Whether keeping up with friends, sharing music, or doing research for a school project, teens are very familiar with the power of social networking, and they’re spending more and more of their time using these tools. The AMW Safety Center has frequently posted tips for how parents can help keep their kids safer when surfing the web.
But parents should also be aware that while online social networks are allowing kids to develop a broader group of friends and access to a wide array of information, these tools are also serving to influence teen behavior—for better or for worse. Peer pressure has always been a challenge that kids have had to deal with growing up, and doesn’t necessarily end at a certain age. According to NIH statistics, adults are also susceptible to peer influence.
NIH experts recommend setting a strong, positive example for kids early on. Steering kids into positive activities from a young age can help to build good habits and reinforce their resistance to destructive behavior as they grow up. Work with your kids to help them find a positive social niche where they feel comfortable, it’s much more difficult to guide kids to a new niche once they’ve reached adolescence.
Identifying peer pressure tricks is a major step towards resisting them. Here are a few of those tricks you can talk to your kids about to help them recognize a potential problem situation:
- Rejection: Someone threatens to end a friendship or relationship. This can be difficult to resist because nobody wants to lose friends.
- Put Downs: Insults and name calling to make them feel bad.
- Reasoning: Rationalizing why doing or trying something would be OK.
- Unspoken Pressure: being made to feel left out or excluded, even without anything being said to you. You want to be doing the same things others are doing.
Check out this NIH News in Health article for more information and examples of these peer pressure tricks at work, as well as more resources on helping maintain a positive influence with your children. Also, check out the National Crime Prevention Council’s site for even more tips and materials to you talk to your kids about peer pressure and teen safety issues.
10 Comments on "Talking To Teens About Peer Pressure"
cynthia
it hard and i have it all the time
cynthia
teens thats wat happens when we have some 1 in il family have did something
cynthia
teens we will survie this
blue
parents talk to your kids daily no matter how early in the day or how late at night. keep the communication level at all times.
Cordelia
Im A Student and just turned 18. I go on myspace and chat and yes there are a lot of weridos emailing me but kids need to know just push the block bottun i do it all the time. I only go there to talk to my firends and when weridos click on it makes me mad….
I wish my parents would have told me about this but they never di.. we need great communication…
your are parents thats you job, to keep us safe
hearty
yes its true i go on myspace and theres some
people that add me and i deny them because i dont knoe them so every kid or person be sure so that whoever u talk to will be that person u knoe so kids and persons be safe when u get on myspace.
patie
me to i deny them or somethimes i go 2 their piks
sim
teens should not be talking to strangers or be alone with boys and having sex with them
erica
i am 14 years old and on myspace 40 year old men are trying to meet me…..not to add all of the fighting and gossip put on myspace…..it is very pathetic…i think myspace is just another way to get teens to do something they may not feel comfortable doing, but doing it any ways just to be cool…
Cindy
I think it is sad that so many kids visit sites like my space to ‘talk with their friends’ When I was a kid if you wanted to talk with your friends, you picked up the phone or walked across the street to their house.
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