Teens and Time:
There is Enough of Both
February, 2005

There’s more to a teenager than high school and homework. Many attempt to balance school, a job, sports, and their social life all at once; and with growing opportunities to take part in several different clubs, teens are able to be involved with a little bit of everything.

Many teenagers have joined a sports team, where keeping busy allows them to stay fit while participating in a group activity. Others have taken on the task of leading different clubs in school or even participating in activities outside of class such as Scouts or Civil Air Patrol.

As kids get older, these activities become more time consuming and demanding; leading to increased levels of stress. But is stress caused by maintaining an active schedule a bad thing?

Kids who do things are less likely to get into trouble in and outside of school. Many of the teens who would normally be sitting around playing video games are now finding better ways to make the day pass.

Teenagers who get involved with different clubs are more mature and have better time management skills compared to others who may just sit around all day. Volunteering for National Honor Society helps them give back to the community while keeping busy with sports allows students to stay in shape.

But its not just sports that high schoolers are getting into.  The arts programs are taking up more time than ever before, and even though marching season is over, the High School Band is busy preparing for an upcoming festival and concert while the Drama Department and Choir are also busy with their rehearsals for the upcoming musical,  “Oklahoma.”

Many students are involved in several different activities, while others are limited to the books and math problems that school offers. Teens just need to find a balance between their school work and their involvement in activities after school.

Yet, with teens being so busy, there are some setbacks. The average teenager gets only 6 hours of sleep a night when they could really be using more like 8 or 9 hours a night. This explains why high schoolers are always so tired when they get up in the morning and why we never want to get to bed early at night.

Maybe the best solution might be to push the high school's start time back an hour. Classes could begin at 8:15 and end at 2:55, that way we could actually sleep for once; sounds good to me!

But hey, who needs sleep anyways - it's overrated.

Teenagers may be more stressed than they ever have been before, but that doesn’t mean it’s a bad thing. They are discovering different talents and taking advantage of new opportunities that we didn’t even know existed. 

So next time you see that basketball player, Robotics member, or band kid, remember that there's more to teenagers than what meets the eye.  


Who would have known...