is going to a friend's house. In fact, he is curled up on my couch, red-eyed and hopeless. He believes he has nothing to live for ..."</p>

<p>Is it sad that I laughed at all of this? I mean, SERIOUSLY now. Some people are ridiculous ( both the parents and children ). Yeah, I'm terrible.</p>

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<p>No, I laughed, too. It's totally absurd.</p>

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<p>I would've thought this was obvious without an article to tell people that. I mean, just look at the threads on this message board and you'll be able to see it.</p>

<p>The "1540: retake?" sorts of threads. The posts like above, people who are so stressed about being valedictorian that they skip lunch every day and take 20 AP classes. It's not healthy. I know for myself that it's not healthy, I've missed out on plenty of sleep and lunchtimes and such for school.</p>

<p>My school doesn't do class rankings, and I seriously think it's better that way. They don't want to compare us to each other, they just want us to do the best that we can. (And before someone makes some snide-ass comment about how it's probably a school for stupid kids or something, no, we were 9th in the nation on Newsweek's list when I was a sophomore, and because of the largest graduating class we'd ever had, the year after that we dropped to 53rd. I've taken 6 AP classes, we can only take 6 classes a year, I've gotten 17 As and one B, and you know what? I'm happy with that, I'm not upset because heaven forbid that drops my ranking. I'll probably get Summa Cum Laude when I graduate, and that's cool by me.)</p>

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<p>I would laugh, too, but I know some people with such low self confidence that they experience similar responses to failure (or what they perceive to be failure). A lot of it is their parents' faults, though.</p>

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<p>Yeah, well... all the money parents are spending to power their kids into an amazing college right now w/ prep classes and private lessons and whatnot to get their kids rich will be repaid to society in the form of lots and lots of therapy to make up for all that mental and psychological damage.</p>

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<p>
[quote]
An academically outstanding 16-year-old thinks about suicide when her SAT scores come back marginally lower than she had expected. A 14-year-old boy cut from his high school junior varsity basketball team is afraid to go home, anticipating his father's disappointment and criticism. He calls his mother, and tells her that he is going to a friend's house. In fact, he is curled up on my couch, red-eyed and hopeless. He believes he has nothing to live for ...

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I know how those things feel. And it's nothing to be laughed at. When you pour your heart and soul into something for years, and you come back completely empty, you feel hopeless and have no control over anything in your life anymore. It's not about low self esteem or anything like that. You're taught that hard work and dedication pays off, and when you put so much into something, be it the SATs or making JV basketball, and get nothing back in return, you just don't know what else you can do. I didn't laugh when I read it, I empathized with some of those kids.</p>

<p>The important part is if they can bounce back.</p>

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<p>Um those kids AREN'T privileged. They're victims of subtle but constant parental pressure and emotional abuse. Who tells these kids they need to perfect? Who tells them what their values and priorities ought to be? I thank God for my understanding parents...sure, I'm privileged, but the real privilege is a set of parents who are always ready to put my failures in perspective, while still disciplining.</p>

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<p>I can totally relate to the article. I dont want to go too deep into it but lets just say from the outside, I look pretty privilaged and normal - (acadamically and socially). But right now I feel like **** because I dont want to dissapoint people. Dont get me wrong.My parents are supportive to the max but it's just that I feel that they think so highly of me when I know that the truth is that I'm just an average person. To make it worse, all the money, time and effort put forth by my parents make me feel ashamed. I dont deserve all that!</p>

<p>I still havent revealed my june sat scores to them because I did terrible (when I mean terrible, I don't mean cc terrible...i mean, average-hs terrible). I dont know how I should tell them. They'll definetly be supportive but they'll definetly feel let down and dissapointed. And I know that I got bad marks in my APs and so I'm dreading July. I havent shown my parents my report card for the first time in my life because it's not up to my usual standard of top grades.</p>

<p>Right now I feel like crap. Most people do not understand - which is why I never really say these things to anyone.
I just want to scream IM NOT SPECIAL. People think that I've got such a great life and great potential but they just dont know how useless I feel inside.</p>

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<p>Hey, it's about where you fit IN RELATION TO YOUR PEER GROUP. People tend to compare themselves with others in their peer group, without notice to anyone else in the world. Why - humans naturally only lived in small groups of hunters/gatherers and did not know anything about the others in the world. This globalization was a recent phenomena. </p>

<p>An interesting study showed...</p>

<p>"The dominant monkeys — who, the theory goes, were much less stressed and anxious than the subordinate ones — had 20 percent higher D2 receptor function, while the submissive ones were unchanged. The monkeys were then taught how to self-administer cocaine by pressing a lever, with researchers finding that the dominant monkeys took significantly less cocaine than the subordinate ones."</p>