Stress. That single word encompasses a good deal of what makes modern adult life less than perfect. Stress on the job, on the highway, while shopping. Stress from trying to have children, from having children, from balancing the demands of work and family. It's enough to make you long for the carefree days of childhood.

Before wishing too hard, though, you might consider today's children. They, too, are under an increasing amount of stress--pressured more than ever to get better grades, to participate in more group activities, to engage in more organized after-school play, to fit into their parents ever-more-complicated schedules.

A growing number of children have to cope with the stresses of living in a family torn by divorce, or with only one parent, or in poverty. More children are having sex today and at younger ages than ever. And according to a survey conducted by Weekly Reader, a magazine for school children, children as young as 9 years old are feeling pressure to experiment with alcohol and other drugs.

Children, it seems, simply aren't getting the chance to be children.

All these stresses, says David Elkind, professor of child study at Tufts University, add up to one chilling fact: "Children are less healthy today --physically and mentally--than they were 25 years ago, or even 10 years ago, and the evidence shows that incidence of psychological stress has grown dramatically over that time. Certainly, childhood is more stressful today than at any time in the near past."

Recent studies by the National Institute of Mental Health and the Institute of Medicine found that 35% of American children under the age of 14 suffer stress-related problems at some point in their young lives.

Some of the problems are physical: recurring headaches and stomach aches. Others affect behavior, including lack of concentration, loss of self-confidence, temper tantrums, forgetfulness, crying and yelling, avoiding friends, depression, even attempting suicide. Whatever the symptom, children, like adults, experience stress and suffer when they do not cope well with it.