August 28, 2024
Cindy Lopez: We’re thrilled to welcome you to this fifth season of CHC’s Voices of Compassion Podcast. Your support has made this journey possible. And our team at CHC couldn’t be more excited to continue bringing you the best insights on mental health and learning differences for kids, teens, and young adults. Thank you for being part of our community.
Welcome. My name is Cindy Lopez, the host of this CHC podcast, Voices of Compassion. We hope you find a little courage, feel connected and experience compassion every time you listen.
Today, we’re talking about academic pressure and its impact on teens with Dr. Pardis Khosravi, clinical director and psychologist at CHC. So where do these demands come from? Well, it could be various sources, including school, peers, and societal expectations. So recognizing the signs that a student is on overload is crucial for parents and caregivers. And we discuss key indicators such as changes in behavior, mood swings, and declining academic performance. Additionally, we’ll examine the profound effects of academic pressure on mental health and overall well-being. Most importantly, we’ll offer practical strategies to build resilience and how parents can foster a healthy balance between academic success and personal well-being. So tune in to learn how to help your teen thrive both in and out of the classroom.
Hi, welcome Dr. Khosravi. We’d love it if you’d just take a minute to tell our listeners a little more about yourself, and what you think about this topic, why it’s so important to discuss.
Pardis Khosravi, PsyD: Yeah, absolutely, Cindy. Thanks so much for having me back on the podcast. So I’m a clinical psychologist by training, and I provide therapy and psychoeducational evaluations primarily to teens and young adults, and so I’m really passionate about this topic because it’s something I hear over and over and over in working with youth, who really talk a lot about this intense academic pressure that they’re facing. Parents often that I work with are talking about, like, how do I walk that fine line between I want my child to succeed. I want my child to go to a good college or whatever’s next on their path. And, I want them to be healthy, not just physically, but emotionally and mentally. And so that balance is something that I find myself talking about a lot in clinical settings. So I’m super happy to be here to talk to you about it as well.
Cindy Lopez: As you noted, this is not the first time that Dr. Khosravi has been a guest on our podcast, so happy to have you back. And, I just wonder, I mean, like we all deal with pressure. It seems like every day there’s something new that’s hitting us, but let’s talk like students and academic pressure. So why this focus on students and academic pressure and mental health?
Pardis Khosravi, PsyD: Yeah, absolutely. That’s a great question. So we know that the youth mental health crisis is worsening, right? We’ve all heard the statistics, from 2009 to 2019, the proportion of high school students reporting symptoms of depression increased by 40%, while students who were seriously considering attempting suicide increased by 36%. And we know it’s only gotten worse since COVID, right? And that’s due to a number of things. So we can attribute that to a myriad of factors, right, limited access to mental health care, young people who are grappling with big life things like climate change and gun violence and, you know, the growing use of digital media, but increasing academic pressure is another factor that definitely contributes to this worsening of youth mental health in the last, you know, several years. And so I think if we teach kids how to deal with this pressure now, we teach them how to cope with it, how to balance it, they will be set up to deal with pressure as they grow older, right, like you mentioned, we all deal with pressure. It’s just a part of being alive. It’s just a part of life. And so when we teach kids how to manage that from a young age then they have the skills to manage those things as they grow older.
Cindy Lopez: Yeah. And, I’m thinking about, I know this is long ago and far away, when I was in high school and thinking about college. It just wasn’t the same. And so for many of our listeners and parents out there, it has changed for our kids. And you noted some of those things that have changed or that our kids are grappling with from political unrest to war to the impact of COVID to all kinds of things. So as we think specifically though about academic pressure being one of those contributing factors to teen mental health, let’s focus on that and first let’s talk about where do you think this pressure comes from?
Pardis Khosravi, PsyD: So I think it comes from a lot of places. So one thing I hear a lot from youth is comparison. So they’re often comparing themselves to their peers, and so, you know, they might be sitting in class and they get tests back and they’re looking over and, oh, my friend got an A plus and I got an A minus, and then kind of spiraling from there. Comparing themselves also to maybe other people in their family. Often I hear from teens, they feel a lot of pressure from their families, either through high expectations from parents or just often it’s not even anything explicit or anything parents are doing necessarily but the teen is picking up on this idea that education is a value in my family and maybe, you know, their parent went to an Ivy League school or something, and they feel like they have to live up to that, right? So they’re kind of putting that undue pressure on themselves by comparing themselves to the people around them.
Speaking of families, siblings, who are perhaps I’m going to call them overachieving, and all kids are different, right? Strengths and challenges are different. So I think that piece too, it’s parents maybe putting inadvertently kind of some pressure on them and siblings and how they’re performing or where they are even going to college, all those things, or even choosing college, like maybe I don’t want college. Yeah, absolutely. It’s absolutely true. I hear that actually a lot from younger siblings. Sometimes the older sibling, either where they’re going to college, but also if they’re going to college, right? Every kid’s life path is different. What makes sense for every kid is different, and so sometimes, you know, parents just kind of operating on – oh, that’s what my first child did, so I’m just kind of operating with the same set of expectations for the second child – puts a lot of pressure on that kiddo.
