how to explain peer pressure to a pre adolescent child?
Peer pressuring’s three main aspects are people, places, and things. It is all about who the child is hanging out with, where they usually hangout, and the things that those other children are doing. As humans we tend to like to do things with others rather than just by ourselves, and we will do those things just so we can fit in with that specific group of people.
Overall I would just say to the child that they should find a group a friends that have similar interests, and goals in life to that of your child’s. When it comes to drugs Im sorry to say but drugs are everywhere these days. Its getting worse and worse everyday so it makes it almost impossible for you to help your child avoid drugs all of his life. Therefore in my opinion I would just explain that they will come across drugs at some point in their life. The best thing to do is to leave the situation completely and go somewhere else. The child might ask “well what would happen if I tried it just once?” my response would be “what is the point of just trying it once or experimenting with it? Even though you may enjoy it, there is no future in that drug at all. The only thing that could happen is they like the drug enough to continue using it and that would be a bad thing so why would you risk everything on this one little high because it will lead you no where in the end.”
Overall my point is there isn’t any point of even trying any drug once (experimenting). If you never know what it feels like, then you would never know if you like it or not, and that mystery is absolutely a good thing when it comes to this.
