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Teens bombarded: The truth — and simple do's and don'ts — are hard to arrive at

Teen-agers of the millennium are facing more stresses than ever thanks to the Internet and the information boom, a local psychologist said.

  "Teen-agers are still teen-agers. They tend to be somewhat sporadic in decision-making, making good choices and bad choices. But what has changed is the amount of information they have available, and it causes them to react a little bit different," said Dr. Jeffrey Van Meter, psychologist for Van Meter, Strohm & Associates in Plainfield and Lisle.

  "There is so much information, and not all of it is true," Van Meter said. "They don't have the processing to tell which is different from another.

  "Twenty years ago in 1980, cable was just getting going. You didn't have 100-odd channels. There was no such thing as the Internet as we know," Van Meter said. "Now, almost every middle-class household has a computer. Kids will hold conversations with each other via instant messages. They will be talking to 16 to 20 people at once. They don't use the phone as much. ... They say the only time we use the phone is to call our parents to let them know where we are."

  Van Meter recently talked to about 20 parents at Plainfield South High School about the stresses of the millennial teen. Money from Mat Wilfinger's Memorial Fund was used to bring Van Meter and his associate, social worker Kirby Strohm, to the school. Wilfinger, 17, a senior at Plainfield High School, died by suicide on Valentine's Day in 2001 in his Naperville home.

  Teen depression is most commonly seen as anger, and a lot of times, parents will think their children are getting out of control when anger is masking the depression, he said.

  George Schlott, assistant principal for student services at Plainfield High School, said teens have more pressure today than even 10 years ago.

  Van Meter has also seen younger and younger children trying more risky behaviors, such as students in middle school experimenting with marijuana.

  "Teens are more mature, and there are more expectations. I'm 54. When I was a kid, it was more black and white, and now there are more grays," Schlott said. "There is a lot of pressure from the media to do different things, and it's not necessarily the reality. Dating is seen in all the music videos. There is a lot of pressure to dress provocatively, and that's different from my time."

  And with all the choices out there, sometimes teens get overloaded with responsibilities and activities.

  "It's almost as if parents want to make sure their kids have every opportunity, and I think sometimes we forget to tell our kids, no," Van Meter said.

  Schlott still gets shocked by what parents let their teens do. Last year, he had four high school kids go to Cancun by themselves for spring break.

  Often, Schlott has parents who want him to tell their children that their parents are right and they are wrong.

  "You have to negotiate a reasonable solution. Both people have to give in. It's not one person's fault or another person's fault," he said. "Some parents say: 'This is my list of rules. If you are going to live under my roof, you have to live by them.' If it's that inflexible, the teen-ager won't survive the home environment."