I think also in families of first generation immigrants, often first gen or second gen students feel this pressure to take advantage of opportunities in America. There’s this narrative that, well, America is the land of opportunity, right, the American dream. And so there’s a lot of pressure also to do something for the first time often in your family to be a first person in your family to go to college, right, that itself is a different kind of pressure. And then, you know, we’re in the Bay Area. The Bay Area is often described as a pressure cooker. There’s just so much intense kind of competition. And you know, other parts of the country that our listeners might be listening in from may feel the same way. And then I think some of it is internal. I think some kids are just wired as perfectionists. And so I think even outside of all of these external pressures that kids are facing, sometimes it’s also just the internal thought process, right? I’ve heard so many kids say to me, well, if I don’t get a good grade, then I’m not going to get into college. And if I don’t get into college then I’m a failure, and I’m not going to be successful, you know, and that catastrophizing train of thought just keeps going. And so that internal monologue, I think, also contributes to this pressure that they’re feeling.
Cindy Lopez: So, you talked about kind of what’s going on in students’ heads, maybe, and thoughts and feelings and that internal monologue you just mentioned, but what would parents be seeing, like, on the outside? What are some of the signs that parents or caregivers might observe in students who are kind of on overload?
Pardis Khosravi, PsyD: I think that perfectionism, right? That catastrophizing piece that I was mentioning that black and white thinking, I must get an A plus or I’m a failure, like if they’re hearing their kids say things like that, that’s a sign. Some other things are the stress response, right? So fight, flight, or freeze. So sometimes that looks like freeze, right? It’s the paralyzed, can’t get work done, procrastination is something I see a lot, school refusal, declining grades, all of those things. And sometimes it’s the opposite of that: I can’t relax, I always need to be busy. If I’m not doing something, if I’m not doing homework, or an extracurricular, or something that goes on that college application, then I just can’t stop. That’s kind of the other side of that, that continuum. I think some of the other things that we see are physical signs, right, headaches, stomach aches, other unexplained kind of minor physical ailments, changes in sleep, noticeable fatigue or a lack of energy. Another big one is withdrawing from social activities, from hanging out with friends or family or things that they previously enjoyed, um, and kind of retreating. I kind of talk about it like their life gets smaller, like they retreat into their bubble and they’re kind of singularly focused, or they have a difficulty concentrating, right? So maybe they’re withdrawing and they’re sitting down and they’re like, I have to study for this test or I have to do this extra thing, but then when they sit down to do it, they’re having a hard time concentrating or retaining that information. So those are kind of a variety of different things that parents might see.
Cindy Lopez: So, talking about what parents might see, we’ve talked a little bit about kind of what’s going on, what could be causing this with students from comparison to thinking about the future. So, let’s talk for a minute now like, you talk with students all the time. So, from your experience with students, what do they actually voice about this pressure? What are they saying?
Pardis Khosravi, PsyD: A lot of the same things. They talk a lot about fear of failure, and anxiety about the future. So what does it mean if I fail, and what their definition of failure is often interesting, and you know, what does that mean about my future? A lot of kind of the anxious, future oriented thoughts of what if this and what if that, right? Like, what if I don’t get into my top college choice. What if I only get into my safety schools? What if I don’t get into college at all? What if I don’t want to go to college? What does that mean? So a lot of the what ifs. And then I also hear a lot of students talking about lack of support, feeling like they don’t receive enough support from the adults in their lives, from school folks, from families, to manage the stress and wishing that the kind of communities that they’re in, the people around them were more understanding or provided more assistance or resources in coping with the academic demands and the pressure and kind of feeling like they’re alone dealing with those things.
Cindy Lopez: So if they are feeling like they don’t have the resources or the coping strategies or mechanisms in their environment, how can parents help? Are there some things that parents can do to support their students during this time of this intense academic pressure to focus on well-being?
Pardis Khosravi, PsyD: Absolutely. So the first thing that I always talk to parents about is dialectics, right? So a dialectic is this idea that two seemingly opposing things can be true at the same time. And so I hear often from parents this idea of, I want my child to work hard and be successful, and I want my child to know when to slow down, to take a break, to engage in self-care, to know how to care for themselves.
