Julia: I’ve just come from my high school’s graduation, so my mind is spinning with sentimental thoughts as well as newfound responsibility. At the ceremony, teachers and students alike gave charges to their fellow classmates, other students and the community alike all with some intention of imparting heartfelt wisdom as well as graciousness. So, with that in mind, here is my end-of-year charge to you.

The calm, silent cusp between school and summer gives me time to reflect on this year. In all honesty, I can say my junior year was horrendous. All my mind can think is “Geeez, how did I get through that?! How did ANYONE get through that?! A good portion of my young life was spent stressing out!” I re-live the cringe-inducing tests, performances and finals with relief that I got through it and anger that it was necessary to get through it.

However, there is a little nugget I gleaned from going through all this – what I think everyone gets from going through the end of the year. In looking back, I realized that for the first time in a long time, I was genuinely challenging myself and testing my limits. Long study periods, endless tests and doing too many things at once resulted in both the loss of my sanity but also my personal growth. I feel I can safely go into my senior year armed with a year of hard work under my belt and a relief that I did get through it and am a more mature and responsible person for it. Although the time spent seems pointless and the work is grueling, pushing the limits and boundaries of yourself can yield incredible results. The only advice I can offer in spite of my stress is to take time and enjoy yourself in the process.

My mother says we get no martyr points, and it’s true. Hours of lost sleep, excessive amounts of editing and missing out on truly important events won’t necessarily be repaid. Take time and thought to both challenge the heck out of yourself and see what you can really do but take equal time to care for your spirit and reap the pleasure out of life, be it an end of the year party or the really nice weather we’ve had lately. All of it is worthwhile in retrospect.

Wes: Julia offers a nice two-sided conclusion to the school year – the happy and sad, the good the bad. As a psychologist, I see her words replicated again and again through the year as one stressed teen after another unloads on me. Maybe I’m getting old and skeptical, but I find myself with a less optimistic picture about all this stress and the benefit it may bring.

I want to stand up and give my commencement address – and I want it to sound like something Nietzsche would give, where I would point out, as Julia has done, that what does not kill our teens will make them stronger. But as I watch kids being further and further stretched, I am seeing less strength, resilience and mental health.

As but one example, someone and somewhere about 20 years ago it was concluded that we did not have enough kids interested in math and science. So we decided that the way to get kids interested in math and science was to force them to take lots of it – even if they want to major in social studies or journalism and will never do anything past long division again. So now we have kids who really HATE and FEAR math and science, and other kids who actually give up on school because they can’t pass Algebra II. I’ve wondered many times how many Supreme Court justices, governors or high-powered corporate executives could pass Algebra II in 2008. I actually have bad dreams in which I don’t. The only thing that brings me out of them is remembering I don’t have to graduate high school any more and I minored in multivariate statistics in my Ph.D. program. I feel much better and go back to sleep. The kids I see are not so lucky. They lay there awake. Worrying.

I remember school being that thing we all had to do even if it wasn’t fun. Today I see many kids who are overwhelmed by it. And lest the reader think I have a very skewed population upon which to base such observations, I must insist that these kids come from every level of society, intellect, and academic background – from the greatly impaired to the very gifted. Too often I think we are using the “Peter-principal” with our kids in school, sports, activities and life – we keep pushing them up the ladder until they reach the highest level of their own incompetence.

I’m glad we can celebrate our young people’s achievements at this time of the year, whether graduating as a national merit scholar or just making it through the year with another notch on the academic belt, and some new insights. But when the parties are over in the coming days and summer is here, I like Julia hope everyone can take a deserved break, and perhaps attempt to reflect again upon the fact that the rest of life is not high school.

Have a great summer!

Dr. Wes Crenshaw is a board-certified family psychologist and director of the Family Therapy Institute Midwest. Julia Davidson is a Bishop Seabury Academy junior. Opinions and advice given here are not meant as a substitute for psychological evaluation or therapy services. Send your questions about adolescent issues (limited to 200 words) to doubletake@ljworld.com. All correspondence is strictly confidential.