School Anxiety In School

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Nora, a freshmen currently attending a college in New York, had anxiety when college-applications came out. As she began needing to fill out more, she started fearing getting questions teachers asked wrong and feeling inferior to her peers (Clinic Staff). Nora is one of many students who face anxiety due to school. According to data by the National Institute of Mental Health, “about 30 percent of girls and 20 percent of boys--totaling 6.3 million teens--have had an anxiety disorder,” (Clinic Staff). A large amount of teen students have had anxiety, a side-effect from stress and mental disorders, and anxiety derives from high expectations schools create. These high expectations in sports and academics creates stress among students and as universities…show more content…
In an article by the ADAA, an association focused on anxiety and depression, “Anxiety-based school refusal affects 2 to 5 percent of school-age children. It commonly takes place between the ages of five and six and between ten and eleven, and at times of transition, such as entering middle and high school,” (ADAA). An example of this is Jillian, a middle schooler, who made a profile page on ASKfm, a social-networking site that people can ask questions anonymously to a user. Jillian was a target for bullying. She said, “I’d get 30 mean questions or messages a day,” and, “Most of them were like, ‘Just kill yourself.’ ” Due to her anxiety caused by bullying, Jillian was allowed to dropout of school (Denziet- Lewis). As reported by Mayo Clinic, anxiety can also lead to substance abuse, insomnia, digestive problems, headaches and chronic pain, social isolation, problems functioning at school or work, and suicide. The effects from having anxiety are too great to be ignored. Few schools implement strategies to deal with bullying, stress, and their high expectations, causes of anxiety, and more schools need to take actions to support students with anxiety by decreasing the factors that induce…show more content…
According to the ADAA, “Nearly one-half of those diagnosed with depression are also diagnosed with an anxiety disorder,” (ADAA). Mayo Clinic states that problems with self-esteem like obesity, peer problems, bullying, or academic expectations, can increase the risk of developing depression (Clinic Staff). Schools are a major source of student depression because they create academic expectations that praises students with high grade-point averages and disapproves students with low grades, when the system should be instead, a system that supports students of all types of intelligence. Schools also do little to prevent bullying and preventing peer problems, other elements that cause depression in students. There are claims of anti- bullying programs being implemented by some schools decreasing bullying by as much as 12 percent, but the implementation of anti- bullying programs also causes children to believe words can hurt them forever, making children more hypersensitive to insults, increasing the chance of them being bullied (Kalman). In addition, state laws implemented to prevent bullying reduce bullying complaints at most, 20 percent, which shows how ineffective schools are at preventing bullying

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