And often parents come in with this idea that these two things are opposite to each other. And actually, they’re not. If we really think about it, they actually work together. If we think about ourselves, we need to know how to engage in self-care or when to take a break in order to be successful, right, in order to protect against burnout. And so those things are actually not opposite. What I often hear is those two sentences connected with the word, “but,” I want my child to be successful, but I want them to take care of themselves. And I always say like, language so much shapes how we think, so instead, can we use the word, “and.” I want them to be successful, and I want them to take care of themselves, right? And so shifting our own thinking, and then modeling that balance, right? So modeling, teens pick up what they watch us doing, what they watch adults doing. And so as the adult in their life, I am also working really hard, not taking the time to do the things that bring joy to my life or connect with others socially or whatever. They’re going to see all of that, right? And so modeling that balance in our own lives and then giving them the space to do that. So giving teens space to spend quality time with friends and with loved ones, right? Often encouraging them to participate in activities that they care about that are not necessarily about achievement. It can be, but it doesn’t have to be, right? That helps them build that positive relationship with themselves and with other people. So if we think about kids who maybe are into art or music or sports or robotics or whatever else as activities that bring them joy, not necessarily things that go on that college application. Or volunteering. Often, you know, kids get involved in a cause that they care about and volunteering, and those are opportunities for social connection, those are opportunities to engage with people who are interested in the same things they are. And it’s an activity that brings them joy and they can feel good about themselves outside of the push for achievement and academics.
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Cindy Lopez: Dr. Khosravi, we’ve talked a little bit about what parents can do to help their kids. What is it that students can do?
Pardis Khosravi, PsyD: I think similar to that conversation we were just having about balance, right? Teens themselves can focus on balance. So I often talk to teens about find one thing that you like doing, that you don’t feel achievement pressure about, right? So whether it’s spending time with friends, or, you know, art, or volunteering, or exercise, or whatever it is. When I say balance, I don’t mean that everything always has to be 50-50. So however much time you spend on academics and other things you have to spend doing, it can be 5 minutes or 10 minutes a day, right? But even just 10 minutes a day doing something that brings you joy can provide so much balance to all of the other things on the to do list that need to get done, right?
The other thing I talk to teens about and parents do is reframing thoughts. First, it’s to tune into their thoughts, to even have awareness of what is the internal monologue that’s happening in my brain, and then when you notice that catastrophic thinking or that black and white thinking, to reframe it, right?
So asking themselves, is there any way to look at this differently, right? What would happen if I shifted my thought from if I get a C on this test I’m a failure to if I get a C on this test I did the best I could, right? How does that change my reaction? What would I tell my best friend if they shared this thought with me? How likely is this to happen, right? For those kids who are like, oh my god, I’ve studied for a week straight, and I’m going to fail that test. How likely is that? And then, associated, if that did happen, the worst outcome did happen, how would you cope with it? How would you handle it, right? Can you handle it? Because often we’re thinking about the worst case scenario with this underlying assumption that if that were to happen we can’t handle it, and actually that’s usually not true, right? So, teens kind of becoming aware of those thoughts and then challenging those thoughts can help them to manage the stress response in those situations.
Cindy Lopez: I was just talking with a friend about something that we both do. It’s like eating your vegetables first so I can have dessert, right. So I do the thing that’s harder for me, or I don’t want to do so much so that I can do X, Y, Z. And sometimes, I get so driven by that, that it’s not that helpful, you know, but I do think that that is something that for teens as they’re growing and maturing to like get this done, do this for 20 minutes and then go take a break and do something else. So back to your thinking about that dialectic piece, right? You can do this and that, you don’t have to cut out all the things that bring joy.
So let’s go back to the thinking about parents and caregivers when they see their students in this situation, like they feel like something’s going on, they’re feeling like the student is reacting to some external pressure or even internal pressure. How can they start a conversation with their teen when their teen may not necessarily be that talkative about it?
Pardis Khosravi, PsyD: Yeah, I think, pointing at what they’re objectively observing and getting curious about it, and what I mean by objectively observing is often we tend to share our interpretations of what we think a teen is going through, right? So maybe we see that they’re procrastinating a lot, they tend to leave it to the last minute, and then they’re pulling an all nighter because they’re determined to get that A, but the stress and the pressure is kind of leading to that, like we were talking about the fight, flight, freeze, right, that procrastination, and then they’re engaging in a lot of this catastrophic thinking, and so we kind of take all of that information in, and then what we end up saying to the teen is, something to the effect of, “I think you’re putting too much pressure on yourself.” And then often what that does is it shuts the teen down because maybe that’s not how they’re interpreting what’s happening, or maybe they’re not realizing that that’s what they’re doing, right? It’s not necessarily that we’re wrong, but we’re providing the interpretation instead of getting curious. And so I always tell parents to point out what they’re observing, and we can only observe things through our five senses. And so only the things that we can see and hear, right, those are the things that we should be naming to the teen. So I might actually, in that situation, instead say to the teen, “Hey, I noticed that for the last three tests that you’ve had to take in that class, you’ve pulled an all nighter and then have been really stressed and tired in the morning. What’s going on?” And just getting really curious and engaging in that conversation with an open mind. I remember saying to my dad as a teenager, “That’s my preferred way of studying. I work better under pressure.” And so maybe that’s their interpretation and not immediately jumping to, well, that’s not an effective way to study, right? Let me tell you how I think you should be approaching that task. And instead just getting curious, listening, and then asking questions, right? “Is that working for you? Is that effective? Do you feel like this is a strategy that’s going to work for you as you continue on in your academic career?” without any judgment. Not saying that their answers are right or wrong, but just asking lots of questions – that usually opens the door to those conversations that we want to have as parents.
