5 Major Challenges Students Face in High School and What to do About Them
High school is a time of major life changes and adjustments. It can be tough to manage your emotions, grades, extracurricular activities, social life, and more. This blog post will help you navigate the challenges that are unique to high school students so you can focus on achieving academic success.
Which are These Problems and What Can You Do About Them?
If you’re in junior high or high school, chances are, you are experiencing at least two or three of these challenges daily.
1.Sleep Deprivation
According to the CDC, teenagers need more sleep than at any other age of their life. However, they are asked to sleep less than most people in order for them to keep up with school and extracurriculars as well as spend time with family or friends. This can be exhausting on its own but if you don’t get enough rest, it could also lead to increased stress levels that cause unhealthy eating habits and a higher chance of dealing with anxiety or depression — which is never good!
Solutions
- Set up a routine and stick to it
- Make sure you go to sleep and wake up at the same time every day, with the goal of 8–10 hours of sleep each night
2. Disorganization/Overwhelm
Organization in high school is crucial. Not knowing when things are due or having a schedule to rely on can make anyone feel like they’re going crazy, and yet some people still don’t take the time to plan ahead for their day-to-day activities. These students often end up scrambling at the last minute because of not being prepared beforehand with deadlines coming quickly towards them until it’s too late sometimes!
Organization in high school makes everything go more smoothly — without any scheduling conflicts or confusion about what tasks need doing next week by tomorrow morning before class begins, you’ll never have problems managing your workload again.
Solutions
- Get yourself a planner to write in or share phone calendars with your parents.
- Make sure to enter assignments and responsibilities in your calendar as they come up.
The more organized you are, the less overwhelmed and stressed you will feel. Read these tips on stress management to find more ways to lower your feelings of being overwhelmed.
3. Unhealthy Relationships
High school age is about the time that most people start to have the desire to be independent. It’s natural and a good thing for you to want to separate yourself from your parents because it means you are getting ready to be an adult.
Problems stem from separating yourself in unhealthy ways, such as rebelling against family rules, hanging out with the wrong type of friends, and being secretive. Though you might want to be completely independent and should practice this, teenagers aren’t ready to make every decision on their own.
How To Form Healthy Relationships
- Keep communication lines open,
- focus on having fun, and allowing for some form of independence through something like a part-time job.
Health relationships go a long way in helping youth make positive decisions about other aspects of their lives.
4. Bullying
Teens that bully other kids are usually looking to make themselves feel powerful because, in some other aspect of their lives, they feel powerless. Unfortunately, bullying is extremely common in high schools everywhere and needs to stop.
How To Overcome Bullying
If you are getting bullied, it’s time to report the bully and have your parents talk to their parents. If that doesn’t help, learn how to react. The best thing to do is to walk away from negative situations. Since this is not always possible, learn a form of self-defense, such as karate. You need something you can use to protect yourself and feel like you have more control over the situation.
5. Anxiety and Depression
These two mental illnesses are becoming increasingly common among today’s teen population. According to The Child Mind Institute, adolescents are more prone to anxiety and depression than people at any other stage of life.
The plague of social media and comparison is all around us and could be adding to any anxiety or depression you may be experiencing. If you can’t seem to put your phone down, limiting the time spent on it could be the answer.
Gabb Wireless is the new phone that allows you to talk and text but doesn’t allow time-consuming apps that inspire addictive behaviors. If you’ve tried all of the above tips and are not seeing any progress, consider going to a therapist and getting medication. Sometimes modern medicine is the key to taking control of your life.
Online High School
Four years of problems and challenges to overcome is hard on anyone. Many people can’t wait to get out of high school and on to bigger and better things. Fortunately, there are other options, like graduating early or getting your high school diploma online.
Online schools like High School of America, offer accredited courses and compare equally to diplomas from traditional schools when applying to colleges and jobs. Do you want to avoid bullying and peer pressure? Would you like to get enough sleep and study at your own pace?
Online high school allows you to study when and where you want as well as have complete control over your day-to-day schedule, and therefore, your life.
Not sure if you can afford the tuition? Learn how to save on online high school costs and what you can do to get ahead of the crowd. Since you’ll be studying online and controlling your own schedule, you may even find a little extra time to get a part-time job and pay for a school yourself.
Don’t know if you’d “fit in” at an online high school? Fortunately, that’s not something you have to worry about when all you need is an internet connection to get your high school diploma. The more reasons to get your high school diploma online start to become obvious, the more you think about it.
Control your own schedule, learn at your own pace, and avoid the major challenges that most high school kids face every day. Take control over your high school schedule and enjoy an amazing online high school experience at the Highschool of America.
