Ugh my parents

Female 16-my parents are constantly bugging me about my weight when im average weight. I dance 8 hours a week and they still think i dont get enough excercise

Chaos being a teen

Male 14 y/o- you know you see being an adult and want that but you are also still a kid. Its chaotic and not easy at all! I don’t like it.

Breaking up is hard to do!

Female15 y/o – Breakups are some of the worse things ever in high school. you feel so alone, and you want to get over that person soooo bad, its easy.. Until you see them

Oh its so hard

Female 16 y/o- I thought i would let you know about my day. Something that bothers me about parents is that i feel like they expect us to be perfect and we don’t really have time to enjoy life. And i feel like since parents care mainly about school and sports, they dont take the time to talk to us about our personal problems. Like guy problems, friends, etc.

Coming this Fall

I’m out and ready for the fall to find what teens think, feel, and live each day. Thought this episode was real from MTV – If You Rally Knew Me! More thoughts from teens coming soon!

http://www.mtv.com/videos/if-you-really-knew-me-ep-101-freedom-high-school/1644038/playlist.jhtml

What 7th Grade is Like…

E.R. (f.13)
 
7th grade, this is your first year of middle school, you have a lot of different choices to make and things to worry about. You have many tough and fun times. This year can either bring up your self esteem or bring it down, drastically.
There are so many things you have to think about, you have to try and get in with the popular crowd. Being in this crowed, which is accompanied by a lot of hard work, is mostly keeping up with your physical appearance. You look at you in the mirror and if you are over weight or not pretty enough for their group’s standards it can cause intense feelings of unworthiness.
Being in the “in crowd” means you must have a lot of friends, but the big thing is having a boyfriend. If you can’t get a boyfriend it’s painful because it feels as if you aren’t pretty enough to snag a guy. Although sometimes it is a harder having a boyfriend, you can get pressure to do things you don’t want to do. They push you to go farther in a relationship then you may want to. Even in 7th grade I have heard about girls putting themselves out there or boys pushing them too far. I have not yet experienced this but there are many girls I know that have been put in this situation.
 Being in elementary school you don’t get the privileges I now get in middle school. I didn’t get to go to the movies, go ice skating or go to the mall with my friends and now I do. But as my mom says “taking these steps comes with a lot of trust and responsibility and you have to be mature enough to handle it.” There are many people in our grade that abuse their freedom and make bad decisions and you have to decided whether it is important to you to be in the “in crowd” or do the right thing. If you are lucky, you won’t have to choose between the two but that’s rare.
7th grade comes with a lot more homework! They don’t baby you like they do in elementary, its cut throat. You have to get straight A’s or at least make sure you don’t fail, because failing can decide whether you are eligible to do the sport you want to do. But it’s not only making the grade, you also have to worry about making team. It is hard if all your friends have fun in a sport in which you weren’t able to make. This is a hard hit on your self esteem. Sports are not only a competitive fun thing to do in 7th grade but a social get together for the “in crowd.”           
          Even though there are many worries in 7th grade there are also countless fun times that make it worth while. Even though you face all this I truly believe that 7th grade is a good experience.

Sense of Self

A.N. (f. 18)

There’s always been debate about whether or not competition is good for teenagers. About if it really does push them forwards and make them better people in the world, or if it just makes them more insecure. Insecurity is always one of the main worries of the administration, not only in the classroom but on the field. Parents freak out when their child may lose some of their confidence due to a situation where they are put in second instead of first.
       In a mainly affluent school, I see a lot of this. I see parents pushing their kids way too hard to succeed in something that they don’t even have any interest in doing, and I wonder if that loss of interest actually is contributed to by the over-bearing ideals of the parents that push them to do the sports and the clubs.
       I feel that at our school, kids are losing what it means to have values and to work hard for something because their parents push them so hard that they don’t know what it means anymore to push themselves. To want something for themselves. One of the easiest things to come by twenty years ago is now turning into something that is a rarity among my generation. And I contribute this loss to the protective nature of the parents who live in this kind of society.
       It has nothing to do with whether or not a child loses confidence in a sport, because with every loss of confidence there is an opportunity to gain. When a parent gets involved, children lose that sense of work ethic that they need to acquire, not just for the sport or for the class but for the world in general. Parents are forgetting one of the main important factors of what high school education really is for. Its to learn to build themselves up and strive for their own goals, not the goals set before them by people who care more about it than they do.
       We’re losing a main essential part of what it means to be a young person in America. Instead of seeing the entire world set out for ourselves, we see a world that people are pushing us to adjust to. Parents want to see children go Division One in athletics and become doctors and lawyers. What about the kid that wants to become a teacher? What about the kid that wants to pursue their passion in writing? Parents are the reason that America is no longer as accessible as it used to be.
       It has nothing to do with competition, because even that we have lost in the vain attempt to preserve confidence and banish insecurity from the teenagers. It has everything to do with the fact that we, as a collective generation, are unable to blame ourselves for the outcome. We are unable to care about who wins because everyone else cares too much. We don’t have goals. We don’t have priorities. God knows we don’t have values.
       We don’t even have a sense of self.

