Learning how to deal with and avoid peer pressure is very important. From keeping yourself safe from bad situations to compromising who you are, you need to know how to say no to and handle peer pressure from your friends – or people you thought were your friends. Here are some helpful tips and ways for you to find out how to deal with and even avoid peer pressure in school by building a good sense of self confidence in yourself and staying true to who you are.
Build a Strong Sense of Self Confidence and Self Esteem
The first step to learning how to deal with peer pressure is to build a strong sense of self esteem. When you act confident and believe in yourself, you don’t need to impress other people or do what others say to feel good or accepted. Accepting yourself and having good self confidence will always help you to say no to peer pressure. According to Kidshealth.org, peer pressure is “something that all people have to deal with – even adults.” Building confidence at a young age will help you be a self confident person later on in your future and help you stay out of bad situations in the long run.
Know Your Limits and Have Respect for Yourself
It’s important to always have respect for yourself and know your own limits when dealing with peer pressure. In order to know when to say no, you have to realize that your decisions, both good and bad, can cause benefit or harm to yourself and to others. When you have respect for yourself, you don’t feel guilty or pressured into following what other people tell you to do because you know what your own morals, limits, and sense of right and wrong are.
Remember the Consequences of Your Actions
Before you give in to peer pressure, realize that when trying to handle pressure from friends at school, that your choices have consequences. Each action you take or do not take will have important consequences – your bad or negative decisions may hurt yourself or those you love around you. Getting yourself into bad situations to fit in, feel accepted, or impress others may have very negative consequences, such as bad relationships with parents at home, teachers at school, or even trouble with the law.
Stay Around and Socialize with a Good Group of Friends
One of the best ways to deal with, handle, and just avoid peer pressure is to stay away from it. You can do this by choosing who you decide to hang out with – know who your true friends are. Don’t hang out with the “cool” group if they do drugs or pressure you to make bad decisions – your true friends are a good group who will help you make the right choices. Just like the old sayings, “Birds of a feather fly together” and “Tell me who you walk with and I’ll tell you who you are” give advice to surround yourself with positive groups of people who make you better, so too will being with good friends help you avoid peer pressure.
If you follow these helpful tips on how to handle and even avoid peer pressure in both grade school and high school, you will find yourself staying out of bad socially bad situations and trouble. Sometimes the most important part of saying no to peer pressure is simply standing up for who you are and what you believe – finding the confidence to say “no” and mean it. Though dealing with and avoiding peer pressure, especially in school, is not easy, you will thank yourself in the future when you look back and know that you made the right decision.
Sources
Kidshealth.org