Annual conference on academic stress among adolescents begins September 25 at Stanford

STANFORD, CA - A conference titled "The Long View: Preparing Our Children for 21st Century Success" will open on Friday, September 25 at 7:30 p.m. at Memorial Auditorium with a plenary discussion on academic stress and coping strategies in middle school and high school. The plenary discussion, which is free and open to the public, will feature best-selling author and psychologist Michael Thompson and Chris Kelly, Facebook's chief privacy officer.

Thompson and Kelly will join Stanford School of Education Senior Lecturer Denise Clark Pope, child development expert Madeline Levine, and local students to discuss the physical and mental costs of the escalating pressure on teenagers to achieve academically. Thompson, co-author of the New York Times best-selling book, Raising Cain: Protecting the Emotional Life of Boys (1999) and the acclaimed The Pressured Child: Helping Your Child Find Success in School and in Life (2004), is a clinical consultant to The Belmont Hill School and has worked in more than five hundred schools across the United States. Kelly, who is chief privacy officer and head of global public policy at Facebook, guides Facebook's efforts to make the Internet a safer and more trusted place. Pope is the author of Doing School: How We Are Creating a Generation of Stressed Out, Materialistic and Miseducated Students (2001). Levine is a clinical psychologist and author of the best-selling book, The Price of Privilege (2006), which explores the reasons why teenagers from affluent families are experiencing epidemic rates of emotional problems.

The discussion kicks off a conference on September 26 at Stanford University designed to address the rising concern that adolescents are often compromising their mental and physical health, personal values, and commitment to learning as they try to contend with the pressure for high achievement in U.S. schools. Many educators, mental health professionals, and business leaders have also expressed concern that this narrow vision of success is leaving young people without the skills to adapt, interact, and collaborate in a rapidly changing world. Additional sponsors include Stanford University School of Education, Stanford University Office for Religious Life, Haas Center for Public Service, Vaden Health Center at Stanford University, and Stanford University Freshman Dean’s Office.

On September 26, a selected number of middle school and high school teams composed of students, teachers, parents, administrators, and counselors from the Bay Area, Los Angeles, Dallas, and Miami will participate in workshops designed for schools to develop strategies to reduce academic stress and increase engagement with learning. More information is available at www.challengesuccess.org.

School teams of six to eight stakeholders (including the principal and at least one teacher, one parent, one counselor, and two students) were invited last spring to submit an application to participate in the Saturday conference. The teams will attend a Friday night reception before the public plenary. In addition to participating in the Saturday workshops, each team will receive a Stanford "coach" who will offer guidance to the school for several months following the conference as the team continues to develop plans to improve school policies and practices. School teams then re-convene in April to assess the strategies that have been implemented and to discuss plans for the future. This year, nine new school groups will join 13 returning groups at the conference.

The conference is sponsored by Challenge Success, an organization formed in 2007 that grew out of the highly successful Stressed-Out Students Project at Stanford University. Founded on the belief that real success results from attention to the basic development needs of children and a valuing of different types of skills and abilities, Challenge Success seeks to inform, inspire, and equip youth, parents, and schools to adopt practices to expand options for youth success.

Members of the public who are interested in attend the plenary session are required to RSVP. To RSVP or for more information about the event, visit www.challengesuccess.org.