Peer Pressure
Peer Pressure: Dealing with Today’s “Super Peer”
We have all heard about peer pressure today and how it affects our youth. Peer pressure has become a tossed about term used by many to excuse the misbehavings of our children. Don’t get me wrong, all children are susceptible to peer pressure and no matter how well you have parented, there is always that opportunity your child may give in to peer pressure. But there can also be positive peer pressure. Positive peer pressure is when we, as parents, ensure that our children are involved in group activities that are in positive environments. Too many times when our children reach the teenage years, we tend to back off and let them make their own decisions; when in fact, this is a point in time we really need to be more involved in guiding their decisions and helping them become an adult. One of these ways is to make sure your child is involved in positive group environments that can actually enhance their skills, their personality, their self-esteem and their self-worth. I say these things to bring up a point about a term that I recently heard, and that was the term “Super Peer”. Super peer is being charged as our biggest influence of the adolescent environment today. So what is the Super Peer?
The Super Peer is not just one, but a multitude of all media environment rolled into one. When we take the television, the Internet, smart phones, and video games and roll them into one package, they become a dominant force in a child’s life. If you were to sit down and have your child actually track the amount of time that they spend on these things, you would find they spend more time with media than they do with actual human contact. With so many parents having to work late in the evenings or into the afternoon, it leaves the adolescent with the environment to be able to do whatever they want, which includes all of the components of the Super Peer. When they are inundated with such an environment of loose moral values, and questionable activities, the Super Peer has much more power and influence than traditional peer pressure. The questions to ask as a parent is, how much of these activities is my child involved in compared to actual human involvement?
Another point is the ability to search out others that practice deviant behaviors when in a community environment they may never have met this individual. When we look at the statistics of adolescents who are now into the cutting rituals, are learning new and different techniques to get high, and are learning how to do things that go against everything you taught them, it is all traced back to the Internet and their ability to find others, who not only promote the behaviors but recruit others to join them in promoting the deviant behavior they are doing. It is amazing of the number of websites that promote anorexia as being beautiful and something that all girls should do.
As a parent we need to be aware of this Super Peer and where it plays within our child’s life. There are many dangers out there and with the advantage of media these dangers are now sitting in our living room when they used to be in some third world country or back street alley. One of the most dangerous things that you can do is to allow a preteen to have a laptop or computer in his/her bedroom to where he/she can shut the door. The Internet allows them to bring the world into their bedroom and this world includes pornography, how to get high sites, hate sites, as well as bullying and sexual predators. Just think about it, they are opening a window to any city, town, or bedroom of any individual that is online throughout our world. This window allows them access and the opportunity to invite the other parties into their world. You may think that your child would not do such a thing, but such thinking has led many parents to bury their children, deal with psychological problems, with incarceration and losing a relationship with their child.
So what is a parent to do? There are many things that can be done and should be done. Most of all our teaching and training of our children about the Internet and the dangers of should start at the age of 5 to 7. We need to be the ones teaching them how to use the Internet, not letting their friends show them how to use the Internet because this could end up being a disaster. We need to monitor the amount of time our children are spending on media. For a teenager, this is not going to be popular but would you rather be popular or standing beside his coffin after he/she has overdosed or his/her cutting ritual went too far and she’s in ICU with very little hope. We need to involve our children in positive group environments. And it doesn’t stop there; we need to be with them, supporting them in these group environments so that they know we are there for them as parents no matter what. It is a difficult challenge for those of us who work, but it is one that we have to ask ourselves a question. Who is more important in my world, are my needs more important or are the needs of my children more important? I have worked with and seen too many parents that have chosen their needs over their children’s on a daily basis all because it was “inconvenient” for them to have to attend a band function, a soccer game, a rugby game, a church function, etc. We need to have software installed on all computers to monitor activity and to limit accessibility to websites by our children. We need to have time limits that our children use the Internet, video games, television and any other types of media. Much of this is common sense to many people, but there are also those that see no need in this. We were called by God to raise our children and teach them His ways. As a nation, we have become accustomed to expecting our churches and our schools to be the teachers first and us to be the supporters when it should be the other way around. We should be the teachers to our children and the school systems and churches should be our support and the enhancement that the child needs that we are unable to give but it all starts at home. So I challenge you as a parent to be involved in your child’s life, not to the point that you are controlling and overbearing to the child but that you stand by their side to support them, comfort them, love them and help them learn what it’s like to become a responsible adult. We lack responsibility in many of our young adults today and the only people we can blame for this is ourselves, the parents who raise these young men and women. There is nothing more special than to spend time with your child and it to be a time of enjoyment for both. This can only be accomplished if we start when they are young and stay involved with them as they grow into adults. That line of communication must stay open at all times to where they have no fear of repercussions in coming to you and asking for advice or admitting their indiscretions and personal failures. We should love our children as they are with no conditions and no expectations. In other words, we should love our children as Jesus loves us. When we come to Him and asked for His forgiveness, it is given in love and forgiving grace. So remember, don’t set your expectations too high for your children that they cannot possibly achieve it. Celebrate victories every day no matter how small they are because any victory is always better than a loss. Celebrate each other every day because each day is a gift from God that can be taken at any time. Let them know you love them every day and never let them forget. And most of all make sure they know that God loves them and that if it were not for Him, there would be no hope for our future, no forgiveness for our sins and that his ever loving grace is all that we will ever need in life to get by.
