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News Clippings June 11-18, 2013 Produced by the Communications & Community Relations Department National survey of post-secondary students in Canada shows stress and anxiety are major ... Page 1 of 3 News / GTA National survey of post-secondary students in Canada shows stress and anxiety are major factors in mental health Ninety per cent of students surveyed said they were overwhelmed by the demands of their academic careers. YVONNE BERG / FOR THE TORONTO STAR FILE PHOTO Students relax on leather couches in front of a big-screen television at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology and Durham College's Student Centre in Oshawa. A new study has found that today's students are too busy to be party animals. By:Patty WinsaNews reporter, Published on Mon Jun 17 2013 It’s official. Canadian university students are boring. They may think they’re all party animals, going hard on drugs and booze. But, according to the first-ever nationwide health survey of post-secondary students in Canada, a third of them say they haven’t had a drink in a month and the majority have never smoked a cigarette or marijuana. When they are drinking, a third of them report alternating non-alcoholic and alcoholic beverages, eating beforehand and setting a maximum number of drinks. They wear their seatbelts, their bike helmets, they get vaccinations and go to the dentist. A fifth have been tested for HIV. And half of them are monogamous, reporting they’ve had one sexual partner in the last year. And it’s no wonder students aren’t the party animals they perceive themselves to be. MORE ON THESTAR.COM Mental health training program addresses refugees’ needs http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2013/06/17/national_survey_of_postsecondary_students... 6/18/2013 National survey of post-secondary students in Canada shows stress and anxiety are major ... Page 2 of 3 Canadian employers should tackle mental health issues in workplace says advocate Mental health: 'No excuses’ for letting people fall through cracks They’re too busy being overwhelmed, stressed and exhausted by their academic careers, according to the study released Monday at a conference of the Canadian Association of College and University Student Services. According to the survey, 89 per cent of students said they were overwhelmed by all they had to do; nearly 54 per cent reported being hopeless and 64 per cent lonely sometime in the past 12 months; 86.9 per cent said they were exhausted, 56 per cent felt overwhelming anxiety and nearly 10 per cent had seriously considered suicide. “The mental health issues are definitely compelling — the level and breadth of distress,” says Dr. Su-Ting Teo, director of student health and wellness at Ryerson. Teo is also president of the Canadian Organization of University College Health which co-ordinated the survey. Health professionals in universities have been aware of the mental health needs of their own students, says Teo, but the survey will allow educators to look for solutions beyond their own institutions. “We have the proof that it’s just not my institution. It’s not just Ontario,” said Teo. “It really is across the country.” The data will be used to determine the needs of students as well as create a national benchmark. The results were pooled from a survey or more than 30,000 students at 34 colleges and universities. “This is an amazing data set to do research with and find out what’s happening with students because they’re really at a critical time in terms of leaning and developing things,” says Teo. Part of the problem may have to do with students moving away from home for the first time. “They’re learning how to manage their finances and their relationships. They’re learning a whole new academic system, which is different from high school,” she says. “And they’re just so much less supported. In high school you have a schedule. You need to show up. In university or college, if you don’t show up, nobody knows. No on is checking up on you. “It’s a huge shift,” she says. Students reported their academic performance was more likely to suffer due to anxiety (28.4 per cent), sleep difficulties (27.1 per cent) or stress (38.6 per cent), instead of factors such as alcohol use (4.9 per cent) or a difficult relationship (12.9 per cent). The survey also showed that students had a warped sense of just how much their peers were partying. http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2013/06/17/national_survey_of_postsecondary_students... 6/18/2013 National survey of post-secondary students in Canada shows stress and anxiety are major ... Page 3 of 3 Students thought 80 per cent had used marijuana in the last month compared to the 16 per cent that actually did. They believed about 80 per cent had at least one cigarette in that time period, a figure that was actually 11.6 per cent. And they thought 95 per cent of their peers had at least one drink in the last 30 days when just over 70 per cent did. Teo says those results will help demystify what people believe are the health behaviours of students as well as allow other students to resist peer pressure. Teo, a physician, says she has seen a growth in mental health issues among students since she began working at Ryerson in 2000. Other factors at play could be the increased cost of tuition over the past 20 years, the competition for jobs and the lack of security that students will face in the workplace. Today, there’s also more of an expectation that people need to get a post-secondary education to succeed, says Teo. The survey has been done by schools in the U.S. and Canada before but this is the first time the data has been pooled nationwide here. Students in the 34 largest colleges and universities were surveyed between January and April this year. http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2013/06/17/national_survey_of_postsecondary_students... 6/18/2013 Should you put off kindergarten for your child? Page 1 of 3 Life / Parent Should you put off kindergarten for your child? An increasing number of parents are opting to ‘redshirt’ kids born late in the year. RICHARD LAUTENS / TORONTO STAR Dianne Horn kept her son, Cameron 5, at home for an extra year before he went to kindergarden. He's now finishing his first year in juniour kindergarten and there are no regrets, she said. By:Jessica McDiarmidNews reporter, Published on Mon Jun 17 2013 Dianne Horn was shocked when the school her son was to attend mentioned the possibility of putting him into a class for kids born a year later. Cameron had stayed in preschool instead of going to junior kindergarten in 2011, the year he turned 4. As a Dec. 30 baby, his parents felt he was too young — about 3 years and 8 months old at the start of that school year. And his preschool offered junior kindergarten curriculum, but with more adult supervision and fewer kids. The following spring, the private Leaside school Cameron would attend suggested starting him in junior kindergarten, rather than senior as his family had planned. MORE ON THESTAR.COM Natalie MacMaster relies on ‘cramming abilities’ to juggle 5 kids, a farm and performances How a mouse made us buy a house Two non-traditional dads, two different paths “We were completely blindsided by it,” said Horn. “Then I started reading about it and researching it. I just had to open my mind to it and it started to all make a lot of sense.” http://www.thestar.com/life/parent/2013/06/17/should_you_put_off_kindergarten_for_you... 6/17/2013 Should you put off kindergarten for your child? Page 2 of 3 She also talked to her mother, who shares Cameron’s Dec. 30 birthday, about what it’s like to always be the youngest in the class. “He was always going to be the last one,” said Horn. Often referred to as “redshirting,” — a term borrowed from college sports where it signifies keeping an athlete out of varsity competition for a year to better develop skills — an increasing number of parents are opting to delay kindergarten for kids born late in the year. Many experts attribute the increasing popularity and discussion of redshirting to Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliers, particularly the opening chapter where Gladwell discusses the fact that a huge proportion of pro hockey and soccer players are born in the first three months of the year. Estimates of how many children are redshirted vary widely. Researchers in the United States, where redshirting is presumed to be more common, have put the number at anywhere between 4 and nearly 20 per cent. In Ontario, children are eligible for junior kindergarten the year they turn 4, though they aren’t required by law to attend. They are required to be in Grade 1 the year they turn six, unless special arrangements are made with their school to hold off. Statistics for how many families hold their kids back an extra year in Ontario aren’t available, but Patrick Keyes, superintendent of student success for the Toronto Catholic District School Board, said it’s still relatively rare. If parents request it, educators will meet with them and determine the best course of action. “You don’t usually wind up holding them back,” said Keyes. John McNamara, an educational psychologist at Brock University, said studies have shown boys are more likely to be held back, as are children from wealthier families, who are more likely to have the resources to provide alternate care for an extra year.

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