• What is peer force per unit area?
  • Why does peer pressure influence teens?
  • Examples of teen peer pressure
  • Types of teen peer pressure
  • When to be concerned about teen peer pressure?
  • How tin can parents help manage teen peer force per unit area?

Teenage years are the time when children make most of their friends. They have fun with them, they confide in them and they become influenced by them. Just with the friendship and social circumvolve comes peer pressure.

Teen peer force per unit area can lead to some agin outcomes and an unpleasant atmosphere at home. We tell you everything virtually peer pressure in teens — examples, the adept and bad, and how parents can bargain with it.

What Is Peer Force per unit area?

Peer pressure is a situation where the teen feels compelled to do something because they want to be a part of a social circle and exist valued past it. Friends and members of a larger group (classmates, schoolmates, etc.,) establish the peers.

The teen gives more importance to their peers' stance than their own thoughts. Hence, peer pressure can make the teen do things that they would otherwise not practise.

Why Does Peer Pressure Influence Teens?

Here is why teens become easily influenced past their peers:

  1. Importance to peers' opinion: Teenagers lay a lot of accent on the opinion of their friends and the larger group. Often, teens brand a is aligned with the larger grouping instead of staying independent. Inquiry has institute that teenagers are probable to have more than risks, such as speeding on a automobile, when their friends are watching them (one).
  1. Rapid teenage transformation: Several mental and physical changes occur during the adolescent years. There is a natural urge to forge friendships with those of the aforementioned historic period and those going through similar changes in life. The teen feels that the best fashion to go friends with someone is by behaving in the same manner as their peers practice.
  1. A potent urge to fit-in: The need to fit-in could be then smashing that it can drive the teen to make impaired and risky decisions, which the teen may perceive to exist "absurd".
  1. Risk taking: Teenagers are most likely to ignore risks in favor of a advantage while being under the influence of peer pressure (ii). A teen is likely to exist involved in a criminal offense or consume booze when they are in a group of peers (3). A teenager is also v times more probable to be involved in a motorcar accident since they are most likely to drinkable and drive when with peers (4).

People are the well-nigh vulnerable to peer pressure in their teenage years, and the pressure tin manifest in diverse ways. Let's see some examples.

[ Read: Teenage Behavior Issues ]

Examples Of Teen Peer Pressure

Below, we accept listed some of the most mutual scenarios of peer pressure among teens; some might be adept while some are harmful for the teenager:

  • Changing 1's talking mode to mimic those in the friend circumvolve; using words that are often used by peers.
  • Copying the dressing style, haircuts, and jewelry.
  • Watching the same movies and Telly shows every bit friends. Listening to the same music as friends.
  • Participating in competitions or joining groups similar a sports or singing group.
  • Doing risky acts like breaking rules. Often the rule is cleaved in a group or after seeing someone in the peer circle practice it.
  • Indulging in activities like smoking, drinking, using drugs, or sexual activities.

As the examples indicate, peer pressure level tin be both negative and positive.

Types Of Teen Peer Pressure

Peer pressure tin exist either negative or positive depending on the type of social circle:

  1. Negative peer force per unit area: Causes the teen to pick habits that are inappropriate for their age. Examples include underage drinking, smoking, drug abuse, having unsafe sex and doing illegal activities.
  1. Positive peer pressure level: This makes the teen do positive things such as joining in a gym to maintain a healthy weight, participating in competitions, joining a hobby group, and following some practiced, everyday habits like eating healthy food considering peers practise the same.

Positive peer pressure level is indeed a delight for parents who may otherwise struggle to convince their child to take up proficient habits. It is the negative peer pressure, which is worrisome.

[ Read: How Does Peer Pressure Influence Teen Pregnancy? ]

When To Exist Concerned About Teen Peer Pressure level?

Negative peer pressure can be a problem if you lot see the below signs in your teen:

  1. A sudden change in beliefs; brandish of aggression and erratic behavior like never before.
  1. The teen speaks in monosyllables and does not talk openly with family members.
  1. They seem depressed or anxious all the while.
  1. The teen gets angry fifty-fifty with simple matters; are aggressive and brusque-tempered.
  1. Having trouble falling asleep, and irregular sleeping pattern.
  1. Changes in the physical appearance that make the teen appear unwell.
  1. A loss of appetite or problem eating.
  1. Withdrawal from activities and social groups that the kid in one case enjoyed.
  1. Reluctance to get outside the house or go to school.
  1. Speaking negatively about life and saying words that suggest that the teen has given up all hope.

