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It’s easy for parents to attribute their child’s poor behavior to a friend who they believe is a “bad influence.” Kids often get into trouble in pairs or groups, so there’s generally someone there to take the blame. And criticizing someone else’s child allows parents to hold onto the belief that their own child is fundamentally “good” — that they wouldn’t have engaged in the misbehavior were it not for the influence of their peer.
There are a couple of problems with this line of thinking. By characterizing children as intrinsically good or bad, parents run the risk of leading their children to believe that they are bad people when they do something wrong. Instead, viewing all children as essentially good people who sometimes make poor decisions allows kids room for personal growth.
In addition, parents generally follow up the naming of a friend as a bad influence with a prohibition on spending time with that friend — and new research shows that this approach tends to backfire.
Why banning a friend who is a “bad influence” doesn’t work.
We know that as kids move into middle school, they tend to place increasing value on the opinions of their peers as they try to find their place in the social landscape.
“As children get older, their peers become more and more prominent in their physical lives and their psychological lives,” Cristine Legare, a professor of psychology at the University of Texas at Austin, told HuffPost. The impact of peer influence is very real, and can lead to kids making dangerous choices.
Research has consistently shown, for example, that teen drivers are more likely to get into a car accident when there are other passengers in the car, particularly when those passengers are their peers. In 2022, 56% of teens who died in car crashes were in cars being driven by another teen. This is one of the reasons most states now have graduated license requirements that restrict who else can be in the car when a teen is driving. These changes are credited with a substantial decrease in the number of teen car crashes. Without friends in the car, teen drivers are less likely to speed or take their eyes off the road.
The reasons that teens are more likely to do something “wrong” when they are with their peers, as opposed to alone or with their parents, are both social and biochemical.
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