Adults and children alike experience stress in everyday life. Commitments to school, family life, peer pressures, and difficulties in personal relationships are all important sources of stress. As the definition implies, stress upsets the normal equilibrium or balance in one's life. To measure stress according to the Holmes and Rahe Stress Scale, a modified scale has also been developed for non-adults. Similar to the adult scale, stress points for life events in the past year are added and compared to the rough estimate of how stress affects health.

Download a printable copy of the
Non-Adult Stress Scale Poster

This reference correlates to the online continuing education course Stress 101.

LIFE EVENT	LIFE CHANGE UNITS	SCORE
Death of parent	100
Unplanned pregnancy/abortion	100
Getting married	95
Divorce of parents	90
Acquiring a visible deformity	80
Fathering a child	70
Jail sentence of parent for over a year	70
Marital separation of parents	69
Death of a brother or sister	68
Change in acceptance by peers	67
Unplanned pregnancy of sister	64
Discovery of being an adopted child	63
Marriage of parent to stepparent	63
Having a visible congenital deformity	62
Serious illness requiring hospitalization	58
Failure of a grade in school	56
Not making an extracurricular activity	55
Hospitalization of parent	55
Jail sentence of parent for over 30 days	53
Breaking up with boyfriend or girlfriend	53
Beginning to date	51
Suspension from school	50
Becoming involved with drugs/alcohol	50
Birth of a brother or sister	50
Increase in arguments between parents	47
Loss of job by parent	46
Outstanding personal achievement	46
Change in parent's financial status	45
Accepted at college of choice	43
Being a senior in high school	42
Hospitalization of a sibling	41
Increased absence of parent from home	38
Brother or sister leaving home	37
Addition of third adult to family	34
Becoming a full member of a church	31
Decrease in arguments between parents	26
Mother or father beginning work	26

Score of 300+: At risk of illness.

Score of 150-299+: Risk of illness is moderate (reduced by 30% from the above risk).

Score of 150 or below: Only have a slight risk of illness.