Coping with Peer Pressure Essay -- Peer Pressure Essays

Adolescence is a time when confederates play an increasingly important role in the lives of youth. Teens contract to develop friendships that argon more than intimate, exclusive, and more constant than in precedent years. In many ways, these friendships are an essential component of development. They provide fail-safe venues where youth tooshie explore their identities, where they can feel accepted and where they can develop a sense of belongingness. Friendships also allow youth to expend and foster social skills necessary for future success.Nonetheless, parents and other adults can operate concerned when they see their teens becoming preoccupied with their friends. Many parents worry that their teens might fall under negative peer tempt or contemn their families values and beliefs, as well as be wedged to engage in high-risk and other negative behaviors.In actuality, peer influence is more complex than our stereotype of the negative influences from friends. First, peer i nfluence can be both positive and negative. While we tend to think that peer influence leads teens to engage in unhealthy and unsafe behaviors, it can actually remind youth to study harder in school, volunteer for community and social services, and act in sports and other productive endeavors. In fact, most teens report that their peers pressure them not to engage in drug use and sexual activity.Second, peer influence is not a simple process where youth are passive recipients of influence from others. In fact, peers who croak friends tend to already select a lot of things in common. Peers with similar interests, similar academic standing, and bonk doing the same things tend to gravitate towards each other. So while it seems that teens and their friends become ve... ...relationships, and deflect negative peer pressures and influences.Selected ReferencesBrown, B. B. (2004). Adolescents relationships with peers. In R. M. Lerner & L. Steinberg (Eds.), Handbook of Adolescent Psycho logy, second edition (pp. 363-394). sensitive York Wiley.Brown, B. B. (1990). Peer groups and peer cultures. In S. S. Feldman & G. R. Elliott (Eds). At the doorway The developing adolescent (pp. 171-198). Cambridge, MA Harvard University Press.Brown, B. B. & Klute, C. (2006). Friendships, cliques, and crowds. In G. R. Adams & M. D. Berzonsky (Eds.). Blackwell Handbook of Adolescence (pp. 330-348). Malden, MA Blackwell Publishing.Steinberg, L. (2005). Adolescence. New York, NY McGraw-Hill.AcknowledgmentThis publication is partly based on NebFact 211, Adolescence and Peer pull by Herbert G. Lingren, Extension Family Specialist.