Approximately 38 percent of secondary school students experience a great deal of pressure from schoolwork. At university, this percentage is even higher, at 79 percent. Young adults are also increasingly experiencing performance pressure in their private lives. For example, when pursuing a career, finding a home and starting a family.
The ninth episode of the NJi podcast De Jeugdkantine is about performance pressure. Anita Kraak of the NJi listened to the episode. According to Kraak, the podcast also still addresses performance pressure too much as an individual problem among young people. “The extent to which young people experience performance pressure is above all a social signal. If we truly want children and young people to grow up with equal opportunities, society as a whole needs to take action.”
Dealing with stress
“We place the emphasis on everything that can be measured,” Kraak explains. “Think of Cito scores. In addition, we see that more and more young people are receiving private tutoring to achieve the desired school recommendation. This implicitly gives those young people the message that they are not good enough. We think that the world can be shaped, but many things happen in the world over which we as individuals have only limited influence. Think of wars and climate change. This can cause stress and uncertainty. That is a normal response. Together, we must deal with this uncertain future and not look for the solution solely in ‘repairing’ young people who suffer from stress and pressure.”
Talking about it
In recent years, performance pressure among young people has increasingly become a topic of discussion, especially after the outbreak of the coronavirus and the subsequent lockdowns. According to Kraak, this is a positive development. “We notice that young people are increasingly talking to one another about the pressure they experience to perform. Pursuing a career turns out not to be the be-all and end-all. The questions of who you want to be, what matters to you and how you want to contribute to society are being asked more often. That is a good first step.”
“Yet a label is still placed on a young person too quickly, and help is sought from outside. This makes it difficult for young people and young adults to share their questions and concerns. Because you are either normal or you are not. That is a shame. People in young people’s surroundings have an important responsibility to make performance pressure a topic that can be discussed. Parents, teachers, friends and acquaintances can play an important motivating and supportive role in this. For example, they can share and discuss their own dilemmas with young people.”
Signals from young people
According to Kraak, young people themselves are also increasingly sending signals that society needs to change. “Practice and policy could listen much better to these signals in order to understand what is really going on. I am pleased with the growing social sentiment that we cannot continue like this. The question is: how do we move forward? This is a puzzle that we can only solve together, as adults and young people working with one another. It is a kind of ‘learning by doing’. How do we want young people to grow up in the Netherlands? And what contribution can each of us make to this? Such a change is not easy. It is a shared journey of discovery. Fortunately, we have the International Convention on the Rights of the Child as a reliable compass.”
Podcast about performance pressure
In this episode of the NJi podcast De Jeugdkantine, the proposition is: We should return to the culture of average grades. Presenters Nienke de la Rive Box and Rida Deraoui discuss this with Gonneke Stevens, Professor of Youth Wellbeing at Utrecht University, and Pjotr, rapper and actor. Young people on the streets also share their opinions.
Listen here to the NJi podcast by the NJi about performance pressure.