Stress Speech

Is stress good or bad?

There are many different causes of stress, starting from secondary school leading up to later life. It is an increasing problem that needs to be dealt with. Within this I am going to talk about the causes of stress and the effects of it. 

First, I will talk about the causes of stress. One of the main cause of stress in young children is school. Schools put too much pressure on children, the children always have to keep on top of work, revise for exams and do homework, all whilst trying to have a social life and complete hobbies etc.

In some ways stress can be a good thing because it encourages and motivates children to try harder and to do the best that they can to achieve the grades that they want. If you can deal with stres and use it to your advantage then it's not a bad thing but 68% of children feel stressed and over half of them cannot deal with it. 

The effects of stress start from things like anxiety, and depression, they then lead on to things like drug and alcohol abuse, they also cause children to develop eating disorders. Having elevated levels of stress hormones can degrade the immune system, causing heart problems, respiratory and gastrointestinal issues. 

Some students deal with stress by self-harming- they feel like it relieves what they are feeling. 46% of teachers have reported pupils that have self-harmed. 73% of teachers believe that their students are put under too much pressure. The amount of child suicides has increased by almost 70% and is the second highest cause of death in children. 

As well as stress mentally and physically affecting the children, it also affects the parents. over 40% of parents say that their child feels or is stressed. This could cause the parent to blame their child feeling like this on themselves. If their child is physically ill because of stress then that will also cause pain and complications to the whole family. So the effects of stress affect multiple people- making it a more serious problem.  

As a student, I know what it's like to feel stressed because of school and I think that something needs to be put in place in schools all over the world to help children to deal with it and to stop children developing severe mental and physical ilnesses because of it. Obviously you can't escape stress as it comes with most things in life but it shouldn't be as much of a problem as it is now. 

Sponne have put many different things in place to help their students deal with the pressures of school, such as; having learning mentors, many mental awareness assemblies, and by having a place called 'house' where the pupils can go if they need someone to talk to or advice on anything.

So what do you think? Is stress good or bad?