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.

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Parenting 101: How to make Peer Pressure a Positive Experience – What can parents do to overcome peer pressure?

What can parents do to overcome negative peer pressure?

#1: Look at unmet needs and underlying feelings of your child – Look beyond his behavior. Does he need more attention, self-confidence, encouragement, and understanding? You can give it!

#2: Keep connected to your child – Spend time with him. Give him unconditional love. He won’t want to do things to jeopardize his relationship with you.

#3: Treat your child with dignity and respect – Respect his space and belongings. Avoid criticism, judgments, and put-downs. Treat your child with politeness and kindness and he will come to expect it from his peers too.

#4: Help your child maintain healthy self-esteem – Help him develop his talents and abilities to give him confidence. Every child excels at something. Encourage him rather than praise him, to avoid over reliance on approval from others. Focus on the effort, not the results of his activities.

#5: Pick your issues carefully – Give your child small harmless rebellions. Teach your child to follow his instincts (the feeling in his tummy).

#6: Allow your child to say “No” if he and you feel it’s appropriate – For example: sharing toys, accepting rides, participating at an event. Teach your child to be politely assertive with peers, siblings, other adults and you. Remember that other adults do not always have your child’s best interests at heart.

#7: Keep communication lines open –Listen, listen and listen some more. Be non-judgmental and acknowledge feelings behind your child’s words and actions. Seek to understand why your child wants the negative peer relationship. For example, when a friend is a negative influence, ask “Tell me how Jim is valuable to you? What do you get out of being with Jim? What risks might there be hanging out with Jim? What are your plans to deal with the risk? What role do you want me to play in helping you deal with the risks?”

#8: Increase your child’s decision-making – Starting about age nine, limit rules to ones that are necessary for safety and get your child’s input on them. They need autonomy and control over their lives as much as adults, even though they are lacking in experience. Children need practice in making good choices and decisions. They learn best by experiencing the consequences of those choices, when the results are not yet so serious, and they have you around to guide them. Ask, “What did you learn about this? What can you do instead next time?”

#9: Help your child find those unrealized parts of himself – When your child seeks out his alter-personality in a friend that’s a negative influence, help him develop those qualities in himself so the need to seek them out in others is lessened. For example, get him into supervised rock climbing if he likes to hang around a peer that thrives on danger in destructive ways.

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