When’s Break?

D.Q. (m.18)

There is one word to describe my life right now: busy. I’m involved in club and school soccer, my youth group, I take pictures for a newspaper, I’m the editor of the school paper, I’m busy with my college search, applying for colleges, and I’m enrolled in four AP classes this semester. But I manage, I survive. I get along just fine sometimes, and other times I wonder if my load of work will ever end. It being my senior year, I knew I would be busy; so I took some precautions and did a little bit of preparation. First off, I quit my job, and I also put an off period into my schedule. Even with these precautions, my workload takes it’s tole on me. I find myself exhausted at the end of the day and I rarely go to bed before 11.
To offset all the things that constantly keep me busy, I take breaks and just play some video games that offer no aid in getting the things on my to-do list accomplished. In those moments of meaningless meanderings I manage to listen to and sing along to, my music; my anthems. My room can’t contain the vibrations I pour into it as turn the volume up with no consideration to what lies beyond the walls of my room. But I don’t just listen to it, I feel it; it sweeps away everything. And then there are my friends, anytime I can hang out with them is taken advantage of in full. I get lost with them, but I always manage to find my way back to my busy life. My methods of procrastination don’t make things easier, but they let me breathe. I find the moments where I can actually stop, sit down, close my eyes, or just relax, even for a few minutes, to be my saving grace.

College Choices

A.N. (f. 18)

I’ve narrowed it down.
Narrowing it down isn’t really helpful in this case, however. I’m down to two schools: Northern Arizona University and the University of Arizona.
My whole time that I have been living in Arizona I have thought that I would be going to the University of Arizona. I’ve done the campus visits; I’ve based the classes that I’ve taken throughout high school on their requirements. But two weeks ago, I got a call from NAU offering me additional scholarships compared to the U of A. The only hesitating factor? NAU is four hours away from home, and U of A is right down the street.
I’m not sure what really changed my mind. Maybe it was the Priority Application from NAU, or the phone call from them requesting to discuss my offer left on my message machine. Or maybe it was the letter in the mailbox the next day, still hanging up on my fridge. U of A hasn’t done any of that yet. So maybe it’s the extra love I’m getting from them, while the lack thereof is turning me away.
The scenery up in Flagstaff is beautiful. It reminds me of where I lived before moving here. And they get snow. I miss snow. I miss trees. I miss the quiet. I wouldn’t get any of this at the U of A.
The only thing I am afraid of is leaving behind my family, friends, and yes, the boyfriend. Four hours isn’t a huge inconvenience, and I could make it home for weekends. But I’m worried about getting money for gas and food and anything else I might need. I have a scholarship, but that doesn’t mean that I know how to provide for myself yet. I don’t know if I’m ready.
I guess the only way I’m going to be ready is to just try it. But it doesn’t make it any less terrifying. I think of all the things that I would be missing: my little brother’s first season of varsity football. my other brother’s cross country meets. and my youngest brother growing up. Is it really worth missing out on them growing up for me to be somewhere new? Somewhere exciting?
I’m not really sure yet, how much I would miss. I’m going to have to look into when the breaks are and how many times a month I could make it home to see my family. But there’s a part of me, a really nasty, selfish part, that thinks I might do better in college without all the distractions. Something’s telling me its an essential part of growing up. And maybe it is.
I guess I’ll figure it out when the time comes. I’ve never had to make this big of a decision before, and honestly, I don’t know what the right answer is. I don’t know what to forsake for education, and what’s worth leaving behind. And what’s going to follow me.

Do I

A.N. (f. 18)

My goal for this school year isn’t to simply overcome this fear. My goal is to rise above the fear and grow into the type of confident adult that our country needs, not only as a resource, but as a positive example for other people. I want to show people that not succeeding doesn’t lead to automatically failing. I want them to see that sometimes the effect that failure has on us, as humans, is far more profound than what becomes of our successes.
This year, I’m not going to fear failure and instead, embrace all experiences as necessary growth to who I am and who I strive to become as a person. Throughout my senior year, my goal is to embrace all of my imperfections and accept the inevitable that we all try so hard to escape. I will not stand on the sidelines of glory for the fear of accepting a loss. I’m not going to shirk my own opinions to avoid an unsatisfactory disagreement.
Every failure is relative to the definition that we attach to it. This year, failure is going to make me stronger, not because I anticipate it, but because I accept it as a part of who I am and who we all are: humans.