Cindy Lopez: For our listeners, we actually have some past podcast episodes on communicating with your teen. It might be helpful to look those up and listen again, and we’re having another one coming up this season around really focusing on validation because we talk about that a lot. So we’ll dive more into that in an upcoming episode, but for today, thank you, Dr. Khosravi for being with us, for sharing your expertise and insights. Before we wrap it up, I’m wondering if there’s one takeaway that you’d like our listeners to hear from you today.
Pardis Khosravi, PsyD: Absolutely. I think I’ve said it a lot, but dialectics, right? The emphasis on well-being does not take away from achievement and academics and preparing for future success. I think sometimes what I hear parents say as well, “If I encourage my teen to do things that provide balance, then are they going to be successful? Am I preparing them for the future?” And to really emphasize like we can do both, we can have both, and actually I argue that one is necessary for the other, and so as my kind of takeaway, I challenge listeners to take stock of how balanced their lives are and their kids’ lives are, and take one small meaningful step towards balance this week, right?
So modeling as a parent is so important, and so just one small step as a parent to model to your teen that idea of balance. So that could look like, you know, letting the work emails that come in after 7 pm, wait until tomorrow, unless it’s urgent, and, you know, taking a 10 minute walk with your family after work instead to kind of separate work and life, or cooking a meal together, or going on a run, right? It doesn’t have to take a lot of time, but just being intentional about balancing the pressures, whether it’s work or school or other things, with things that bring meaning to your life, bring joy, and really showing that to the teens in your life.
Cindy Lopez: Yeah. It’s good words for all of us. I’m reminded, too, of this quote that I’ve loved since I heard it a few years ago, Australian poet named Aaron Hanson, one line just says, “What if I fall?” And the response is, “Oh, but my darling, what if you fly?” Like there is the sense of, I can’t do it cause I’m afraid I’m going to fail. What if you don’t?
And plus what if you do, like failing is not the end of something. It can be the beginning.
Pardis Khosravi, PsyD: Yeah. Failing is a part of success. Yeah. I love that quote. I’ll bring these things up in a session and they’ll be like, but I can’t do that because, you know, and then they list the list of things that they have to do or whatever. And I say, “Can we just try, just five minutes this week, like tiny, tiny time commitment. Can you just try?” And if it doesn’t work and you’re right and I’m wrong, we won’t ever talk about it again. And then invariably they come back next week and they’re like, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay.” That makes sense now, but it’s just sometimes it’s that first step, right? Like, let’s just try.
Cindy Lopez: Yes. Yes. Just want to say that if you are in a situation with your teen, you’ve tried these things, like you’ve had some conversation, you’ve tried helping them with strategies the students have tried implementing, but it’s still not helping, I want to say to our listeners out there who are in that situation and you need more help, please reach out. We have great clinicians like Dr. Khosravi here at CHC, and we’d love to help you. You can reach us by phone at 650-688-3625. You can email our care team at careteam@chconline.org. So please reach out if you are in a space where you’re not sure about next steps and it feels somewhat out of control.
Pardis Khosravi, PsyD: Sometimes parents think about reaching out for help or therapy as something that the teen does, and parents don’t always know that parent coaching is an option. So something that we provide at CHC is that parents can meet with our clinicians to talk specifically about how do I handle these types of situations or these conversations as a parent. And so therapy can also be to help parents implement some of these strategies that we’ve just scratched the surface on today in this episode, but to really dig deep and figure out that personalized implementation, right? How do I implement this idea specifically with my teen in my family in my situation? And so for any parents who are listening, going, yeah, I’ve tried that and it just doesn’t seem to work, like Cindy said, I encourage you to reach out. Our clinicians are always happy to meet with parents to talk through these things.
Cindy Lopez: Good reminder. Thank you again, Dr. Khosravi for joining us. Thank you to our listeners for listening in today. And, we hope you’ll join us again next time.
Pardis Khosravi, PsyD: Thanks for having me, Cindy.
Cindy Lopez: Visit us online at podcasts.chconline.org. Make sure to subscribe to Voices of Compassion so you never miss an episode, and we’d love it if you’d leave us a rating and review. Have a question? Send us an email or a voice memo at podcasts@chconline.org. We’re here for you when you need us.
