Poem: "Let It Fly Away"

[ysabetwordsmith]

This is the freebie for today's fishbowl, prompted by gingicat and Boychik. It also fills the "despair" square in my 5-1-18 General card for the Pro Wrestling Bingo Fest.


"Let It Fly Away"


Middle school students
know more about stress
than adults would believe,

responsibilities and
expectations piling up
on them like backpacks.

Between school and homework
and extracurriculars required
for even the hope of college,
they despair of finding
a moment to relax.

So they turn to electronics --
Let's Play videos and LOLcats,
Happy Habits and Take a Break --
to relieve the unending stress.

They grow succulents in Viridi
and goldfish in Zen Koi.

It's a way to remember that
they're not stuck in a world where
all they can ever do is endure.

They can give their stress wings
and let it fly away.

* * *

Notes:

"Give your stress wings and let it fly away."
-- Lydia Sweatt

Teens are often more stressed than adults. Notice that nobody in the article suggests actually reducing the pressure on students, only giving them "better support" to cope with the overload. It's abuse to demand so much of people that it ruins their health. Remember that no diploma does any good if you're too sick to use it. Unsurprisingly, constant stress can damage the growing brain. Know the signs of stress in middle school students. Parents can help their children learn healthy coping skills.

Today, many apps exist to help stressed teens relax. Consider Happy Habits, Take a Break, Viridi, or Zen Koi.

Comments

[technoshaman]

*smiles* there are other ways to escape as well; this is about grownups, but my bunch has used roleplay to de-escalate for as long they've known how to roleplay, which is a long time from their POV...

Ysabet, you probably know this one, since you know Tom, but there are at least a few newbies here... Rich Fantasy Lives is by Tom Smith and Rob Balder, covered by Vixy and Tony (just the two, no string section on this one).

[gingicat]

Oh, this is perfect. I copy-pasted it to him, including links.

Stressed middle schoolers

[dialecticdreamer]

When I heard, about fifteen years ago, that colleges were looking at kids' transcripts all the way back to FIFTH GRADE... I was appalled.

The stress begins to mount earlier and earlier, and NO ONE suggests that there's something BADLY broken in a system that won't allow a ten-year-old to stay home alone for half an hour, BUT expects them to be actively WORKING toward college admission requirements.

Some days, I think the whole world is crazy.

It's nice to see a moment of sanity.