Peer Pressure for Teens

Maybe it’s a peer who is also dedicated to following God and making the right choice, even if it’s hard. In Daniel chapter 3, we see a beautiful example of this with three friends, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Most Biblical scholars believe Peter was crucified upside down because he didn’t feel worthy to be killed in the same way as Jesus. In case you’re wondering how Peter’s story ends, I can tell you that he eventually learned to make the right choice, even if it was hard. Every single person will tell you that doing the right thing, especially if it goes against the crowd, is hard. Three times, Peter went back on what he vowed to Jesus, that he would never deny Him, even if he had to die.

Step 2: Equipping Them for Difficult Situations

A study in the journal Developmental Psychology found that teens who spent time with those who don’t engage in unhealthy behaviors are less likely to misbehave themselves. However, peer pressure can also take a negative turn, pushing young people into risky behaviors in order to fit in. This might involve criminal activities, skipping school, buying vapes, or participating in bullying. Negative peer pressure can lead to feelings of anxiety and depression, poor academic performance, withdrawal from family, and low self-esteem. Because we all want to be accepted by our peers, it can be hard to be the only one saying “no” when faced with peer pressure.

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• Help them develop resilience and coping mechanisms to navigate rejection and bullying in a healthy and constructive manner.
• Peers are people who are part of the same social group, so the term “peer pressure” refers to the influence that peers can have on each other.
• Substance use impairs judgment and interferes with the ability to make good decisions.
• This pressure may be overt (e.g. direct goading to try drugs) or subtle (e.g. everyone at a party drinking shots, creating an implicit expectation for others to join in).
• Since growth in faith is central in everything we do, we integrate a good mix of faith lessons with quality education.
• You’ll probably develop close friendships with some of your peers, and you may feel so connected to them that they are like an extended family.

It can be the thing that gets your child to try a new sport, join a new club, do better in school, or stops them from doing something stupid. My name is Matthew Mann and I have fifteen years of experience as a Head of School and now serve as the Executive Director of Sekolah Pelita Harapan. My task is to strengthen, unite, and grow the group of five schools. At various points in my career, I have taught French and English in Kindy, Primary, Middle School, and Senior School. My vision is for SPH to raise up new generations of leaders equipped and inspired to bless their nation and the world. I believe passionately in schools as communities, places where children are loved and know that they belong, where they are challenged by their academics and enriched by their experiences.

Examples of Positive Peer Influence

• Their adaptability and open-mindedness remind us that staying relevant and innovative is not just a choice but a necessity.
• Knowing the facts can help you to resist pressures based on the idea that “everyone is doing it” and that you must party to fit in.
• Track your feelings over days and weeks to witness personal growth unfolding through difficult lessons learned about human psychology.
• Keeping your child busy with activities helps invest his/ her energy in something productive.
• Many times there isn’t a clear reason why this happens; it just seems like out of the blue, your child is left out and feeling miserable.

Wise choices start with understanding the nature of these pressures. Peers play a large role in the social and emotional development of children and adolescents. Their influence begins at an early age and increases through the teenage years. It is natural, healthy and important for children to have and rely on friends as they grow and mature.

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A person who says this is suffering the worst of a breed of immaturity. Direct peer pressure is when a person uses verbal or nonverbal cues to persuade someone to do something. Even if no one tells the teenager to smoke a cigarette in the example above, the teen may still feel pressured by their peers to partake in the activity because it seems like everyone is doing it.

• In addition, prolonged exposure to this type of stress and tension may be a factor in mental health concerns such as anxiety and depression.
• As a result, parents can exert a form of social pressure on their children through their choices.
• I’m Tim Heading and I have been at SPH for 3 of my almost 30 years in education.
• For example, if teens are being pressured to shoplift, teach them things they can ask their peers.

As teens are growing and experimenting with the concept of individuality, they may experience peer pressure to use alcohol or drugs, or engage in other risky behaviors. Managing teenage peer pressure can seem difficult, if not impossible. But which of the following is a type of indirect peer pressure? with help from parents, most teens will learn to navigate these pressures with grace. The desire to fit in and feel like you are part of a group is normal, and most people feel this way sometimes, especially in the teen and young adult years.

This involvement can lead to exposure to role models and eventually lead to the teens becoming positive role models themselves. We tend to hear more about the potentially negative effects of peer pressure. For instance, two friends might put positive pressure on each other to go to the gym together and stay accountable for their fitness goals. As the name suggests, spoken peer pressure is when someone verbally influences another person to do something. For instance, a teenager might influence their friend to smoke a cigarette by saying, “Come on, one cigarette won’t hurt.” Though peer pressure is not usually used to describe socially desirable behaviors, such as exercising or studying, peer pressure can have positive effects in some cases.