We have all heard about peer pressure today and how it affects our youth. Peer pressure has become a tossed about term used by many to excuse the misbehavings of our children. Don’t get me wrong, all children are susceptible to peer pressure and no matter how well you have parented, there is always that opportunity your child may give in to peer pressure. But there can also be positive peer pressure. Positive peer pressure is when we, as parents, ensure that our children are involved in group activities that are in positive environments. Too many times when our children reach the teenage years, we tend to back off and let them make their own decisions; when in fact, this is a point in time we really need to be more involved in guiding their decisions and helping them become an adult. One of these ways is to make sure your child is involved in positive group environments that can actually enhance their skills, their personality, their self-esteem and their self-worth. I say these things to bring up a point about a term that I recently heard, and that was the term “Super Peer”. Super peer is being charged as our biggest influence of the adolescent environment today. So what is the Super Peer?
The Super Peer is not just one, but a multitude of all media environment rolled into one. When we take the television, the Internet, smart phones, and video games and roll them into one package, they become a dominant force in a child’s life. If you were to sit down and have your child actually track the amount of time that they spend on these things, you would find they spend more time with media than they do with actual human contact. With so many parents having to work late in the evenings or into the afternoon, it leaves the adolescent with the environment to be able to do whatever they want, which includes all of the components of the Super Peer. When they are inundated with such an environment of loose moral values, and questionable activities, the Super Peer has much more power and influence than traditional peer pressure. The questions to ask as a parent is, how much of these activities is my child involved in compared to actual human involvement?
Another point is the ability to search out others that practice deviant behaviors when in a community environment they may never have met this individual. When we look at the statistics of adolescents who are now into the cutting rituals, are learning new and different techniques to get high, and are learning how to do things that go against everything you taught them, it is all traced back to the Internet and their ability to find others, who not only promote the behaviors but recruit others to join them in promoting the deviant behavior they are doing. It is amazing of the number of websites that promote anorexia as being beautiful and something that all girls should do.
As a parent we need to be aware of this Super Peer and where it plays within our child’s life. There are many dangers out there and with the advantage of media these dangers are now sitting in our living room when they used to be in some third world country or back street alley. One of the most dangerous things that you can do is to allow a preteen to have a laptop or computer in his/her bedroom to where he/she can shut the door. The Internet allows them to bring the world into their bedroom and this world includes pornography, how to get high sites, hate sites, as well as bullying and sexual predators. Just think about it, they are opening a window to any city, town, or bedroom of any individual that is online throughout our world. This window allows them access and the opportunity to invite the other parties into their world. You may think that your child would not do such a thing, but such thinking has led many parents to bury their children, deal with psychological problems, with incarceration and losing a relationship with their child.
So what is a parent to do? There are many things that can be done and should be done. Most of all our teaching and training of our children about the Internet and the dangers of should start at the age of 5 to 7. We need to be the ones teaching them how to use the Internet, not letting their friends show them how to use the Internet because this could end up being a disaster. We need to monitor the amount of time our children are spending on media. For a teenager, this is not going to be popular but would you rather be popular or standing beside his coffin after he/she has overdosed or his/her cutting ritual went too far and she’s in ICU with very little hope. We need to involve our children in positive group environments. And it doesn’t stop there; we need to be with them, supporting them in these group environments so that they know we are there for them as parents no matter what. It is a difficult challenge for those of us who work, but it is one that we have to ask ourselves a question. Who is more important in my world, are my needs more important or are the needs of my children more important? I have worked with and seen too many parents that have chosen their needs over their children’s on a daily basis all because it was “inconvenient” for them to have to attend a band function, a soccer game, a rugby game, a church function, etc. We need to have software installed on all computers to monitor activity and to limit accessibility to websites by our children. We need to have time limits that our children use the Internet, video games, television and any other types of media. Much of this is common sense to many people, but there are also those that see no need in this. We were called by God to raise our children and teach them His ways. As a nation, we have become accustomed to expecting our churches and our schools to be the teachers first and us to be the supporters when it should be the other way around. We should be the teachers to our children and the school systems and churches should be our support and the enhancement that the child needs that we are unable to give but it all starts at home. So I challenge you as a parent to be involved in your child’s life, not to the point that you are controlling and overbearing to the child but that you stand by their side to support them, comfort them, love them and help them learn what it’s like to become a responsible adult. We lack responsibility in many of our young adults today and the only people we can blame for this is ourselves, the parents who raise these young men and women. There is nothing more special than to spend time with your child and it to be a time of enjoyment for both. This can only be accomplished if we start when they are young and stay involved with them as they grow into adults. That line of communication must stay open at all times to where they have no fear of repercussions in coming to you and asking for advice or admitting their indiscretions and personal failures. We should love our children as they are with no conditions and no expectations. In other words, we should love our children as Jesus loves us. When we come to Him and asked for His forgiveness, it is given in love and forgiving grace. So remember, don’t set your expectations too high for your children that they cannot possibly achieve it. Celebrate victories every day no matter how small they are because any victory is always better than a loss. Celebrate each other every day because each day is a gift from God that can be taken at any time. Let them know you love them every day and never let them forget. And most of all make sure they know that God loves them and that if it were not for Him, there would be no hope for our future, no forgiveness for our sins and that his ever loving grace is all that we will ever need in life to get by.
| 8_dimensions_of_wellness.pdf |
| understanding_child_trauma.pdf |