How To Avoid Peer Pressure

Hi, my name is Nikki and I'm a counsellor and psychotherapist, and I work a lot with teenagers. I'm here to talk to you about some of the issues that you might find that you're dealing with as a teenager, and to hopefully give you some tips that you might find useful. So, I'm going to talk to you about how to avoid peer pressure.

Peer pressure is pretty self explanatory in what it is. It's obviously the pressure that comes from a group of peers. So it's the pressure from a group to conform to the group kind of norms, the group attitudes, or the group behaviors, or the group beliefs.

So, you as an individual can feel pressurized by what the group thinks is the right thing for you to do, or the right thing for anyone to do in the group. Now, peer pressure can be a positive thing, not just a negative thing. It tends to be talked about as a negative but there's a lot of positive pressure that can come from groups.

For example, like a group of friends or you know the group in school or college might really want you to do well on exams and go home and study or get work. At the same time, the pressure might be the opposite. The pressure might be to not do well at exams or to go out and steal or to smoke or to act in a way that is not going to be helpful to you, or something that you don't want to do.

So it's very, the hardest part in resisting peer pressure, is that you need to find a way as an individual to stand up to a group. And that can be, you know that could take a lot of confidence and a lot of courage. Peer groups are where we learn who we are and who we are not.

So being part of a peer group is really important. We've come from years of family backgrounds so there are lots of family expectations from families, but there is also a huge amount of expectation from the group of people that you hang out with. People that are most vulnerable to peer pressure tend to be people that haven't got a supportive family, or haven't got many friends, or have got low self esteem, or are quite lonely and depressed.

So the need for them to be included by a group is even more important. So think about your own peer group, you know what do you think about them? What do you think about the type of views and attitudes and the pressures that come from your peer group? Are they views that you share? Or are they not? Are there ever times when you feel pressured by them into doing something that you're not comfortable with? Have you ever felt compromised by being in the group? Have you ever felt that you've agreed to something and then regretted it, or that you feel you have to cover up who you are to be accepted? If that's the case, then the way to avoid peer pressure is obviously to start thinking about can you kind of speak up for yourself? Are there ways you can talk to people in the group one to one about the problems you're having with the group as a whole? And that might be a way of kind of taking the pressure off the group as a whole and you can build individual relationships with people in the group. It's important that you always try and be yourself, that you don't try and be someone you're not, or do things that aren't really what you want to do.

It's a way of finding a path, your own path, and sticking to your own path. And finding it with people you admire and want to be with. If you decide that the group that you're in are not people you admire and want to be with, then maybe it's time to find another group.

And don't give up, you will find people that share similar views to you, so keep looking for them. And don't forget to kind of speak out for what's important to you and what's right for you. .