They have to write good grades at school, get into quarrels with friends, feel pressured by YouTube stars and influencers, or suffer from parents' failure to understand each other. Children often have to endure a lot, they too can feel overwhelmed in their lives.
Most students between the ages of six and 18 years seem to be burdened by competition and pressure to perform at school, as determined by the opinion research institute Forsa on behalf of the Kaufmännische Krankenkasse Hannover (KKH). The institute asked parents how often they perceive stress in their child and how it manifests itself.
Who commissioned the study?
The Kaufmännische Krankenkasse Hannover (KKH) commissioned the Society for Social Research and Statistical Analysis forsa for the study.
How was the data collected?
There were interviewed 1003 parents of school age children aged six to 18 years. Parents with multiple school-age children were interviewed about the child who had their last birthday. The survey took place in the period from 28 March to 12 June using computer-aided telephone interviews.
What was the purpose of the investigation?
It was to be determined how strongly school-age children are involved outside of school and to what extent, from the point of view of their parents, they succeed in finding a good balance between school and leisure time. It also looked at what makes school-age children stressed and distressed, and how stress affects their health and behavior.
About a quarter of all parents (27 percent) said that their child is often worried about the pressure to perform or the competition. Fighting with friends or bullying by classmates called 15 percent of parents as the cause of excessive demands. But children also suffer from social pressure, for example from stars in the media, as 13 percent of parents said.
Six- to nine-year-olds, on the other hand, feel the most stressed out when they quarrel with their friends or are bullied. Around ten percent of parents perceived that their child is worried about family issues such as parents' divorce or financial problems. When the parents were separated, one in four said the child was tense.
Stress is shown by tiredness, pain and sleep disturbances
Excessive stress can be felt differently: 18 percent of parents said that their child is often tired and exhausted. However, parents also noticed that it often complains of headache (14 percent) or abdominal or stomach pain (13 percent).
According to the parents, around one in ten school-age children (9 percent) often suffer from sleep disorders. Six percent of parents said that their child often complained of back pain and loss of appetite. The older the children are, the more they suffered from fatigue or exhaustion, according to the parents. Children from separated parents are more likely to experience discomfort.
If the children are tense, then their concentration decreases. Thus, 28 percent of parents said that their child is often unfocused. Aggressive behavior (21 percent), withdrawal (12 percent), sadness (9 percent) and anxiety (8 percent) were also effects of stress, according to the parents. Young people (13 to 18 years) tend to retire more often than six to twelve year olds.
The KKH also compared and evaluated patient data from the years 2007 and 2017. The data comes from 230,000 members aged six to 18 years.
Accordingly, the diagnoses of mental illness, which are not due to diseases of the organs, of children and adolescents have increased.