Combating Peer Pressure in Children

According to Wikipedia, peer pressure refers to the influence exerted by a peer group in encouraging a person to change his or her attitudes, values, or behaviour in order to conform to group norms. Unfortunately, the word has meant to signify only negative overtones. The reality is that peer pressure can also have a positive impact. However, it is apparent that the negatives of peer pressure far outweigh the positives. This is why peer pressure is primarily a cause of concern for parents. However, teachers and schools also have a greater role to play in overcoming the ills of peer pressure. It is imperative that the schools work with parents to ensure that the right path is shown to children. This article mainly focuses on children in schools and teen. This is due to two reasons: a) The minds of children are most impressionable when they are young. They easily get influenced by what they see and hear. b) Teenage has, time and again, proved to be a heartburn for parents. This is that stage where children oscillate between adulthood and childhood, are a confused lot and are besieged by hormonal changes .This is that stage where every advice from parents seems like a ticket to hell and children tend to get easily irritated with lot of unsolicited advice from parents. The main cause of peer pressure can be attributed to the rapid advance of technology and changing societal norms. The changing urban lifestyle - where success is measured by the number of cars one has and the sq feet area of the flat that people reside in - is another cause. With swanky lifestyles and easy money at their disposal, children fail to understand the struggle parents undergo mainly because parents simply do not have the time to explain such things to them. Whatever guilt the parents have in not being able to spend time with the children during weekdays is quickly pushed under the carpet by taking the children for a drive, to the fanciest of malls and shopping complexes, movie theatres during the weekends. This results in splurging a few thousand rupees but who cares. The oft-heard refrain is "What are we earning for?" Such behaviours end up sending the wrong signals to the children who in turn use such experiences as an opportunity to exert peer pressure on others. Remember an ad that had a young girl boasting about her dad because he had the latest car model? After many rationalists opposed it, the ad was withdrawn from the public gaze. It is a fact that fathers who drink and smoke cannot expect their sons to be teetotallers. Similarly, mothers who wear skimpiest outfits, zoom in and out of cars, visiting their homes only to bark instructions at the maid-servants cannot expect their daughters to behave any different when they grow up. By the time, such parents realise their folly, it is too late! One classic Bollywood movie where this was portrayed very adroitly was the Dev Anand starrer "Hare ram Hare Krishna". Let me a share a few real-life examples that can send a shiver down your spine... A seventh-standard female child was heard boasting to her classmates about a lesbian act that she saw on "You tube". She went to the extent of mentioning that her ambition was to become a lesbian when she grew up. Or take the case of another girl, who boasted about her father's liberal gesture in allowing her to watch the adult movie "Qurban" along with her cousins. It is a matter of consternation for other parents to hear such atrocious things from their children. Another boy in the fifth standard was heard priding about his girl-friend with whom he chats every day without fail. Then there is the boy in the sixth grade who spends most of his after-school hours watching porno movies on "You tube" or else gets thoroughly absorbed in "Face book" shenanigans. With such kids in the classroom, it is easy for the others to fall prey to peer pressure and get tempted to try out things hitherto considered taboo. Children using profane language in the classroom is not uncommon - only this time around, the use of such languages starts at a much early age. Friends,believe me, the instances that I have mentioned above have occurred in reputed schools in Bangalore. These are the schools which create a song and dance while giving admissions and beat their chest about the discipline in their classrooms. After hearing of what happens in these so called elitist schools, one has to be thankful to the Almighty for sparing us the association with such schools having a dubious reputation. However what is worrying is that this malaise is spreading to other schools as well. This writer himself suffered a lot when he joined a college in South Mumbai after spending his schooling in a suburban middle class school in the North West suburbs of Mumbai. This was twenty five years ago. The suffering was mainly in terms of not coming to reality with the fact the students from posh South Mumbai suburbs were far ahead of their times - dress sense, bunking lectures, girlfriends as arm candies and of course, booze and drugs. My steadfastly refusing to succumb to the lure of these vices was mocked at and it did impact