--Original published at Loretta Gabrielle
College students
The article gave different ways to combat peer pressure in college and the inevitably of facing it. A way to fight peer pressure is staying busy and avoiding parties. The point this tip is trying to discuss is to avoid situations pressures due to the environment. To do so, leaving and eliminating the party and potential negative environment will avoid these pressures. I find this tip useless and will just have college students get into more trouble than they are. If you say the way to not feel peer pressured is to avoid college parties where inevitability there is alcohol, it is like using absence as the only way of safe sex. The point is, neither method works. The next tip they discussed was the difference between college and home and having more freedom. It later discussed if you are feeling pressure to just politely decline, leave a situation, anonymously call the police, and talk to adults you trust. I find this tip helpful. The idea of this tip can come from obedience pressures. If someone is stressed out because they are in a fraternity and are told to do a task given by their older fraternity brothers, they may feel pressured to go against their beliefs and take on the other person’s norm. The article later listed different way and resources on what peer pressure a student may be facing with different article attached to it. The solution from this is to avoid conformity from the pressures you face in school social settings. Instead of doing the steps which have worked for other people doesn’t always help you. If a student feels the need to take on the beliefs and ideas of another person, they are conforming. The only addition I would add to the article is using the college help centers and therapists the school provides as well. The article trustworthy and mildly resourceful.
Athletes
Athletes deal with pressure in every aspect of their career. When dealing with sports a stressor can deal with an upcoming competition. The expectation can cause a lot of pressure to do well in the sport. The article described different ways in which to deal with pressure. First, reframing the situation and deciding whether or not it is positive or negative pressure. Negative pressure relates to negative thoughts and doubts surrounding the performance while positive pressure are nerves and excitement before a competition. The tactic the article gave is to reframe the pressure which is negative and make it positive. To do this it requires using key words and reinstating the positive pressures you feel. An example of this is connecting being nervous with preforming well so when you feel nervous it is a positive pressure. The next tip is reducing external source of pressure which can come from parents, coaches, friends, and other outside people who add to any uneasy feelings. This idea of pressure coming from your friends and family can correlate with situational pressure. The environment you surround yourself can change your belief or in this case, confidence, and negatively impact one’s performance. The purpose of this tip is to get rid of any external distractions and possible negative pressures. The next tip is reducing internal sources of pressure which come from self-set expectations. This differs from the athlete as some people perform well with internal pressure and some do not, so finding the balance and level of difficulty for the athlete is able to balance the internal pressure. Since some high preforming athletes work well under self-set expectations and internal pressure, as an athlete you may conform to their strategies. Although this may work for one athlete, it doesn’t ensure internal pressure will work for you and conformity will not benefit your preformace. Recognizing the symptoms of being under pressure can be butterflies or heart and breathing pick up. This tip suggested creating high pressure situation in a controlled setting and I understand the purpose and overall benefit of this step but I disagree with it. As an athlete, I do not find stimulating high pressure situations beneficial. I recognize the larger risk but this technique does not help manage peer pressure it just creates ways to detect them. The next tip regards training pressure which can come from other people and trying to match how much and how far they have gone in practice or in their athletic career. This is training with and against different athletes which can have different levels of peer pressure. I disagree with this point as no matter what sport you play you should be working as a team rather feeling peer pressured to keep up with a teammate. The purpose of a team is to support each other not drag each other down which this article alluded to. On the other end, following the training of your mentors and peers can be seen as obedience pressure. Freshman or younger players in sports may look up towards the older players on the team and feel the need to follow their behaviors and beliefs because of an authority figure. The article suggest having a checklist to ensure the athlete has everything they need in place. I didn’t find this article helpful at all. It gave some helpful tips but it lost track of the main question regarding peer pressure which it originally was discussing. I don’t find these tips helpful for athletes at all.
Parents
The parental peer pressure discussed in this article regarded the leniency of what rules to enforce and what responsibilities to allow your child and when. This stems from what other parents allow or don’t allow their kids to do. Other issues regarded social and cultural traditions one family has over the other and the children or other parents doing a certain thing different than how they do it. Parent’s struggle with feeling the need to conform and take on the beliefs and behaviors done by other parents. An example of this can be raising your voice at children. The social group norm in America is to try and not raise your voice at a child while in a Hispanic home it shows you care. If the parent with a cultural background see’s the way other parents raise their children without raising their voice, they may feel pressured to conform and take on the beliefs and lifestyles of other parents. Situational pressures differ and if as a parent you believe that your child shouldn’t have ice cream every day but the other parents let their kids get ice cream, you may feed into the environment. The environment you are surround yourself can impact your judgement based off of the situation.
The article listed several different ways a parent can deal with these peer pressures which were finding your inner strengths, strengthening your support system, go with your gut, be assertive, don’t debate, practice self-care, gain respect, and increase family time. So what does this mean? Finding your inner strength allows the parent to reflect back on how they were raised and the beliefs and lessons they want to teach their children. Strengthening your support system is finding other parents and children’s who have similar parenting techniques. Going with your gun is allowing the advice of other parents but doing what is right for your child and not what was right for some else’s. To be assertive you need to have confidence in what you are instructing or teaching as a parent rather than fall into peer pressure. Don’t debate with other parents as to what is right or wrong, do what works for you. For being assertive and debating, the topic of obedience comes into play. If one parent who seemingly has more experience with children and comes from authority, the parents may feel pressured to adopt their behaviors in parenting. Practicing self-care is important no matter what stage of life you are in, especially parenthood. Self-care helps take on challenges and focus on bettering the parent which betters the children. Gaining respect from children is important throughout development. During a child’s development, the parent isn’t supposed to try and be a friend to their child and please them but to protect them, instill culture, lessons, teach behaviors, and education. Lastly, spending family time for one parent might be a movie night when for another parent it is puzzles, either way it is quality time spent together as a whole. These are all methods on how to resist parental peer pressure and I believe the article did an excellent job in addressing helpful tools and strategies. I find all eight methods in the article to be useful tools parents who feel parental peer pressure should use.
https://www.bestcollegereviews.org/dealing-peer-pressure-college/
https://www.freelapusa.com/6-tips-on-dealing-with-pressure-in-sports/
https://www.courierpostonline.com/story/life/2017/01/20/8-ways-cope-parental-peer-pressure/96835714/