Hope Springs Eternal? Not for Teen-Agers : Trends: Adolescent anxiety and depression are major health threats, experts says. And teen suicide is becoming a serious problem.
If there is one group of people who need that touted and tenuous thing called hope, it’s today’s adolescents. Recent surveys reveal that a majority of Americans ages 12 to 17, about 20 million youths, are increasingly pessimistic about this country’s future and, to a lesser extent, their own.
Adolescent anxiety and depression, not alcohol, drugs or tobacco, are the chief health concerns of today’s teachers, pediatricians and others who work with youths, according to Ruby Takanishi, executive director of the Carnegie Council on Adolescent Development, a Washington think tank.
Peter Benson, whose Minneapolis-based Search Institute monitors the lives of more than 100,000 adolescents, says he has seen “a kind of pessimism that is new.” Participants in the study, primarily from small and medium-sized towns, report feeling “disconnected from social institutions and support systems,” he says, “and a sense of powerlessness to make a difference.”
Pessimism deflates idealism, impedes change and poisons relationships. For today’s teen-agers, it also can be lethal: According to a new report by the Centers for Disease Control, a third of adolescents nationally now say they’ve thought about suicide, a proportion that is roughly the same for all income groups.
Suicide rates among adolescents have quadrupled since 1950, an increase far more dramatic than the adult rate, according to the CDC. “We’re dealing with a serious problem,” Takanishi says.
The majority of boys and girls don’t think seriously about killing themselves, but concerns weigh heavily upon their shoulders.
A nationwide Washington Post poll of 12- to 17-year-olds before last year’s election showed that almost 60% believe that America’s best years are over. Fifty-five percent of the youngest, ages 12 to 14, thought so, as did 63% of the oldest.
According to surveys taken by other organizations, the number of kids reporting such concerns has risen each year at least since the mid-1980s.
Anyone who remembers what it was like to be 12 or 13 knows that some disappointment is inevitable as adolescents test expectations of themselves and others. “When I was younger, I thought everyone was nice,” says Melody Johnson of Silver Spring, Md., a rosy-cheeked 12-year-old. “Now I’m older and I understand more.”
But don’t write off youthful pessimism merely as a result of adolescence. Youngsters are pessimistic partly because they hear their parents and other adults being so. The presidential election has done little to change adult worries, says Geoffrey Garin at Hart Associates.
Americans 18 and older interviewed after last Nov. 3 showed some confidence that President Bill Clinton and Vice President Al Gore would take this country’s ills seriously, he says, but they also believe the problems are “fundamental, long-term” and will be borne primarily by their children.
Also, what youngsters see and read in the media, as well as their own experiences, tend to confirm what the grown-ups tell them.
“They hear that when they come out of college, there will be no jobs for them,” says Arthur Kropp, president of People for the American Way, the civil liberties organization that financed the Hart polls. “If they have sex, they’re going to die. Between global warming and all the rest, what kind of a future do they have? Do you blame them for feeling bad?”
Unlike the adults in their lives, these youngsters have neither memory nor historical context to temper a harsh present, and they possess fewer coping skills. Meanwhile, the people and institutions that could reassure them are, for the most part, no longer there.
TV shows adolescents say they like, including “Beverly Hills, 90210,” “Unsolved Mysteries” and “Married With Children,” blur fantasy and real life and portray a world of pregnancies, fights and murders. So, of course, does the 6 o’clock news.
Many youths say they don’t feel safe in their own schools. Lori, an outwardly self-assured 12-year-old, says she goes to her locker every morning at Thomas Pyle Middle School in Bethesda, Md., a little bit scared. Problem students congregate across the hall and jostle her, she says. Melody says fights break out at her middle school at least three times a week.
In the middle of a second hamburger at his favorite McDonald’s, Darrell pauses and points toward a restaurant across the road. “Right over there . . . some boy got shot,” he says. “I was at the skate rink across the street when it happened. You never know when it’s going to be pointing your way.
“You shouldn’t have to worry about getting shot when you’re a kid.”
