GE A2+ Unit 1 Reading A

What makes teens happy?

I’m Ana. Welcome to my blog. Or ‘Willkommen’ as we say in German!

Recently, my teacher told us about some reports on teen happiness. What do you think makes teens happy? Is it money, going out or owning things? No, you’re wrong. The reports show that teens are happy when they have good relationships with their friends and families.

Everyone needs friends, but young people seem to be with their friends all the time! That’s OK – young people need to spend time with their friends because it helps them to learn how to be around other people. We see our friends at school all day, and when we get home, we go online to chat there. Going online for an hour or two isn’t a problem. Most teens understand this and don’t spend all of their time online. The internet makes us happy and we must have it because our friends have it, but we’re happier when we go out with our friends in real life.

How do we feel about our parents? The reports say teens think their parents are annoying sometimes, for example, when they text too much or ask too many questions, but teens are pleased to have their parents’ help and love. Happy teens have parents who often spend time with them, eating as a family and talking about what’s happening at school. In fact, spending time just talking is the number one activity to do with parents at home that makes teens happy.

And what makes us unhappy? Exams! We often worry that exams will be difficult and our marks will be bad. Many students are worried about tests that they have prepared well for! We also worry about money – we want to have enough for the things we enjoy, but we don’t want to ask our parents for it all the time. It also makes us unhappy when our parents don’t understand us. But we can just sit down at the dinnertable and talk about it. Problem solved!