Students with kids handling the stress
Students are faced with a variety of demands. An intense course load plus a part-time job can be straining on a student’s emotional health and overall well-being. The added dimension of a spouse and children can be almost too much to handle. Students with these and other obligations oftentimes feel intense pressure to successfully accomplish it all while caring for a family.
Sam Wollenzien, a sophomore majoring in social work, has multiple responsibilities. Sam is married to Shauna Wollenzien, and they have a 3-month-old son, Tate. Sam is going to school full-time, working 18 hours a week and financially supporting his wife and child.
He said, “It all pokes at you at once. You wake up, you go to school, you study and you finish school. Then you go to work, and you’re working. Then you come home and you take care of your family.”
Shauna and Sam said they feel the strain and stress of it all. Shauna said, “Sam can get real anxious about taking care of me and Tate.”
D. Kim Openshaw has given students facing similar struggles counseling advice. He is a marriage and family therapist as well as an associate professor at USU in family, consumer, and human development and marriage and family therapy.
“Emotionally, (the students) get under stress,” Openshaw said. “They may feel anxiety or even a little depression. They then begin to lose sight of where they’re going in life.”
Openshaw recommended these students recognize and pay attention to the five developmental dimensions including physical, intellectual, emotional, social and spiritual.
He said, “I call it the ‘PIESS’ model and put each dimension on a five-pronged star.” The dimensions are all interconnected and dependent upon each other, he said. “If one of them goes out of balance, the others begin to go out of balance.”
Openshaw advises students who begin to feel uncomfortable with themselves and their numerous obligations should sit back and take an inventory of the five dimensions.
Another piece of counsel Openshaw gave is for couples to try to interact more positively with each other.
“In a situation where the wife is supporting the husband in school and has maybe one or two children, she may begin to feel like she’s not really important in his life. Sometimes because of limited resources, they don’t even go on dates. Then we start seeing some problems in the relationship,” he said.
Openshaw said, “By increasing the frequency of those positive interactions, (a partner) sends a message of how appreciative a person is.”
The Wollenziens have implemented ways to endure in their circumstances. Sam said, “What keeps me going is wanting to improve the situation. If I don’t keep going, things will just get worse. Things will pile up. You keep going, keep taking things out of the way, and you’re getting farther along.”
Shauna said, “I’ve noticed that because [Sam] has me and Tate, he does have a goal and something to aspire to. He keeps working hard because he knows we’re behind him.”
Like the Wollenziens, Openshaw said students who have learned to handle stress will consciously plan something to do to help balance themselves. They need to develop a long-term perspective as well as be willing to accept the position they are in, he said.
“Sometimes acceptance means a willingness to experience frustration,” he said. “Sometimes we try to run away from ‘bad’ feelings. The more we try to run away from it, the more likely it will intensify.”
Students can look at the bigger picture and try to see the goal they are working toward. Openshaw said, “You must think, ‘Regardless of what I’m dealing with, what I am doing has meaning in my life.'”
There are countless resources for students who are working to improve life balance, negative emotions, challenging relationships and stressful workloads.
Openshaw said, “At our [Marriage and Family Therapy] clinic, we see all sorts of individuals. We help couples deal with dissimilarities, communication, the establishment of boundaries, time management and how to increase the frequency of their positive interactions.”