How can I help my child cope with peer pressure?
When your child is exposed to peer pressure, the effects are not something that you're going to see overnight. You're not going to see your child come home and all of a sudden want everything in black - black nail polish, Goth-style clothes, earrings and all those accessories. It's a progressive state and fluid process so it benefits a parent to know themselves and know their child to see those signs as they're starting, and nip them in the bud. There's a reason your child is adhering to that kind of thing. If they're going toward a group of peers that is typically very different than what you would want them to go toward, that's a signal that you should take a look at. What is that group of people offering your child that you're not able to offer? And often you'll come up with the very deficits that your child is not getting at home. Maybe there's not a place for them to talk, maybe they have something about themselves they need to reveal and don't feel safe enough at home to reveal, and this is the group that will hear it and accept them. So it's usually something as simple as not being accepted at home, in their perception, and they're going to adhere to this group, so it benefits you to see these changes happening early and make your home a safe environment for your child where they feel able to tell you who they are and feel accepted no matter who they are.
