1	Top Ten Things That Stress Teens Out By The Goldenview Leadership Team
2	Practice What You Preach We lose trust and respect for you
3	Encourage Rather Than Discourage If you’re patient with us we’ll be more patient with you
4	Treat Us Age-Appropriately We’re not little, yet we’re also not grown up Try not to criticize us or yell when we need help Treating us age-appropriately means letting us make our own decisions No matter how old we are getting, we will always love and care for you
5	Listen With Empathy • Empathy = Identification with, and understanding of another’s situation. • Sometimes, we just need you to listen Please just try to be sympathetic w/o giving advice or jumping in to “save” us Before acting, make sure we’re okay with your plan
6	Middle School Has Changed Peer pressure is different…the world is different Sometimes, parents want us to learn a different way than we are being taught Parents didn’t have the same technology Please don’t use
7	Pressure to Excel Understand that we have strengths AND weaknesses Nobody is perfect Understand that B’s are also good Sometimes all the pressure can make us do worse Expect us to go “above and beyond” our potential
8	Trust • Our actions show if we can be trusted or not Trust is ongoing -- please don’t take it away when we’ve earned it We will make mistakes but don’t repeal your trust too quickly - give us a chance Allow us to regain trust after we lost it Don’t treat us stereotypically Please give us the benefit of the doubt
9	School is Our Responsibility We want to be in control of our grades Let us take ownership We will ask for help if we need it Guide us, but don’t command us We will learn from our own mistakes Don’t do our work for us Talk to us before our teachers We are not perfect
10	Peer Pressure We can be swayed by what our friends say Peers can and do lead us to doing stuff that might make us feel uncomfortable It is sometimes VERY hard to say NO! (Embarrassment/Threats) Communicate with us, and understand it CAN happen (And most likely will) Stay informed enough to know if we are in danger (But still give us space) Even though we might have made a poor choice, know that peer pressure may have been involved Our friends may seem like they are bad influences but remember that WE may be a GOOD influence on THEM
11	Tired and Overwhelmed We are tired after a long day of school We have a tight schedule We usually are lacking sleep Grades overwhelm us Every once in a while, we would like a break