Teenagers today are stressed. There are a lot of reasons why, but I found an interesting study conducted by Theresa O’Keefe. She tried to find the things that were unique stressors for American teenagers. Her conclusions?

1. The poly-vocal nature of the contemporary world. I think that is professor speak for “teenagers hear a lot of different voices. America doesn’t really have a value system any more. Lots of people are telling teenagers what is important and . . . surprise, surprise . . . we don’t all agree.

2. The over-scheduled lives of children and families. This is no surprise to anyone. Families live with harried schedules. Some kids want to do everything. It may be crazy, but we let them.

3. The isolation felt by adolescents, parents, and families overall. Teenagers can feel pretty alone. The surprise here may be that their parents can feel the same way. Isolation can lead kids to depression and to self-destructive behavior.

4. The marketplace’s effort to target children and adolescents. Seems like everyone has something to sell teenagers. Good news for marketers. Even in this bad economy, teenagers have a lot of disposable income. The schemes of our market is to promise kids fulfillment through stuff, something it can never deliver.

So, what do we do? Provide kids a place to be loved, accepted, listened to. Teach them the simple truths of Scripture and encourage them to not take the demand of the world for more, more, more too seriously. Help kids to see what is really important and begin to sort through the noise. Help kids to understand how much they are loved by God.

Despite the stressors, however, dysfunctional behavior in adolescents does not appear to be inevitable as Hall suggested. For example, Tami Videon studied the effects of divorce on adolescents. She found that the parent-adolescent relationship before a divorce greatly moderated how well the adolescent adjusted during divorce. While the dissolution of their families places great stress on adolescents, those adolescents who have and maintain a strong relationship with their parents appear to adjust to the new family configuration fairly well.

Theresa O’Keefe, “The Same but Different: The Culture in Which Our Adolescents Live,” Journal of Youth and Theology 7, no. 2 (2008) 42.