Tag: Student Anxiety

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What It’s Like To Be A Teenager During The Times Of Pandemic?

Posted on by Ahmad Amirali

What new challenges young people face in the era of Covid? What parents (adults) should know about these challenges?

Many of the students recently shared their post-Covid experiences with me during their new term orientation last week. However, the majority of them share a similar phrase, ‘Parents just don’t understand’. Although, this phrase is an old refrain, in present time it has a new definition. I sensed from my students’ reflections that they think their parents should be aware of their challenging moments. As most teenagers are now cut off from schools, their friends, sports, hobbies and everything else that filled their pre-pandemic days, the parent-child relationship is now under more stress than ever.

Jessica Grose, a journalist and novelist at NY Times, writes about parenting adolescents’ challenges in one of her articles ‘ The Hardest Fight to Have With Your Teen.’

‘I have long thought that it might be the hardest for parents of teenagers when it comes to being a parent in the pandemic. Parents of little ones can meet most of our children’s social needs, and our kids still kind of want to be around us. Not so for parents of teens….’ Continue reading “What It’s Like To Be A Teenager During The Times Of Pandemic?” →

How was the Year 2020 for Teenagers and Youth?

Posted on by Ahmad Amirali

The year 2020 was quite depressing for almost all of us. However, one group significantly affected by this pandemic is teenagers. School closures and enforced social distancing have cut off many teens from primary means of psychological support, putting them at higher risk of developing anxiety and depression.

It seems 2020 was a bit of a halt to a flowing stream of human life. However, the year 2020 does provide some life-changing lessons to us and become a source of inspiration for many. To learn more about the impacts of this pandemic on teen’s life, I have gone through many websites and tried to explore how the world is out looking pandemic after ten months of Covid-19 spread.  The following is the roundup of the research, ideas, and news about young people’s experiences during pandemic times.

The Most Frequently Use Word in Germany During 2020

The German Youth Word of the Year in 2020 is actually an English word, lost. German teens don’t use it in the sense of having lost their way, but to express a lack of perspective, or of not knowing what to do. Teens might also use the term in math class, for instance, to say ‘I don’t get it.’ Continue reading “How was the Year 2020 for Teenagers and Youth?” →

Why Do Teenagers Cyberbully Themselves?

Posted on by Ahmad Amirali

Bullying has existed even before the internet, its impact has increased with the emergence of online communities

Over the past few years, where the internet makes distance learning and connectivity possible during catastrophic times like the present pandemic. However, the other side of the coin has a potentially harmful effect especially on teenagers, from the proliferation of fake news to online harassment. We have seen a massive increase in cyber abuse cases in India and Pakistan since the COVID-19 closure. Alone Pakistan has a tremendous 189% increase in cyber-harassment cases since April 2020. But these numbers are related to the victims who are virtually harassed by someone else, who might be known or unknown to them. What if the victim and the abuser would be the same?

Studies show that 13 percent to 18 percent of distressed teens physically injure themselves via cutting, burning or other forms of self-harm to cope with their pain. However, recent researches suggest that teenagers are now engaging in a newer form of self-aggression – Self-Cyberbullying. Digital Self-Harm is not a recent phenomenon, over the years the tendency of sending rude comments to themselves by teenagers over social media sites have increased rapidly. Continue reading “Why Do Teenagers Cyberbully Themselves?” →

How Teens Can Overcome the Imposter Syndrome That Haunts Their Success

Posted on by Ahmad Amirali

Why there are voices in my head that keeps telling me, ‘You’re not going to achieve it on your own’?

Earlier this year, I wrote about why students sometimes do not believe in their abilities and give all the credit to their LUCK? What makes them think as an ‘unworthy person’ and yet their ideas were just a result of copy and paste? This feeling where you consider yourself as an imposter or fraud. It means you somehow managed to bluff your way into the situation and in reality, you are not as talented as you showed. This feeling is called ‘Imposter Syndrome.’ Recently, I have encountered a similar kind of situation where one of my student’s parent asked me about the solution to this problem. She was so much concern about her kid that she believes that her kid’s progress and success is hindering due to this phenomenon.

Also Read | Why Do Students Feel Like an Imposter in Their Lives?

In this article, I will try to discuss some of the measures that help teenagers and parents to overcome that fear. However, it is essential to know why teens caught up with this syndrome in the first place and how you will know that you are struggling with Imposter Syndrome? Imposter Syndrome (IS) happens when we disregard our talents and abilities, especially when we are presented with a fantastic opportunity. For example, when Harry Potter was told that he is a wizard, his immediate reaction was to believe that there was some kind of a mistake, that he couldn’t possibly be magical or unique in any way. Continue reading “How Teens Can Overcome the Imposter Syndrome That Haunts Their Success” →

How an Attention-Seeking Behavior Makes You Less Creative?

Posted on by Ahmad Amirali

If your creativity is driven by a desire to get attention, you’re never going to be creatively fulfilled.
– Joseph Gordon-Levitt

One of the greatest gifts you can give to someone is your time and attention. A line that I read a year ago on a website and guess from which site? One of the most attention-grabbing websites, Facebook. Somehow, we all agree with this statement, I saw many of my students who have connected me over social media, shared this post multiple times on their FB walls. Even some people tag it to their besties. It’s a powerful feeling, to get attention – I agree. But What happened when our cravings to all these attention goodies finally fulfilled? And we get all the attention from our favourite people whom we always fascinate in our lives. If you ask me, my experience was not entirely happy.

I think the first time I can remember using my personality to get attention when I was nine. We all have our first childhood crush in the form of a friend or a relative like cousins, and there was I am. My first crush was my classmate, and as a nine-year-old, I always bragged about how well I can read alphabets in front of her 😀 . One day when I finished reading alphabets, she turned to me and said ‘show-off’ at one instance my urge to seek her attention was fulfilled, but on the other, a new wave of feeling emerged for her – the feeling of Hate 🙂

Maybe the situation might go opposite but again, that shifting of an urge to ambition make things worse. Then there’s another powerful feeling that people have been lucky to experience a lot. Continue reading “How an Attention-Seeking Behavior Makes You Less Creative?” →