Dear Stressin’ when I should be Dressin’

It’s been some time since I’ve been in school but I do know you’re not alone in what you are feeling. So, who better to answer your question and share some of their thoughts but some of our Jr. Divas who are also getting ready to go back to school?

– Diva

Dear Stressin’,

The thought of going back to school causes stress for some, and for others it causes nothing. I can’t speak for everyone, seeing as how stress can affect different people differently, but in my case, stress has always played a role in my back-to-school preparations.

In my small school of 250 students, we don’t find out whose class we are in until the first day of school. The thought of my friends not being in the same class as me puts a lot of stress on my shoulders. I panic thinking things like, “What happens when we have to work in partners?” The only time I’ll get to see my friends is at lunch for 45 minutes. If my three best friends are in the other class, we will start to drift apart, and if someone’s bugging me I’ll have no one there to back me up.” I may go to a small school, and yes, I’ve been with the majority of my classmates since kindergarten, but that doesn’t mean that we are all friends. Peer pressure, your image, and so many other things play a big role in most schools. Not being with my friends means I get left out during group work, it means that during our five-minute break between classes, I get left out of conversations, and it means that I end up feeling insecure, and all alone. For me, and I’m sure I’m not the only one, this thought of being without my friends causes stress. Having my friends there with me helps those feelings vanish.

As for ways on how to help change this, to help overcome the stress of going back to school, there’s no way that you can guarantee that stress isn’t going to be there for the teens that this affects. You can’t change things so that friends will always be in the same class together. People need to learn how to survive in reality without their friends there 24/7. Instead, you could teach teens how to step into a group of people and become noticed. You could teach teens how to start a conversation with someone new to their class, or maybe even an old friend. Being able to have the confidence and knowledge on how to walk up to a group of people, or on how to walk up to an individual that is not your closest friend will hopefully help some of that back-to-school stress disappear!

– Arriel – Jr. Dear Diva

~ Diva