Positive Peer Pressure
A Transition Perspective

Rey A. Carr

By the time I made it to the last year of my elementary school, I had collected whatever badges, brownie points, and extracurricular awards that were available. I had become one of the mighty, one of the elite, and one of the kids who controlled the school. As far as I was concerned, I and my other 11 year-old peers were pretty much the rulers of our domain.

However, each day as I walked to my kingdom, I had to pass the cavernous junior high school into which most of history's previous grade sixers had disappeared. My movement past this monolithic building with its massive chain-link fences, and playground filled with big kids wearing strange clothes was often interrupted by monstrous-size kids lunging towards me, yelling at me, and threatening to tear something off me that I didn't even know I had yet. I learned to navigate this terror zone pretty quickly.

Just a few days following the awards, recognition, and graduation ceremony at my elementary school where I spent most of the time giving out or receiving some accolade, I started at ground zero. On my first day at junior high I had nothing, I was nothing, and I was scared. Instead of self-esteem, I brought the echoes of dozens of stories I had been told about kids being crushed in lockers, books being burned on the playground, and seventh grade students being "punched out" by powerful grade nine sluggers.

Although this experience of being full of esteem one day and being reduced to unworthiness on another day happened to me many years ago, the vivid recollection of this period of time has led me, in part, to focus on the role of "transition" in the life-span. There are many kinds of transitions in our lives: leaving home and entering school for the first time; changing schools; going through puberty; getting a job; losing a job; losing a parent by death or divorce; getting married; playing on a team; becoming a parent; parenting a teenager; overcoming an addiction; and so on.

While transitions may be similar for most adolescents and transitions may be unique to particular adolescents, all adolescents share one common occurrence - the experience of transition. These experiences may be successful and lead to happiness or they may be troublesome and lead to failure. Parents and peers play a crucial role in assisting adolescents with the outcomes of transitions, and this article will focus on how peers can assist each other with transitions and the role parents can play in helping their children make successful transitions.

Although there is a common perception that "peer pressure" is the reason for many negative behaviours of adolescents, in reality, peers are necessary and crucial in helping adolescents make successful transitions. Peers can and do act as positive role models. Peers can and do demonstrate appropriate social behaviours. Peers often listen to, accept, and understand the frustrations, challenges, and concerns associated with being a teenager.

Peers provide an opportunity for teens to meet their needs, to feel capable, to belong, to be respected, and to have fun. While young people often experience these needs being met within the family, the peer group provides unique and different opportunities to meet these needs. The peer group encourages autonomy, mutuality, and experimentation with self guided roles. While many families assist teens to find out who they really are and to help teens feel proud and confident of their unique traits, backgrounds, and abilities, the peer group may often be more accepting of the feelings, thoughts, and actions associated with this search for self- identity.

Transition Anchors for Parents Instead of issuing a command such as : "I don't want you hanging out with that person. He is a bad influence." Try opening a door by saying, "I want to learn about your friendships. Tell me how being with (person's name) is valuable to you." Then trying to gain a description by asking: "What is it like to hang out with (person's name)?" Then gain a deeeper perspective by asking: "What do you get out of being with (person's name)?" If you gain information that indicates dangers are present, then help with action planning by asking: "What risks might there be in hanging out with (person's name)?" The create some concrete plans by asking: "What are your plans to deal with the risks?" Finally, to provide support and alliance: "What role do you want me to play in helping you with your plan?"

In families where children do not have these needs met, young people will likely turn to the peer group for attention, affection, and support as a replacement for family. This transition often occurs too early in a child's development and consequently the peer group can only partially fulfil these needs. Young people in this circumstance often spend much time with peers, but they rarely have someone within the group that they experience as a close or intimate friend. The ability to make and keep friends is one of the most powerful indications of successful, positive peer group interactions.

Parents may be particularly concerned about the kinds of "friends" their teenagers are "hanging" with. We all want our children to be with persons who will have a positive influence, and stay away from persons who will encourage our children to engage in harmful, destructive, immoral, or illegal activities. However, being a teenager means finding out how to manage these influences, and as parents, we cannot protect or shield our teens from the existence of these influences. We can, however, help teens develop an ability to resist or reduce the impact of these negative influences. One way to accomplish harm-reduction goal is to provide your teen with the opportunity to discuss and describe their transition experiences. When adolescents have an opportunity to 1) consider and describe their experience, 2) discuss their feeling and reactions, 3) determine the meaning(s) the experience has for them, and 4) decide on actions to build on such meaning(s), then it is more likely that adolescents will be able to recover and benefit from troubling or adverse transitions between life events as well as learn from successful life event transitions.

... full of esteem one day and being reduced to unworthiness on another day

This focus on discussing experiences is the basis for peer helper training as designed by Carr and Saunders (1979), and deRosenroll, Saunders, and Carr (1993). The deRosenroll, Saunders, and Carr model concentrates on helping adolescents learn from their experiences, and does not impose any particular value or lesson, but instead follows the lead of the adolescent in examining any particular experience. By providing certain types of prompts or questions called "anchors" at various points in the processing of the experience, the learning model both supports adolescent learning and challenges adolescents to deeper reflection, understanding, search for personal and communal meaning, and action planning.

Helping other adolescents talk about their experience in a way that preserves self-esteem, contributes to interpersonal relations, builds on cognitive abilities to abstract and reflect, and places concerns in manageable portions through a sense of control and goal setting, allows adolescents to take a more active role in their ability to benefit from the myriad of transitions they experience within their lives.

Schools throughout British Columbia have recognized the valuable roles peers play in helping each other and have established a variety of peer programs across the province. Peer programs exist in elementary schools, junior highs, secondary schools and even in colleges and universities. Peer programs are even available for senior citizens! If you would like more information about peer programs in your community, contact your local school counsellor or contact us in Victoria (see information at the end of this article).

This article first appeared in Family Connections, published by The B.C. Council for the Family.

Posted by Family Service Canada, August 1997.

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