How To Spot If Your Kid Is Under Peer Pressure

Peer pressure exists for all ages and begins very early on in life,

When children have the cognitive capacity to compare themselves with others.

It can start from three-years-old; who throw temper tantrums to demand things they want right now; to eight-years-old; who refuse to wear clothes their parents have picked out for them; because the other children aren't wearing similar clothes.

You can also spot it when you find your daughter shortening her skirt, wearing heavy make-up, or your son smoking or drinking alcohol, it's only natural to wonder if some questionable friends have played a part in this new behaviour.

Fellow are 7 steps to help our children to hold their nerve

1. Work on developing an open, truthful and adjacent (close ) relationship with your children.

You can do this by finding family activities everyone can get involved in, such as playing games on the beach exploring new place.

This will give you the chance to develop close relationships with your children, which will means they are more likely to come to you when they are having problems.

2. Talk about peer pressure and how it works.

We rather explain that it's normal to want to fit in with others in your group or class and to do what they're doing.

When children have an understanding of the process and the feelings involved, they are less likely to give in to it.

3. Get to know their friends.

We need to accept that our children want friends in order to learn about social skills and relationships. We need to find ways of encouraging rather than disapproving of the friends that our children bring home. If we kept criticizing our children's friends, they may become defensive and deliberately rebel against us . Instead, we should discuss specific behavior; for example: "It appears to me whenever you're in a class with X you get into trouble."

4. Teach them to say no. Parents and older siblings can provide ammunition to help a young person resist pressure from friends. We need to teach our children how to stand up for what they believe in.

We can do this by role-playing responses to various situations. This gives children a chance to practice saying no to their peers and clarify why they don't want to get involved.

5. Encourage positive friendships.

Its better to explain to our children that “A good friend “ can help get things in perspective.

In the best case scenario ‘the Good friend” may also be able to stand up with them against the peer group.

Encourage your child to have a wide variety of friends. As this will help them get exposed to many children with different ideas and interests, this will also promote “individuality” and make it less likely for them to give into peer pressure from any one group.

6. Talk about your experiences.

If we shared with our kids situations that we have encounters as children and how we managed them , we will be able to normalize the experience of peer pressure and help our children to get some perspective on their own problems

7. Lastly, it is essential that our children see that he or she is responsible for following the family rules.

Its important that our children knows that there are consequences if they broke the rules

#perspective #outlook #newlife