Lily Coulter, a 17-year-old high school senior from Charleston, SC, isn’t sure what finally set her off last March.
She was at volleyball practice when she suddenly broke down into uncontrollable sobs. It was quite out of character for Coulter, an academic high-achiever, an athlete, and now senior class president.
“It all came quickly, but it was built up from 2 weeks of prior anxiety,” she says.
“I was stressed about my school work and I felt like practice was taking away from my time to get things done,” Lily says.
At home that evening, Lily’s mom, Krysten, could hear that things were off as her daughter tried to talk it out. “I remember just listening because what she was saying was irrational and she just needed a chance to vent,” says her mom.
Afterward, Lily tucked herself away in her bedroom for some alone time. She sat down at her beloved piano and got lost in her music for a few hours. After some time, she was able to calm herself down.
“I’m lucky that both times I’ve had panic attacks, I was able to work through it on my own,” she says.
Still, Krysten Coulter was truly concerned for daughter that night. The pressure to perform at school had just become too much. She worried that it was starting to take a toll on Lily’s mental health. She wonders where it will stop.
Next year, Lily plans to leave home for her first year of college. Lily’s mom is already nervous about that. “She’s put pressure like this on herself since kindergarten. I worry how she’ll cope if we’re not there.”
The Pressure Is Real
The scenario is all too common, says psychologist Madeline Levine, PhD, author of Ready or Not: Preparing Our Kids to Thrive in an Uncertain and Rapidly Changing World. Kids like Lily feel the weight of academic pressure more than ever before, Levine says.
“Twenty-five years ago, when you asked a child abou