Teenage peer pressure can be very frightening, wonderfully exciting or incredibly reassuring. Ok, “very frightening” speaks for itself and means that they needs to get out of a very bad situation – if they can. “Wonderfully exciting” sounds good, but usually means that whatever is being done is not really a good idea and will probably turn out being “very frightening”. Naturally “incredibly reassuring” works for everyone – every body is safe and nobody is in trouble.
Wonderful and sensible – yes? So how do you teach your teen to deal with negative peer pressure? In fact, how do you teach him or her the difference between positive and negative peer pressure?
A difficult task for you the parent and an even more difficult task for your teenager.
In order to help your child cope with teenage peer pressure, you will need to gain his or her trust. Another difficult task because as far as teens are concerned their parents don’t know anything about being a teen, after all, parents were born at the age of 35 (or 40) something.
Your first step will be to let your teen know that you truly understand what being a teen is all about by telling him or her some of the things you got up to yourself. Prove to them that you understand both the good things and the bad things about being a teen. Go ahead, shock them a little.
They in turn will start by telling you something minor that they have done. DO NOT SHOW ANY FORM OF SHOCK, OR THAT YOU ARE UPSET IN ANY WAY. Just listen! Talk about what you might (or might not) have done had you been in a similar situation. laugh a little. Remember, the whole point of the exercise is to find out where adolescent peer pressure is leading your teen, so that you can quietly and gently guide them away.
When your teen discovers he or she can talk openly to you without fear of retribution, he or she will slowly start becoming the leader of the pack. When a peer makes a suggestion, your teen will speak up and start moving things toward a more sensible path. Not only that, but he or she will start suggesting that that their friends come and talk to good old Mom or Dad, because they know for a fact that their parents were REALLY teenagers and understand what it is all about AND that no matter what is said they wont get upset.
One of the things you will need to bring into discussion somewhere along the line is the importance of responsibility and dealing with the consequences of their actions. The easiest way to demonstrate is likely to be be via reward or punishment. When our teenager has been found to have done something either good or bad, bring up the subject of consequences and get them to suggest a consequence for their action. The consequence can be in the form of a reward for something well done, or a punishment for a misbehavior. The very fact that the choice is their own is a strong motivator.
Such actions will be carried forward into their teen group and you will find that not only have you influenced and assisted your own teen on how to cope with teenage peer pressure, but you will have helped others as well.
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