For decades, teenagers across the world have been affected–either negatively or positively–by their home lives. These overlooked effects bleed into the social lives of these young people every day since the separate lives and settings are so interconnected.

 Brookings, an organization at the forefront of research and analysis on a range of topics, ran a study on how life outside of school affects student performance. They noted a significant correlation between the two.

Amongst their findings, they recognized that, “Early childhood maltreatment is associated with significantly lower academic outcomes, even after we control for school, neighborhood, race and other key demographics.” 

Effects like these start at an extremely young age and carry into their adolescence and adulthood l

ives. Maddox Wiltshire, a junior at DVC, shared his enlightening take on how his school life is affected by home. 

“100 [percent]. I do. Like I was saying, my family really affects the way I function at school like it starts my day off when I get home and end my day off. So if I’m not in the right headspace, on the way to school, then I’m just going to be miserable at school,” Wiltshire explained.

Big problem or small inconvenience, the severity of what happens in each setting is going to affect the mood and actions of any person, but especially in teen’s lives since their minds are more fragile. Sicily Anderson, another junior at DVC, provided her opinion on the matter.                          

“If you’re going through a nice good patch of home life or whatever, sometimes you’re really productive. And it makes it easier to keep things focused,” she revealed. “But, [it] depends on the home life like if there’s a problem, sometimes it’s hard to focus on different things like there’s a lot of yelling in the house or like just pretty much anything it could be hard to focus.”

The concept sounds so simple, but is overlooked by so many people because it is seen as normal  since it has happened for so long.According to Frontiers, a study using structural equation modeling confirmed that stress at home and school leads to depression among students, which results in lower academic performance and  learning outcomes. 

The effects of a teen’s home life can be extremely detrimental to their mental health, school production, and overall morale. Nairimar Roman-Rodriguez, a junior at DVC, shared an insightful look into the teenage mind during times of rough patches at home.

“It can make people’s motivation go down a lot,” she said. “Some people may not even want to go to school, be at school [and] wake up. So just them being at school might be a lot for them as well. And if a lot is going on at home, it definitely can overwhelm their minds a lot too.”

Having multiple anecdotes from people in similar areas, from similar backgrounds, and similar age groups can be a helpful factor when talking about situations and traumas caused by teen’s at home lives as they give more insight on the effects of their at home lives.