Adolescence or Teenage years i.e. 13-19 age group are the most crucial time for a person. There are drastic changes happening in their school as well as personal life for example board exams, career decision as well as puberty. Moreover, this is the time when they make friends who will be there for a lifetime. Sometimes, students develop affection for each other which is natural as they spend long hours together during classroom studies as well as extracurricular activities. These feelings can be termed as crush or infatuation which can lead to one-sided affections or even if mutual feelings are there then students are involved in teenage relationships.
Friendships between school students are quite healthy, however, if students are involved in love relationships at school, then it can have many consequences too such as stress due to fights or even loneliness when they are not able to discuss their feelings with someone.
Why should school students stop taking diet pills to lose weight?
Considering that the school students/teenagers are in process of developing cognitive abilities, then issues arising to them due to friendships and love relationships at school can be troubling. So, it is really necessary to identify and eliminate such issues among teenagers at school.
How teenage relationships become a problem?
Academic Performance – Infatuation, crush, puppy love, juvenile love, hankering; these are a few terms that might define school romance. Due to love relationships at school, students are not able to concentrate on their studies as their focus is more on friendships/affection. Moreover, students involved in relationships do not know how to deal with it. They find their feelings of affection appealing and dedicate themselves by taking an illustration from movies or novels. Also, social media which enables students to connect with their peer group or even people who are not a part of their friend circle, they are hooked on to it and spend a large part of their time even skipping their studies. This affects their academics and they score bad marks in school.
Issues among friends –When a student start developing a feeling for a particular friend or classmate, it is not necessary that person will reflect same feelings for them. This is called Unrequited or one-sided love affair. It is much harmful than any other affection as the one in love may become obsessed with another person (whom they are affectionate towards). Sometimes, two friends can develop affection towards a same person which definitely leads to fights among them. This will lead to unwanted scenes and emotional trauma. Teenagers surely, do not have the maturity to deal with such issues.
Peer Pressure – Generally, teenage relationships at school is a result of peer pressure and show-off. Students involving in relationships pretend that they are way better than students who are simply not involved in such things. So, other students find it appealing and try to follow the same. Moreover, some friends pressurise another friend to involve in activities like drinking alcohol or smoking cigarette as well as romantic intimacy. This becomes a problem for students as they are not able to decide between wrong and right thing and also, they hide things from their parents and become stressed.
Stress and Depression - School students have no idea how to deal with breakups or even expressing their feelings. Generally, when a student expresses his/her feeling to the other person, but if that person does not feel the same way for them, then the student is heartbroken and depressed over it. Such students isolate themselves from others and develop behavioural issues.
Issues with parents – Students dealing with such issues often do not express their feelings to others which become difficult for their parents because they are not able to understand what is troubling their child. The students become sad/ depressed and their academic performance is affected, this worries their parents. But, when their parents try to talk to them, the students make an issue out of it and ask for personal space, show attitude or through tantrums. Their parents have to suffer from these things when the child is not ready to discuss their problems with them.
How to deal with teenage relationship issues?
Discuss your feelings with someone elder to you, so that you can understand well on how to recover from such issues.
Students need to focus on their studies more in their school life as this is the time to decide about higher education and career and not wasting time on unreal affections.
Conclusion: The school years are decisive years and this time should be focused on academic and career. Moreover, parents and even teachers need to notice the behaviour of students and make them understand their feelings. One wrong move can cause damage to the young mind. Elders need to show them the right path and not make them feel guilty or believe that making friends with the other gender is bad as it will severely affect their emotional and social growth.