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Despite what you might think about Gen Z’s work ethic or phone use, it’s not easy being a teenager today. Teens are facing several pressures at school, from looking a certain way to making good grades, and a new study found these demands are impacting boys and girls differently in all areas except one.
The Pew Research Center conducted a survey of nearly 1,400 U.S. teens ages 13-17, which was published today. It found that teens are facing many different pressures, with the biggest one being academics. Seventy-one percent of girls admitted feeling “a great deal or a fair amount of pressure to get good grades” compared to 65% of boys. Interestingly, more girls reported plans to attend a four-year college after graduation (60% of girls compared to 46% of boys).
Outside of academics, more girls reported feeling pressure to “look good” (55% vs. 39%) and “fit in socially” (45% vs. 37%) than their male counterparts. More boys reported the pressure to “be physically strong” (43% vs. 23%) and “be good at sports” (36% vs. 27%) than girls did. These statistics show that gender stereotypes and norms are still running rampant across high schoolers today, which is unfortunate but maybe not all that surprising considering the current political climate.
Still, despite the differences between genders, there was one area where teen boys and girls ranked exactly the same: the pressure in “being sexually active.” Only 7% of teen boys and 7% of teen girls reported feeling this way. It’s worth noting that maybe teens are less comfortable self-reporting on this compared to say, grades. However, it could also be reflective of the fact that today’s teens seem less interested in sex. UCLA’s California Health Interview Survey in 2021 found that the 38% of Californians ages 18-30 reported having no sexual partners in the prior year, compared to 22% in 2011.
So what does this mean for parents? You may already have talked to your teens about sex and dating, but it might be just as important to talk to them about grades and academic expectations. A 2024 study by the Harvard Graduate School of Education’s Center for Digital Thriving, Indiana University, and Common Sense Media found that most (81%) teens reported feeling pressure “that makes them feel bad.” This includes 56% feeling pressure to have a plan for their future, 53% pressured to make good grades and get a good job, and 51% feeling pressure to look a certain way. Additionally, 27% of teens said they are “actively struggling with burnout.”
We all want our kids to be successful and happy, but putting too much pressure on them to make certain grades or pursue a certain career can backfire in terms of their mental health. Not to mention, the academic standards kids are being held to can make them less likely to enjoy or focus on school. Jenny Anderson and Rebecca Winthrop, authors of The Disengaged Teen: Helping Kids Learn Better, Feel Better, and Live Better, told SheKnows in January, “The older kids get, the more disengaged they get from school.”
According to their research, about 75% of kids said they love school in third grade, but by 10th grade, only 25% said the same. They also talked about the “achiever conundrum,” which Anderson explained “is that something that we desperately all want for our kids, which is a strong work ethic and pride in hard work, can also be harmful to them.”
She continued, “We have kids in two different modes in achiever mode: There are happy achievers, and those kids are balanced. Kids in unhappy achiever mode are cognitively engaged in school but they’re not emotionally engaged in school. They’re not sure why they’re doing it, they just know they have to keep doing it. And a lot of research shows that that mode has incredibly poor mental health outcomes for kids. So those kids are at risk. We can see it in the data.”
As parents, it’s up to us to do better. We can encourage our kids and reassure them that their value and worth isn’t tied to their grades or what they can achieve. We can be open-minded to what their future plans look like, and kind when they fail.
Anderson suggested that parents embrace “this idea of invitational and not instructional” when talking to kids. “Less fixing, more inquiring, more open-ended questions, less advice,” she said. “Just try to keep all those things in mind and give yourself grace. This takes time. It’s often five steps backward before you take one forward.” (And, BTW, that same approach works for when talking to teens about pressure to look or act a certain way, pressure to be sexually active, or anything else.)
Teen boys and girls may be struggling in different ways, but the best thing we can do as parents is to listen, encourage them, and do our best not to add any additional pressures on their already-full plate.
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