It’s critically important for parents to provide emotional support and guidance to enable children to ride through the stormy adolescence period and blossom into confident young adults

Adolescence is a time of intense physical, psychological and emotional changes. During the teen years, children experience emotional highs and lows and are particularly vulnerable to peer pressure as they struggle to establish their independence. Therefore, it’s critically important for parents to provide emotional support and guidance to enable children to ride through this stormy period and blossom into confident young adults. Here are three common challenges that confront parents of adolescents and my advice to manage them:

1. Challenge of ‘fitting in’ and meeting parental/peer expectations
Teenagers experience great difficulty trying to ‘fit in’ with a peer/social group and meeting expectations of society and now ubiquitous social media. Parents, teachers and friends have different expectations of them and they get stressed trying to accommodate them.
Parents should encourage positive peer pressure to study well, dress neatly, and behave courteously, and discourage negative peer influence such as pressure to behave aggressively and experiment with alcohol/drugs.
Parents can empower children to cope with peer pressure and build positive self-image. Some suggestions:
• Share stories of yourself or others who resisted peer pressure and as a result succeeded in their vocations and life.
• Highlight dangers of alcohol consumption and drugs abuse. Emphasise that the courage to say ‘no’ to peers is laudable.
• Encourage teens to develop positive self-image and confidence by praising their unique talents and skills.
• When you observe your teen doing the right thing, voice your appreciation. Emphasise that people who stand their ground are admired for their resolve and determination.
• Reflect whether as a parent you are also trying to ‘fit in’ with your peer group. If children observe that parents are going out of their way to keep up with the Joneses and meet society’s expectations, they will follow suit. Role model self-confidence and the resolve to make independent decisions.
2. Group facilitation effect
Adolescents are susceptible to the group facilitation effect wherein everyone in the peer group is focused on common/shared tasks and goals, such as scoring good marks, impressing the opposite sex, owning the same things such as cycle, bike, play station, etc, playing in a sports team, hanging out in one club and/or restaurant.
Some suggestions for parents to help teens to resist group facilitation peer pressure:
• Set mutually agreed rules pertaining to socialisation with friends, eating out and parties, and spending money. Once the rules are finalised, enforce them firmly.
• Keep yourself informed about your child’s social life and her friends. This will enable you to prohibit social gatherings where substance abuse is likely.
• Constantly reassure your teen of her physical attributes, skills and talents. Self-confidence is critical for teens to obviate social anxiety.
• Explain that not agreeing to engage in some activities with friends doesn’t mean they are inferior. It’s just that their interests differ.

3. Group inhibition effect
Teenage children are also vulnerable to group inhibition effect, i.e, negative peer pressure that restrains them from pursuing personal interests and passions. It’s quite common for teens to opt out of activities because their peers don’t like them.
For instance she may hesitate to help a friend in need because he is not popular in the peer group, refuse to join a drama club because friends look down on it, choose a study programme or career pathway under the influence of peers.

Here’s how parents can help teens cope with negative peer pressure:
• Constantly reassure her that you will always support her choices and interests.
• Encourage them to be strong-minded and decisive in making choices.
• Make time for family activities in which you can have freewheeling discussions and share life lessons.
• Encourage her to develop her own sartorial style.

(Dr. Ravi Prakash is a psychologist, neurophysiologist and director, Vedita Mind Care Clinic, Bengaluru)