{"id":92761,"date":"2019-12-09T10:33:19","date_gmt":"2019-12-09T17:33:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/?p=92761"},"modified":"2019-12-09T10:33:19","modified_gmt":"2019-12-09T17:33:19","slug":"when-peer-pressure-starts-too-soon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/articles\/topics\/parenting\/ages-and-stages\/tweens\/when-peer-pressure-starts-too-soon\/","title":{"rendered":"When Peer Pressure Starts Too Soon"},"content":{"rendered":"
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My daughter and I sat beneath a pavilion in the park, bottles of acrylic paint spaced across the table to weigh down our paper. We\u2019d been talking about painting in the park for a couple of months, so I had that good-mom feeling.<\/p>\n

Twenty feet from us, some high-school guys were throwing a football. Toddlers were playing a few yards up the creek from us; grade-school girls shouted out dares.<\/p>\n

But before things looked too idyllic, the high schoolers began punctuating nearly every other sentence (I kid you not) with the F-bomb.<\/p>\n

I looked at my 12-year-old.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s real life, Mom,\u201d she shrugged.<\/p>\n

My kids are quick to inform me, amidst my media censorship at home, that anything they watch won\u2019t be close to the words popping out in their public-school hallways like toast. After homeschooling for years, these are hallways we chose strategically as Christians.<\/p>\n

But crass is the new cool. And the F-bomb is the new H-E-double-hockey-sticks.<\/p>\n

What can we do when peer pressure comes too soon?<\/h2>\n

Sometimes the peer pressure is more subtle, like a pink, harmless-looking haze falling around our children. One friend told me about a first grader in her daughter\u2019s class sporting a Michael Kors bag and certainly higher-end clothes than my friend herself wears.<\/p>\n

First grade feels young for \u201cNo Prada this year, sweetheart.\u201d<\/p>\n

How can we deal?<\/p>\n

1. Make conversation more important than censorship.<\/p>\n

Like shielding our kids from disease, hiding our kids from any exposure can be misleading. We can think they\u2019re robustly healthy\u2014until the weakness of their immune systems reveals itself from the very lack of exposure.<\/p>\n

Obviously scripture still rings true: “Bad company corrupts good character” (1 Corinthians 15:33 NIV). But what if our children don\u2019t learn how to love people different from them, or only through distant labels? If our kids don\u2019t learn to \u201cresist the devil\u201d and watch him flee? If their list of \u201cwhat not to do\u201d grows, but without compassionate dialogue about the \u201cother side\u201d?<\/p>\n

Then we\u2019re not helping them gain the muscle needed from lifting the weight of these issues.Not alone, but together.<\/p>\n

As their experiences expand, our conversation and supporting moral trellis build alongside\u2014and maybe a few steps ahead.<\/p>\n

2. Arm your kids for peer pressure by actively developing their moral conscience.<\/p>\n

One of the best ways to protect our kids from peer pressure is to help them shoulder ownership of their own convictions, rather than piggy-backing on ours.<\/p>\n

If our kids can\u2019t answer the questions their peers ask\u2014\u201dWhy don\u2019t your parents let you date?\u201d \u201cWhy can\u2019t you see that movie?\u201d\u2014it becomes a lot harder to stand against the tide.<\/p>\n

So we can hand kids more than a rule. We can help them nurture their own convictions.<\/p>\n

3. Understand the battle from their vantage point.<\/p>\n

What questions are their hearts asking in the tornado of peer pressure?<\/p>\n

Do they feel:<\/p>\n