Parenting 101: How to make Peer Pressure a Positive Experience – Math Quizzes and Spelling Bees aren’t the Only Tests your Kids will be Facing as they head Back to School

Back to School means our kids will be tested in all sorts of ways – both academic and social. One of the biggest challenges facing our children is peer pressure.

Peer pressure is influence from people of the same age, group or affiliation, to behave in the same way regardless of individual attitudes, feelings, or beliefs. It can be positive and healthy, or negative and destructive. Peer pressure is with us all our lives, even as adults. It’s the result of our basic need to belong, in our family, peers and our social groups.

Peer pressure is the most influential during the school years, from middle childhood to adolescence, when your child is venturing forth and discovering his self-identity outside the safe confines of the immediate family. Our children’s desire for acceptance is normal and a healthy developmental stage. Our goal as parents is to help our children cope with negative peer pressure while growing to healthy independence.

As our children grow up and get involved in clubs, sports teams, and social activities with friends, they are exposed to the attitudes and behaviors of other children. That’s not even counting the largest group of peers they face everyday – their classmates. Through their peers, they will be exposed to video games, brand name clothing, scooters, swear words, graffiti, dares, and of course, negative attitudes.

Many of these interactions are good influences, but others are not-so-good depending on how these influences fit with our family norms. Our children are going to encounter values, attitudes and beliefs that are different from our families’ values throughout their lives. So what can parents do? Parents can subtly influence the choice of peers, but cannot control the choice completely.

The positive side of peer pressure

Peers provide encouragement and challenge to engage in positive activities. Peers can provide positive pressure to join a soccer team, stop bad habits, work on community projects, and eat healthier or even set up a business. Peers also ease some of the stress in the major transitions in life by providing security and confidence. Peers listen, understand, and provide a sounding board. Children need to go out in the world and test the values learned at home.

Peers teach compromise, negotiation skills and fair play. We can teach our children all we want about losing graciously in a soccer game, but a friend will teach our child actual consequences if they display obnoxious behavior. They might not speak to them for a while. Another positive is that children gain experience in reading the social norms of groups, which is excellent practice for being a discerning adult.

How parents can positively influence peer relations

#1: Fulfill the need for acceptance – The need for acceptance in a peer group will become much greater if the child’s needs are unmet by the family. These needs include acceptance of themselves, unconditional love, understanding, fun, the need for control and autonomy, the need of skill mastery and self-confidence.

#2: Fulfill the need for approval – The more the child needs approval, the greater the possibility he will override his beliefs and attitudes with the prevailing behavior of the peer group.

#3: Understand the need to match with the opposite – Children often find their unrealized personality characteristics in friends. For example, a shy child will gravitate toward a more outgoing child.

#4: Know the warning signs of negative peer pressure – The three key signs are: 1) your child is heavily dependent on approval by others, including you, 2) your child won’t take responsibility for his actions when in trouble and blames his peers instead, and 3) your is secretive about friendships and won’t bring friends home.

As parents, it’s important to remember that “we can’t adjust the wind, but we can adjust the sails.” Our children will inevitably meet up with negative influences. While controlling how much or what type these influences is impossible, we can control the quality of our parent-child relationship.

>> Continue to page 2 for how parents can overcome negative peer pressure