Hours and hours of homework, no time for a social life, unbearable stress: for some Langley students, this describes their life perfectly.

Last week, Langley held a stress night for parents with children of any age to learn strategies to cope with their children’s stress. The first speaker, Neil McNerney, a counselor in the area, gave very detailed advice of the do’s and don’ts for parents in order to help their students. “Unless your kids are little or has a severe disability, they don’t need your help anymore, they need your leadership,” he said to an audience of shocked parents. “Homework should not be ‘we,” it should be ‘they’ that do it.” McNerney mentioned his book, Homework, which was available for sale after the presentation and could help busy families even more..

The next speakers were Dr. Catherine McCarthy and Elisa Nebolsine, who gave a presentation called “Stress in Youth: Nuts and Bolts of Biology and Management.” Both of them stressed the importance of sleep in adolescence. “Adolescents need at least 9.25 hours of sleep a night,” said McCarthy. One of their final remarks was “Stress makes us stupid,” as said by Dr. Dan Goldman.

The complete presentations can be found on the Langley website.