Posts Tagged peer pressure

Understanding the Causes and Risks of Peer Pressure

Posted by Drug Free in Alcohol Abuse, Drug Addiction, Raising Healthy Kids, Tobacco Abuse on April 28th, 2011

The adolescent stage may prove to be the most critical period for both children and the parents. At this time, a parent’s role in a child’s life will be challenged and a lot of factors can help make or break a child. One of the most important aspects that greatly affect an adolescent’s life is peer pressure.

peer pressureThere are a lot of risks presented when peer pressure sets in your kid’s life. Most of these risks are health-related, according to a survey conducted by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Teenagers often learn risky behaviors like drinking, smoking, use of illegal drugs, and getting into unsafe sexual activities. Most of the time, an adolescent becomes vulnerable and his peers would take advantage of his weakness and push him to try the said dangerous activities.

Why do kids succumb to peer pressure? In the adolescent years, this is when a child feels that he needs to have a sense of belonging. How a child sees and reacts to his surroundings will all depend on how his parents brought him up. Dr. Michelle M. Forcier, head of adolescent medicine at the Children’s Memorial Hospital in Chicago, says that kids who experience strong parental guidance and values are less likely to fall prey of peer pressure.

Here are some problems that parents should be concerned when their kids succumb to peer pressure:

a. Alcohol Use – About 20% of teens confess that they had their first drink before the age of 12.

b. Smoking – Almost 25% of high school students smoke. Some even started smoking by the time they were 13.

c. Sex – There are teens 14 to 17 years old who already engage in sexual activities, and 30% of them do it without proper birth control methods.

d. Drug Use – Young adult marijuana users aged 18 to 21 all say they had their first drug encounter before they turned 13.

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What To Do When You Don’t Like Your Teen’s Friends

Posted by Drug Free in Raising Healthy Kids on February 28th, 2010

There is so little you can do to truly influence your teen’s choice of friends. Sometimes, you approve of his or her choice; sometimes, you don’t. We can’t really blame parents if they often disapprove. It’s natural to be protective of our loved ones, especially given how potent peer pressure can be these days, but it is always best not to overdo it.

friendsWe all have the tendency to ‘judge a book by its cover’, as they say – just as many parents do to our teen’s friends. Just because you don’t like the way they dress does not necessarily mean you can’t possibly get along with them. There is a reason why your child is hanging out with him or her. Try your best to figure out why.

If your teen suddenly brings home with him a spiky-haired, tight-jean wearing, tattooed rocker guy and introduces him to you as his best friend, do not freak out! Take a breath. Remember that sometimes, good things come in strange packages. Try your very best not to openly judge your teen’s friends. Instead of judging, ask him questions about his friend. Simply being genuinely curious about your teen’s friends sends a message that you are interested in his life.

Parents want their children to hang-out with the right kind of people. They hate bad influences. But sometimes because of that over-protectiveness, we lose sight of the fact that people are imperfect. There’s no such thing as a perfect friend for your teen. Try your best to keep an open mind. Remember that the way you, as a parent, act around your teen’s friends plays a very big role on how your child sees you in general.

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Peer Pressure and Teenage Alcohol Abuse

Posted by Drug Free in Alcohol Abuse, Raising Healthy Kids on January 17th, 2010

To say it’s easy to raise a child is to deny that parenthood is a huge responsibility. Definitely, it could take a parent his whole life to bring up another human being with the highest ideals.  The job is even made more difficult as the child enters into adolescence when external influences could be most powerful and damaging. One of such influences a parent should always be on guard against is that towards teenage alcohol abuse.

alcohol abuseDue to the physical and physiological changes they undergo during adolescence, teenagers tend to be impulsive and easily excited by things around them, especially those that make them feel closer to what they misconceive to be important in shaping their identity.  Of course, peers are always a part of every teenager’s quest for self-identity. Unfortunately, not everyone that our teens meet is a good influence. Teenagers are particularly at risk of being influenced into alcohol abuse and every concerned parent must never take the possibilities for granted.

The goal of parents then must be to raise teenagers who can take care of themselves when faced with unhealthy peer influences. However, it is as important to recognize the fact that children these days no longer follow orders without reasons.

In other words, when educating teenagers about the dangers of alcohol abuse, it is necessary to patiently and objectively present the entire picture. The world has become an increasingly unsafe place, but with responsible adults never letting their guards down in protecting their children, it can remain as a wonderful place for our children.