my future career in a big way. I firmly believe that parents should admit their children to a school where the value systems of other children studying there are similar to theirs. Believe me; this will save a lot of heartburn at a later date. Many people feel that a good child will always be a good child no matter what the circumstances are. Yes, it is true, but in today's gizmo-crazy world, where everything is available at the tip of a finger, it is easy for children and teens to fall prey to peer pressure. Many working women do not realize this but too much focus on a career does prove to be costly in the long run. At some stage, it is worthwhile to stop and think where their life is headed towards. Is money everything in the world? Take the case of one of our relatives. The couple had a daughter and a son. The husband had a transferable job and the wife was a music teacher. The children did well, or so they thought. The daughter completed her engineering degree and even as the couple were mooting the idea of releasing her horoscope, the girl in, Mani Rathnam's "Alai Payuthe" style, went ahead, got secretly married to her classmate and continued with her exams as if nothing happened. Once the results were declared, she landed herself a job and non-chalantly flashed her marriage certificate in the face of her parents. Devastated is a very mild word if one were to describe the feelings of the couple. However, the matter does not end here. Today, four years after the marriage, the girl, with a baby in tow, is living in a hostel, separated from her husband and tormented by the fact that she has no face to show her parents. A real tragedy! Yes, the couple (the parents) still continue to work and live in different cities. One wonders what kind of a life this is! So much for the negative aspects of peer pressure. There can be positive outcomes as well where students are inspired by a classmate of theirs who excels in studies and this results in a healthy outcome. Training is another area that can be used to build a positive pressure. But such cases are few and far between. Take the case of  Ashish Dalvi who was a University topper in his college and joined an engineering college in Mumbai. A teetotaller, it was not long before Ashish fell prey to the vices of his group who lured him to booze and drugs. When Ashish failed in his second year exams, it came as a bolt from the blue. What was shocking was that others in his group had managed to scrape through. Help came to him in the form of his professor who worked with his parents to bring him back on the right track. (Much like Aaamir Khan in Tare Zameen Par). Today, Ashish is a successful professional working in the US and yes, he does not smoke or drink even now. Sometimes, life teaches us lessons which no textbook in the world or no University in the world can ever teach us. Frankly, there is no one-stop solution to all the problems in life. Peer pressure is going to be a reality and we have to face it - be it parents or teachers. At some stage, parents have to become their children's friends by being empathetic towards them. Some people crib that they do not want to pressurize their kids by indulging them in too many extracurricular activities. What is required here is moderation. Some amount of extracurricular activities like music, drawing, chess classes, and karate classes for children is a must. This will wean them away from monsters like television and internet. Care must be taken to ensure that there is an adequate balance between school activities and nonschool activities. At the end of the day, children should enjoy what they are doing. Parents are to be blamed for the current situation and they have to work with the teachers to bring about the change that they wish to see in their children. What about reading stories to children on Saturdays instead of zooming off to the nearest multiplex? Why not spend some time jogging in the park with the children? What about indoor games like chess, carom board? Why cannot parents share with their children, interesting anecdotes about their own childhood? In short, we as parents need to act as role models for our children. Spending quality time with them is vital, however busy one's schedule might be. Keeping the communication channels open with them will forewarn us about what is happening in school/college and this in turn will enable us to strategise a way to communicate the correct message to the children. One of the ways that was suggested by one of my colleagues was - use the names of successful people in films/sports/politics and highlight to children the value system adopted by these celebrities. Example - talk about Sachin Tendulkar's dedication to the game of cricket and how this has been shaped by the excellent values that he has followed in life. This can definitely bring about a positive influence in the minds of the children. The last word - if anybody were to question - "Where is the time for all this in our busy schedule?" my answer would be to ask them the one question that my colleague in Mumbai asked me, years ago."How much of television do you watch every day?"