The following is from a letter I wrote to a friend over twenty years ago. It is based on a lecture that I give at some point to my high school eleventh grade English classes. I think it can be very helpful to many. I call it my “Junior Year Nervous Breakdown” lecture.

Nearly every year about this time I give a “lecture” to the juniors at school. I call it my Junior Year Nervous Breakdown lecture. I have seen a pattern which I believe is worth sharing with you.

In my own life I nearly had a nervous breakdown when I was a high school junior. You are well familiar with the high school I attended. It is very competitive and very liberal. It was good for me in that it stretched me and gave me high academic standards and a sense that most high schoolers in America are functioning at well below their capabilities.

But these high expectations brought on pressure. I was a good student there. It was the post-Protestant Yankee work ethic. There was emphasis on work and mental agility but without any promise of grace.

Things came to head for me my junior year. I was in all honors courses. The school had a policy that a student could not take more than four at a time, but they waived that for me. I am not saying that to boast, that is just the way it was for me.

I was also involved in a variety of activities. I was class treasurer. I worked on the school newspaper. I was in the drama club doing a couple of productions a year. I was in Explorer Scouts. I was active in church where I was the youth group president and involved in the organization for the Boston area. I was on a couple of softball teams in the summer in addition to my summer job as a camp counselor. I was on the school math team. Plus, I had a bunch of friends that I would do things with.

Life was really interesting most of the time, and I was always able to handle things pretty well.

It caught up to me junior year. I was very busy. A lot of things were coming due. I cannot say that it was any one thing, but the final straw for me may have been that I was asked to work on the yearbook for my senior year. I knew more kids in the class than anyone. I knew more about them than most people in the class. I would sit with anyone on the bus. I was the only person in honors classes who could eat in the cafeteria with the car club. Part of that was because I was a politician, part of that was because I was in the honors classes with the preppy types but lived in a less upscale neighborhood with lots of kids, and part of that was because I liked people. The yearbook advisor knew that I would be a good person to do the senior writeups. She was also a favorite teacher of mine.

At any rate, as I was mulling this offer over, plus trying to handle all the other things, I became overwhelmed. One evening at dinner, I could not eat. It was not my stomach. It was my nerves. I could not aim my fork to find my mouth.

My mother, God bless her, saw that something was wrong. I went for a medical exam. I had no physical problem, but the doctor prescribed some megavitamins and some sleeping pills. Both helped a lot, especially the vitamins.

This happened in April shortly before April vacation. For April vacation I went to visit a friend who had moved to a different state where it was warmer. I was away from everything. I could meet some new people and be a tourist and just take it easy.

I came back refreshed. And, although it was hard to do, I told the yearbook advisor no.

Over the years working with teens, I have seen a similar pattern for many of them. It is not true for everyone. I know students at my school who are involved in no activities, do minimal homework, and spend their time watching television and playing video games.

To me that would be boring. I know it would to your daughter, too. Most students who are at least somewhat motivated and/or somewhat interested in extracurricular activities often reach an impossible point–that point seems to happen most often in eleventh grade.

Some causes are obvious. The classes get harder. Up to a point, Math had been just intuitive. Now I had to really figure it out. The joke is that in eleventh grade math you learned about things that you didn’t know you didn’t know! In English we were beginning to read works that required closer reading. Science required more lab time. There seemed to be longer papers in every course. This is normal. School ought to be getting more challenging. If it isn’t, you are not learning anything.

This pattern is true in extracurriculars as well. If you are a musician, you are probably taking on bigger parts, maybe even a solo. This is the way it should be, but it also means more work. In student government, the freshmen had one dance and a few small activities. The juniors had a prom and a number of other activities. As an officer I had more responsibility. In drama, the bigger parts usually go to juniors and seniors. That is fine, except that means more rehearsals and lines to memorize.

In sports, juniors and seniors are more likely to be starters and to be leaders on the team. This means more concentration, more practices, and more attention. Varsity teams play more games than and travel more than j.v. teams.

In many clubs and activities like scouts, you are expected to be a leader of one kind or another. In church youth group, when I was a freshman, I just came to hang out and have fun. Now I was one of the planners and organizers. My daughter has taken dance classes for a number of years. At first she went one day a week and did it mostly for fun. By junior year she was going three times a week and teaching younger students. That is the way it is.

Junior year seems to be when this all catches up with most active students. All of a sudden they are not able to be in all these activities they have done in the past and keep up with schoolwork and everything else. Because they are capable, people are expecting more from them. Some students resent this. Others try to please everyone. Neither reaction is good for the student.

Both reactions result in burnout. I know I was not getting enough sleep when I was a junior; I know that a lot of juniors today aren’t, either. Life is interesting. I did not want to miss anything. But if I was burning out or carrying around a load of anger or resentment, I wasn’t going to really enjoy things anyway.

What do I tell the kids today when I give my lecture?

Learn to say no.

You do not have to say no to everything, but you have to learn to make choices. Ask yourself which is going to be more important for you in the long run. It is not always easy.

Back when the local TV station and had academic competitions, the school where I teach used to have a quiz team which I advised. Some years it was pretty good. One year we made it to the state quarterfinals. A week after I shared my lecture with one class, one of the stars on the quiz team told me she decided to stop doing it. From the quiz team coach perspective, I was disappointed, but I understood that she had to give up something for her own health.

In some cases, it may be possible to hold back a little. I stayed in Explorers, but told the advisor that I had too much going on and could not be an officer any more. I did not run for a student government office my senior year. I dropped honors science. I liked science, I still do, but I realized that it was not going to be a career for me. I could concentrate more on the things that were most important, and I actually enjoyed my senior year. I would be lying if I never had any stresses after that, but I had learned to say no.

I admit that it is still hard to juggle activities–just last week at school was unbelievable for me. I picked up students and faculty from the school in China where I taught at the airport and had several other activities with them. I was in a play at school (small part but I still had to be there and learn my role). I also had midterms to grade and averages to report as well as teach classes. That week is over, so now I can pace myself till February vacation.

Anyway, junior year seems to be when a lot of things catch up with a lot of students and the stress is multiplied. That is a time when many students realize that they cannot continue in the way they have been going. They have to make some decisions. They have to begin to focus. My father and some of the science teachers at school were disappointed that I was not taking science any more. But I simply couldn’t do it all. Neither can our daughters or anyone else.

That is more or less the essence of the lecture I give my students. Maybe it can help your family a little. When I did this last year, I got several positive comments from both kids and parents. One student told her father, “Mr. Bair understands us.” I realize that there are other things going on in students’ lives, but a lot of times things just keep piling up until junior year when something has to be done. Ultimately for such people, learning to say no is a sign of maturity.