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My Friend Was a Drug Addict: A True Story

Posted by Drug Free in Alcohol Abuse, Drug Addiction on December 15th, 2009

I once had a friend in college who showed a lot of promise during his first year. He had the potential to graduate with honors in class, and it showed in the way he carried and handled himself. He was one of those people whose abilities were off-the-scale, and if you have had the chance to meet him at that time, you would probably say the same.

troubled teenBut he had one big character flaw, if you can call it that: he was an extreme loner. Somehow, he never got the hang of going out with other people. He was seen as one of the school’s biggest nerds. No one wanted to get close to him.

He could have gone on with his life and accepted this stereotyping as a passing phase – that it would not last, but his inner desire to be accepted overwhelmed his rational thinking. And so he made a choice: he would abandon his academic life in lieu of a “more active” social life. There began his downfall. He drank and drank with his buddies to no end, and began to use drugs as well.

As life would have it, things went out of control, and he found himself unable to escape his situation. His body grew dependent on the drugs, and he started to do petty crimes such as shoplifting just to sustain his habit. He dropped out of school, and he seemed to have lived off the grid; no one could contact him at all in any way.

I saw him again four years later. It turns out that he was in a rehabilitation center during the time he was gone. He admits how grave his mistakes early in life were, but he also understands that he can never live his life the same way ever again. He looks forward to a different and more meaningful future, though.

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Drug Abuse: A Faulty way to cope with Life

Posted by DrugFreeHomes in Drug Abuse Treatment, Drug Addiction, Drug Facts, Drug Rehabilitation, Drug Testing, Prescription Drug Abuse on September 16th, 2009

drug abuse teen

Drug abuse, as I had mentioned in my earlier post, is a maladaptive way to cope with one’s life and its problems. Interaction between certain factors increases the vulnerability of an individual to use drugs as a support to overcome the hurdles in life. There are some other factors which make the younger generation even more prone to abuse drugs. An understanding of these aspects is essential for the parents as well as the service providers so as to deal with the problem of teenage drug abuse more effectively.

Young people are curious and love to experiment with new things. Peer influence is maximum during this age. Peer group acts as the main source of information which may not be correct or appropriate. Their behavior, lifestyle, values, beliefs, personal self concept are more likely to be influenced by them. They might end up with peers who may not necessarily be good role models. They might get exposed to unhealthy behavior patterns through them.

Young people are constantly striving to be accepted by others. They make every effort to be a member of a group. If substance abuse is a culture of the group, the young members adopt it to be accepted by the group. It is also a way of showing that they are matured and are not afraid to be a member of the group.

Gaining personal independence and establishing a personal identity are major characteristics of adolescents and young adults. They seek separation from their family, gain a self determination, choose an occupation and develop their personal values. In an attempt to achieve all these they turn rebellious and suffer from low self esteem. In order to cope with these challenges they might turn to drugs.

Boredom is yet another risk factor since they get bored very easily. Feelings of inadequacy and anxiety regarding low performance in school could also act as precipitating factors.

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Why are Young People Vulnerable to Drug Abuse?

Posted by DrugFreeHomes in Drug Abuse Treatment, Drug Addiction, Drug Facts, Drug Rehabilitation, Drug Testing, Prescription Drug Abuse on September 14th, 2009

young drug abuse

Experimenting with drugs at young age has become a vital concern of the people in this country. Often it is seen teenagers or more precisely the adolescents are more prone to abusing drugs. There was a time when most of them used the drugs without actually understanding its dire consequences. But today several preventive programs adopted at different levels have been quite successful in spreading the awareness about the ill-effects of substance use. But still teenage drug abuse is on the rise. The question is why is it so? Thus understanding the inherent factors is an absolute necessity to prevent teenage drug abuse.

There are varied reasons which account to teenage drug use, the most important of them being their struggle to overcome identity crisis and establish an identity of their own. Sometimes they have no one to share their concerns with and this is when the peer group takes the charge. They disregard parental guidance and are very prone to peer pressure. The Public Health Model shows that substance use is the result of an interaction between three factors –

The individual – the knowledge that the individual may have about substance use and its consequences as well as his coping skills with respect to the difficulties in his life and peer pressure may influence his decision to take drugs.

The substance – the availability of a substance is also a fundamental risk factor. The composition and nature of the substance can also influence its use.

The environment – the environment or the context of drug use is a very important factor. A number of factors within the environment increase the vulnerability of drug use. These are – behavior of parents, peers and role models, existing cultural norms, attitude about drug use, laws and policies regarding the availability of the substance, possibilities or perceived possibilities for livelihood and personal development.

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