Under Pressure summary

As an educational psychologist, Dr. Damour often sees girls in the midst of a meltdown. One day, a teenage girl named Jamie came to see her in a flood of tears. She was worried she would fail an upcoming chemistry test and was desperate to find a way to avoid taking it. Though Dr. Damour empathized with the girl’s stress, she didn’t help her get out of the exam. This is because avoidance only makes anxiety worse.

What would have happened if Dr. Damour helped Jamie avoid that chemistry test? At first, it might have seemed like the right course of action – Jamie would have instantly felt an overwhelming sense of relief.

As a psychologist, Dr. Damour often sees parents who are worried about their children’s social skills and ability to make friends. 10-year-old Alina’s parents had these concerns. Alina was socially anxious, they said, had only a couple of friends and had been wary of unfamiliar people ever since she was an infant. What could they do, they asked, to make her more socially outgoing? To their surprise, Dr. Damour didn’t see Alina’s behavior as a problem to be solved.

In recent years, Dr. Damour has seen an increasing number of clients, like Alina’s parents, who are keen to label their children ‘socially anxious.’ In reality, many of these children are just naturally shy.

When it comes to education in America, girls are bounding ahead of their male peers. At school, girls outperform boys in all subjects. When they get to university, they outnumber their male peers, and they also graduate at a higher rate and earn more advanced degrees than men. Unfortunately, this academic excellence comes at a cost for young American women and girls. Indeed, girls, far more than boys, report that school stresses them out.

So, how can we help alleviate some of the pressure girls feel in the classroom? First, we need to understand a key difference between male and female children. Namely, that girls worry far more about their academic achievement than boys do.

As well as meeting with girls one-on-one, Dr. Damour also meets with groups of girls to discuss issues that they collectively face. In a recent conversation with a group of 15- to 16-year-old girls, the subject of the #metoo movement came up, that is, sexual abuse committed by those in power. Dr. Damour then asked whether any of the girls had experienced harassment themselves. The response she received was shocking, if not at all surprising.

Research by the American Association of University Women has found that almost fifty percent of all American girls in middle or high school have experienced unwanted touching or groping at school. Although the teenage girls that Dr. Damour spoke to attended an all-girls school, they still experienced harassment in their daily lives.

It’s a sad fact that our culture often holds girls to standards that we do not impose on boys. Dr. Damour saw this in action when a 15-year-old girl, Nicki, came to see her. Nicki was feeling anxious and overloaded with schoolwork and extracurricular commitments. She was having problems sleeping as a result.

Gradually, the root cause of Nicki’s stress and anxiety emerged. She felt unable to say no to people.