Have a New Kid by Friday - Dr Kevin Leman [77]
Those 9 children were actually in cahoots with the experimenter. They had been told to vote for the second longest line. The subject being tested was actually the remaining child. Would the child cave in to peer pressure when his peers were undoubtedly wrong?
Well, you can guess what happened. An expression of disbelief would cross the face of the child. Then, in three-fourths of the cases, even though the subject child could plainly see with his own eyes that the 9 other children were absolutely wrong in their vote, he would raise his hand to vote with the peer group. Why? Because he didn’t want to stand out as different from the others in the crowd. Is it any wonder, then, that teens do really stupid things sometimes when they’re together? No one wants to be the naysayer.
There’s nothing you can do about the strength of peer influence. It’s a part of life. But what you can do is to be aware of your child’s activities and who her friends are. That means having the peer group over at your home as much as possible. Make your home the hub of activity—the comfortable hangout place. Rent a movie, buy pizza, invest in a good CD player, whatever it takes. If you do, you’ll have the home court advantage (for more tips, see my book Home Court Advantage). It will give you an up-close and personal chance to see who your children are hanging out with.
You can also get to know the parents of the children your child hangs out with. In today’s world, it takes effort to do that. It’s not like the old days, when children mainly played with other kids on the block, and you just walked over to your neighbor’s for coffee. Why not call the parent of your son’s friend and say, “Hey, I just got a Starbucks gift certificate for a present. My son talks a lot about a Starbucks gift certificate for a present. My your son, and I’ve never had a chance to meet you. Want to meet me for a cup of coffee—my treat?” That’s a simple way to open the door for communication. And it also gives you the heads-up about what kind of person that parent is.
For example, when my friend Mike was 16, he smoked openly in front of his parents. So I knew I could go to his house and smoke cigarettes, and no one would say anything. But at my house? My dad would have had my hide for even trying them. It’s pretty obvious, even in one conversation, which parents would buy beer for the kids and rent hotel rooms for prom. That kind of information is very important for you to know so you can encourage your kids to spend time with those who share similar values.
Sometimes your child will have a friend that you really disapprove of for one reason or another. My advice? Have the friend over to your house. The best time to do that is when your very stiff, blue-blood, conservative aunt Sally is coming from out of state to stay with you. Just say casually to your child, “Aunt Sally is coming into town. I’d love for her to get a chance to meet Philip.” That ought to make your child think.
Although your child’s peer group will have a tremendous pull on her, you want your child to be able to think for herself. Sometimes she’ll make mistakes—big ones. The most important thing for you to do is to stay part of her world. And, at times, you’ll need to enter her world, unbeknownst to her, in tough love. Like the dad who decided to go view the same movie his daughter and her boyfriend were supposedly seeing—he didn’t see them at the movie, put two and two together, and showed up at the town’s local make-out spot. Neither of those teens will forget the flashlight beam he shined into the backseat that illuminated exactly what was going on.
When a university student insisted on dancing topless at a local strip club, her parents were nearly apoplectic.