At age 16, Nathan Petithomme has a lot on his plate.

When he is not studying for his AP exams, he is taking care of his three younger siblings. At Lindblom Math and Science Academy, a selective-enrollment high school in the Englewood neighborhood, he is a straight-A student—has been since seventh grade. Petithomme is also president of the school’s Gay-Straight Alliance, which he founded in his sophomore year. On top of that, he stays late after school almost every day, whether it is to see a teacher or participate in extracurricular activities.

His weekends? Dedicated to working with a local church group. “I feel good that I'm doing [all this work], but at the same time it's a lot of responsibility that can add to my stress too,” Petithomme said. “Plus I still have school to worry about, especially these assignments for AP classes. It's tough to juggle so much, but you still have to persevere.”

Petithomme takes challenging classes, but he always seems to handle it in the end. He feels a lot of pressure to do well in school. “School is very important, and I want to get good grades so I can get into a good college,” Petithomme said.

Like Nathan, 19-year-old Ashley Morales also struggles to find balance between her school and home lives. She said high school was challenging for her. She hardly knew anyone because she moved at a young age from the North Side to the South Side of Chicago, separating her from many of her friends. She had to learn to make new friends while adjusting to a new school and neighborhood — on top of keeping up with her classes.

“That really was the start of all my stress,” Morales said.

Now 19 and a student at Daley College of Chicago, Morales said her teenage stress has not yet ended. She spends most of her time juggling a college workload with her jobs at Dunkin’ Donuts and Hot Topic. Both jobs require dealing with a lot of tasks at once, including working with customers and managers as well as keeping the store in nice condition. She said her job contributes to her stress.

“It’s stressful when I’m pressured to perform at a certain level or when I have multiple tasks at once, whether it is getting a lot of homework done or my job,” Morales said. “Then I stress in school because school is very important as well. The more important something is to me, the more I stress about it.”

It’s likely that Petithomme and Morales aren’t the only ones who feel this way. According to Nancy Molitor, a public education coordinator for the Illinois Psychological Association, stress is common during the teenage years. Teens face many stressors, including pressures from parents, social media and school, she said.

“Teens are often more stressed than the average adult, especially during the school year,” Molitor said. “[Teens] are very concerned with getting good grades, getting into college, finding a career that will pay them a decent wage if they decide not to go to college and about their future in general.”

This stress seems to intensify due to conflicts between teens and their parents, she added. Because of this, both Petithomme and Morales said they don’t like to go to their parents when they are dealing with a lot of stress. “Parents are the ones that cause the stress,” Morales said. “Usually when I’m upset or sad, then my mom would be of help. But when I am stressed, she is somewhat dismissive.”

Molitor said it is hard for parents and teens to communicate to each other, which can stress both of them out. Parenting teens is difficult because so much change has happened since they were their teens’ age, she said.

“Parents aren’t as good on social media, so they don’t even engage in it at all,” Molitor said. “It’s almost like two languages are developing like two cultures. A lot of parents don’t understand how challenging it is these days to manage social media so they can’t give advice to their teens.”

It can be hard for parents to even give advice to their teen because what they say is not always relevant to this time period, she added. “It's hard for us to give advice when teenagers are applying to college because the application process to colleges is very different from 20–30 years ago,” Molitor said. “It is also very difficult for parents to give [job] advice to teens because there are so many new jobs being created in technology ... that aren't even developed yet aren't even named. They can't relate to that.”

Parents and teenagers need to learn how to communicate with each other and treated with respect, Molitor said. Teenage stress is a problem everywhere that can lead to some serious health problems, so it is important for teens to learn how to cope with their stress.

Morales said the ways in which she handles her stress depend on where she is. “If I’m at work, I can’t just like sit back and listen to music so I’ll usually have to resort to breathing exercises there, calming myself, recollecting, looking toward a solution,” she said. “If I am stressed out in school [or] at home, I would usually take a breather with my music or you know drink something like some cold water.”

She also has done yoga, theater and music when she was in high school and that has helped her so much in her high school career.

Petithomme said he keeps a journal to handle his stress. “I handle my stress best when I write what is troubling me down....Yeah, I have a journal...Basically in my journal I write down what’s in my head. Writing it down helps,” said Petithomme.

According to Molitor, physical activity can go a long way for people with stress or health problems. Things like listening to music, eating something or journaling are also great ways to cope with stress, she added.

“Students have reported that exercise — could be anything, like yoga or walking — seems to have a really positive effect on stress levels, anxiety and depression [and] your overall mental health and physical health in general,” Molitor said.