As School Starts, Some Thoughts on Peer Pressure

As parents send their charges off to school, one of their (many) worries is how much and what kinds of peer pressure their kids will have to resist.

As I’ve told (probably too many of) my students (some of whom had to endure the story multiple times), most peer pressure is internal, not external. I started smoking at 15 not because one of the cool kids offered me a cigarette, but because I thought (hoped) I would fit in better. In fact, my first public cigarette (I decided I needed to practice in private first) probably earned more raised eyebrows and stifled snickers (not the candy bar) than acceptance as one of the gang. Only in retrospect did I realize that nobody cared one way or another whether I smoked or not. Sadly, by that time it had become a habit that took 25 years to break.

Interestingly, however, those same parents who caution their kids about succumbing to the dangers of peer pressure often actually encourage peer pressure when the end result is desirable. How many parents try to encourage a behavior by pointing out a peer who is a positive role model, with the implicit, or even occasionally explicit, “Why can’t you be more like _____________?” I certainly heard it, and while I tried to NOT inflict that message on my daughter (who didn't need it), I am uncertain if I succeeded. 

One thing has been made clear to me in 40+ years of teaching: kids more often learn the lessons they want, not necessarily those we want to teach. They are at least as likely to substitute the name of a peer you’d rather they didn’t emulate as the one you had in mind. All your cautions about peer pressure went right in the opposite direction you intended, because peer pressure isn’t bad in and of itself. It’s only bad when the modeled behavior is objectionable (to you).

I’d suggest a more effective discussion of peer pressure with your child would incorporate recognition of that duality and seeming hypocrisy. In my experience, kids become more receptive to life lessons when you affirm the difficulties and contradictions they face in the decisions that confront them.