Helping Your Child Deal with Peer Pressure

This is OK, as long as the exercise or sport does not become an unhealthy way of coping, excessive to the point of negatively affecting their health, or dangerous (as in dangerous sports). Negative peer pressure is the which of the following is a type of indirect peer pressure? influence a person faces to do something they wouldn’t normally do or don’t want to do as a way of fitting in with a social group. People often face negative peer pressure to drink alcohol, do drugs, or have sex.

Family / Youth

Though peer pressure is often thought of as something that happens primarily during adolescence, research suggests peer pressure begins in elementary school, often around the age of 9. Gender can affect how these pressures are internalized and expressed. For example, of the 29% of teens who responded they felt peer pressure to look “good,” girls were more likely than boys to say they feel a lot of pressure to look good (35% vs. 23%).

Positive Peer Pressure

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. What starts out as positive peer pressure may become negative pressure if it leads a person to over-identify with sports, for example, putting exercise and competition above all else. 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. When your mates pressure you to do or go along with something you don’t like, it’s a form of peer pressure.

Ways to Resist & Handle Peer Pressure

Set aside a time where you present your teen with a variety of potential situations. For example, they get to the party and there are no parents present or they are offered a ride with someone that has been drinking. Give them time to consider your sample situations and ask them how they would respond.

• You can experience peer pressure from people without them saying anything to you, and you can experience it from direct remarks made by others.
• It’s more like a dance where everyone tries different moves to look like they know what steps to take.
• Children who have friends whose families share your values are more likely to resist negative peer pressure.
• It might seem okay at the time, but later you might feel embarrassed, guilty or ashamed.
• Skills that are needed to work effectively with people, have meaningful friendships, and healthy romantic and family relationships in the future.
• Some young people choose to maintain friendships at the expense of their values.

Responding to Peer Pressure in the Moment

• Celebrate their achievements and praise them when they make good choices.
• That’s because, in attempting to fit in with peers, teens want to please.
• Be prepared to deal with peer pressure by having a response ready.
• This pressure may be expressed openly (“Oh, come on — it’s just one beer, and everyone else is having one”) or more indirectly — simply making beer available at a party, for instance.
• Unspoken pressure to conform can play a significant role in substance use.

For instance, if your friend is body-shaming another person, you can say, “Actually, it can be really harmful to criticize people’s bodies like that.” 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.

• She oversees digital media content development and production for Parentandteen.com.
• Back then, I did not realise how peer pressure was affecting me, but it was affecting me in a number of ways – low mood, tearfulness, changes in behaviour, just to name a few.
• There have also been examples of harmful online challenges that have the potential to negatively impact a child’s health.
• Teens empowered with tools to face challenging social situations gain important opportunities to express their values.

Passive peer pressure, sometimes called unspoken pressure, may have more influence over behavior than active peer pressure. Unspoken pressure may be harder to resist because it can seem easier to go along with the crowd in order to fit in, especially when there’s no explicit pressure to do something. People who don’t feel pushed into something may have a harder time finding an opportunity to refuse. While peer influence can improve your life, peer pressure can cause problems.

In Sexual Situations

If someone is waiting for you to answer them, tell them you need to take a few days and think about it. It’s easier to resist the pressure when you put some time and space between yourself and the situation. They are also typically striving for social acceptance and are more willing to engage in behaviors against their better judgment in order to be accepted.

Tips for coping with peer pressure

Reading your story can help other young people deal with the tough times. If you ever need to talk about this or anything else, feel free to get in touch with us. Practice saying ‘no’ in safe environments, like when your big brother asks you if you’d like to spend Saturday night doing his laundry. Is an Administrative Director of Research at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Her degrees are in Psychology and Human Development from Middlebury College and the University of Pennsylvania School of Education.

Behavioral Addiction

It may also influence the person to participate in unsafe, risky, or dangerous sexual activities. The consequences may include being exposed to a sexually transmitted infection (STI), developing pregnancy, or having images of yourself posted online without consent. Peer influence can show you there is support, encouragement, and community available to you.