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As children grow up, they meet both positive and negative influences. They may feel pressured to act in a similar way in order to “fit in”. This is known as peer pressure, where children are pushed into doing the things that they wouldn’t necessarily. It starts at around the age of 9 during adolescence and can continue to be felt through to adulthood. To combat this, teach your child how to deal with it and raise them to have self-love. Below is some information from a senior school in Surrey on how you can help your child to resist peer pressure.
Self-love is important because it reminds us of how great we are. It helps children to be more confident in themselves and in turn less vulnerable to bad influences around them. It’s something that can be promoted through the way that you talk to yourself as children easily pick up on the things that their parents do.
As well as teaching your child to have self-love, you should also remind them of their qualities. Again, it will help them by developing their confidence as insecurities make children more vulnerable to peer pressure and wanting to fit in.
It can be an uncomfortable word to say out loud, but practice can make your child less afraid to use it. If they’re not on board with something, they should know that they can walk away. This might be something that you choose to do by role playing situations where they may experience it in some form.
If for whatever reason your child feels as though they cannot say no, offering an alternative may be an option to diffuse the situation and move on.
The people that your child chooses to surround themselves with can influence their actions and the choices that they make. It’s important for this reason that they know how to pick their friends and avoid others.
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