A combination of all or a few of these signs in your child means they need your assistance.

How Can Parents Help Manage Teen Peer Pressure?

Hither is what you tin can do to keep negative peer pressure away from your teen. The steps involved are normally a function of proficient parenting.

  1. Enquire specific questions about their day: Ask specific rather than open-ended questions about how their mean solar day was- such as, "What did yous do in your favorite discipline today?" "Who was your lab partner?" Rather than, "How was your 24-hour interval" and "Do you like school?" This way, you'll get answers that are longer than a yes or a no. Have a chat with them every day to keep yourself updated about the events in the teenager's life. Nonetheless, make sure you don't sound interrogative. It also allows the teen to know that their parents are open to advice, and he/she can rely on them for emotional back up.
  1. Maintain a calm arroyo: If your teen just confessed that they had a drink today due to peer pressure level, appreciate their honesty. Y'all can then ask them how they felt afterwards taking the drink, "Did it make you feel dizzy?" "What practice you think the furnishings on your torso were?" Do not get aroused or shout. It volition make information technology harder for the teen to arroyo you with their bug and confess. Negative reaction to a confession or a problem can make the teen drift abroad from parents and get more involved in peer groups, who may encourage negative pacifiers like drugs and alcohol. Maintaining a more chat like approach with your teen rather than shouting at them, can aid them see for themself why drinking alcohol is not benign to them.
  1. Build self-confidence: Teens with poor confidence levels and low cocky-stance are more probable to succumb to negative peer force per unit area. Parents tin help the teen build cocky-conviction. Testify them instances of how you yourself face peer force per unit area and accept them spotter yous overcome it, modeling doing what is correct in the face of negative peer pressure which they will see makes a person stronger. Take skill classes together or work on projects together where you and your teen tin can both experience proud.
  1. Set some rules: Accept some rules for your children to follow. Let them know by when yous expect them dwelling every twenty-four hour period, occasions when they tin stay out late and the rules of driving. This will make the teen know what is acceptable and what is non.
  1. Teach polite however firm ways to say "No": Teach a kid to decline a negative offering fabricated by their friends. For instance, if the teen has several classmates who smoke, then teach the teen to decline any offer by saying "No, cheers. I practice non want to fume". Show them videos that explain how smoking is harmful to the trunk. Let your child know that when others refuse to consider the harmful effects on their body, it is not worth engaging in an statement with those peers. The hope is that your child volition know they don't desire to exist in that situation and has the internal strength to leave it.
  1. Encourage interaction with a wider circle of friends: Motivate the teen to make friends not just at school, merely in the neighborhood, a local park or at their hobby classes too. Information technology will help bring an assortment of friends and acquaintances into their social life rather than one grouping then that the child can experience the influence of several peer groups. It can assistance dilute any negative peer pressure and as well provide more friendship options. Finding peer support from a positive grouping is the best style to escape the influence of negative peer groups.

[ Read: Causes Of Teen Stress ]

Although you cannot make your teen cull their friends, you can give them opportunities to spend fourth dimension with other teens, who resist negative peer pressure. Peer pressure does not terminal forever. Your child is less probable to be influenced by negative peer pressure level as they abound older. Yet, if you lot feel the situation is getting out of hand, then have your teen to a psychologist or get in touch with a local helpline number.

What are your views on teen peer pressure? Let us know in the annotate section beneath.

References:

MomJunction's articles are written after analyzing the research works of skillful authors and institutions. Our references consist of resource established by regime in their corresponding fields. You can learn more nigh the authenticity of the information we present in our editorial policy.

Recommended Articles:

  • Emotional Changes During Puberty
  • Symptoms Of Teenage Growth Spurts
  • Tips To Increase Self Confidence In Teenagers
  • Sex Didactics For Teenagers

The following 2 tabs change content below.

  • Reviewer
  • Author

Rabbi Shlomo Slatkin is a Certified Imago Relationship Therapist (Advanced Clinician) and Certified Imago Workshop Presenter. Together with his wife Rivka, he founded The Marriage Restoration Projection, a global initiative to help keep couples together and happy. Rabbi Slatkin has made information technology their mission to help save marriages in two days by way of marriage intensive retreats. He has also... more

Sagari was a math graduate and studied counseling psychology in postgraduate college, which she used to empathize people better. Her interest in reading nearly people fabricated her have up articles on kids and their beliefs. She was meticulous in her research and gave information that could exist of aid to parents in times of demand. An animal lover, vegan, and... more than