Article on the pressure at high-achieving schools for USA Today's Back to School magazine, published in Fall 2015.

1. IS YOUR CHILD SLEEP DEPRIVED?
Family
FirstLaila Ali stays
busy with home
and career
FAST
FORWARD
It’s never too
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8 Gear Up
Discover the latest fashion
trends as your kids head
back to the classroom
12 Slick Supplies
Stock up on glam, sharp
and fun back-to-school
tools
18 Fast Breakfasts
Try these tips and recipes
to pack your mornings with
nutrition and flavor
22 Healthy Lunches
Tray-bien! Nutritious
changes find their way into
school cafeterias
24 Lunch Gear
These lunch containers will
entice kids to eat
26 Homework Apps
Fun online games can help
with assignments
Stages
58 Preparing for the Future
It’s never too soon to start
career planning
Kindergarten
61 The New Classroom
Today’s 5-year-olds get a
mix of academics and
social instruction
66 Reassuring Little Ones
With some planning, the
first day of school can be
easy on everyone
Elementary
71 Homework Strategies
How to help your young
student develop good
habits that will last
a lifetime
76 The Bully Battle
How to deal with the issue,
whether your child is the
victim or perpetrator
80 The Case
for Cursive
In this digital
age, does
handwriting
still have
cred?
Middle School
84 Wise Words
Two students tell it like it
is about the transition to
middle school
86 Full STEAM Ahead
Just add art for a more
well-rounded education
High School
89 Dealing with Pressure
How high-achieving
students handle demands
of family, school and peers
Health
92 Getting a Jump on Jitters
Tips to help ease those
first-day nerves
95 Managing Measles
Stopping the spread of a
highly contagious disease
Sticky Art
96 Tale of the Tapes
Fun arts and craft
ideas with washi
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FALL 2015
BACK SCHOOLto
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4 BACK TO SCHOOL | FALL 2015

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4. THINKSTOCK
high school
atie Kirtland remembers pulling an all-nighter to finish a paper at Phillips
Exeter Academy, one of the most elite high schools in the U.S.
“When it gets to be about midnight or one o’clock, you’re thinking,
‘I just want to go to bed,’” says Kirtland, now 25 and a public relations
professional based in Richmond,Va. “The worst feeling in the world is seeing the
sun rise and realizing you’re not going to get any sleep.”
From her years at Exeter — a private boarding school in Exeter, N.H. — Kirtland
Great expectations
How high-achieving students manage stress
BY KATHERINE REYNOLDS LEWIS
89

5. THINKSTOCK
WHAT HIGH SCHOOL
STUDENTS — AND
THEIR PARENTS —
CAN DO TO COMBAT
THIS STRESS AND
PRESSURE
high school
remembers alternating between
anxiety about upcoming academic
challenges and exhaustion from
completing assigned work. “I knew I
wasn’t going to get straight A’s, but I
knew I had to do well enough to make
the people around me proud of what I
had done.”
It’s a familiar experience for
students at other high-achieving high
schools, where many feel they have to
earn perfect grades, become president
of their favorite extracurricular club,
play a varsity sport, excel at the arts
and, oh, it wouldn’t hurt to build
aqueducts in Africa or cure cancer
while they’re at it.
“Students feel an intense unhealthy
pressure to ‘succeed’ at all costs,”
says Alexandra Robbins, Washington,
D.C.-based author of The Overachievers:
The Secret Lives of Driven Kids. “Some of
it is coming from parents, a lot of it is
coming from the marketing of highly
selective colleges and the narrowing
definition of success that misleads
students into thinking that prestige
is the only way,” she says, adding that
she spoke to students who suffered
from depression simply because of the
pressure to overachieve.
When looking for resources, parents
and students are encouraged to keep
in mind that contacting the school
itself can be a good first step.
Melissa Mischke, Exeter’s dean of
students, says the school is committed
to providing a nurturing and sup-
portive environment for its students
to counteract the demands placed
on them. In addition to teachers and
advisers and academic support, Exeter
has three full-time counselors and a
dean of student health and wellness
who support students through chal-
lenging times.
“We have been looking carefully at
pace-of-life issues for many years,”
says Mischke. “We know that we
always need to be thinking about how
much pressure we as educators put on
kids and this is going to be something
that continues to evolve for us.”
1
Savor high school, in the
moment. A college acceptance
letter isn’t the goal of high school.
Students should spend their teen years
learning all they can, enjoying extra-
curricular activities and investing in
relationships with family and friends.
“Whatever you learn in the class
is more important than the grade.
They can’t take the knowledge away
from you,” says Carol Hoffman, 46, a
Rockville, Md., mom of two whose son
— Tyler, 15 — is in the highly com-
petitive International Baccalaureate
program at Richard Montgomery High
School in Rockville. “We’re trying to
stay away from the mentality that you
have to get the perfect grades and get
into the Princetons and Harvards of the
world. . . . If we encourage our children
to do their best at their level for what
they hope and want, there is less stress
and anxiety.”
With this in mind, teens will choose
extracurricular activities they enjoy,
rather than only those they believe will
“look good” on a college résumé.
“Too many people are having break-
downs in college and their 20s because
they don’t know who they are, because
they’ve been living their life to get into
a school rather than developing their
identity,” author Alexandra Robbins
says. “Forget about what other people
are doing or thinking or expecting and
just pursue your own interests and
passions.”
2
Keep your schedule reasonable.
When Tyler started high school,
he signed up for a slew of activi-
ties, only to find that he couldn’t keep
up with his schoolwork as well. Since
then, he’s pared back to the mock trial
team, Boy Scouts and teaching piano
and French to younger children.
Tyler occasionally feels a pang when
he hears his friends talk about how
busy they are with different commit-
ments. “You almost want to be as busy
as they are. In excess it can be a little
toxic,” he says.
Rather than always maintaining
a tight schedule, he prioritizes after-
school play with neighborhood friends
and cycling or hiking on the weekends.
And he reminds himself that if he were
at the local public school, he would be
leading the pack, but feels it’s better to
be challenged in a more competitive
environment even if he ends up feeling
just slightly better than average.
3
Seek support when needed.
When Kirtland first arrived at
Exeter, she felt reluctant to admit
when she needed help. “There’s this
feigned confidence that you put out
because everyone is so smart and
seems to be doing well,” she recalls.
Not wanting to disappoint her
parents also played a part, she says.
“The thought of having to bring home
a bad report card at the end of the term
felt really bad. It’s not like they were
overbearing or being tiger parents, but
it was always in the back of my mind
that if I did poorly, they would take me
out and bring me back home.”
But once she hit a wall in a challeng-
ing math class and realized she had to
ask for help, she learned how impor-
tant support was. “The adults around
you are good people and want to help
you and they’re not just trying to fail
you out of the school,” she says, noting
that it was her classmates’ willingness
to ask for help on a tough concept or
problem that made her comfortable
admitting her own challenges.
Kirtland also relied on extracur-
ricular activities — such as the
junior varsity swim team and the “JV”
orchestra — and friends to take her
mind off academics.
“Coffee helped. Friends helped.
Extracurriculars helped,” she says. “It’s
recognizing that you’re in a special
place and you really have to make the
most of it.”
90 BACK TO SCHOOL | FALL 2015 91