We are told that peer pressure is responsible for kids drinking, smoking, and being promiscuous. DARE teaches about bullies on the schoolyard trying diligently to convince other kids to use drugs… “Come on, man, you’ll be cool. It’s the best. Everybody does it.” They practice pressure scenarios, learning what to do when these shady characters approach them.
In all my years of elementary school, junior high, and high school, I was approached exactly twice about drugs, never about drinking or smoking. Both times were in my senior year, when I was asked once “Lookin’ to buy a 20?” and later (by someone else) “You got a bag?” Both times, the assumption was that I smoked pot, and there was no pressure to speak of.
I’ve never heard anyone else say they ever experienced any kind of peer pressure either… yet I know plenty who drink, smoke, and use drugs. Why spend time and money fighting something that doesn’t exist? Or was I just sheltered?
I have had the same experiences as you and so has my husband. I went to a high school with a very big drug problem and yet, I never had a problem with peer pressure. I am interested to know what others have to say.
I went to a high school with more than its fair share of drugs and other “socially unacceptable” behavior but I never felt pressured to do anything I didn’t want to (apart form exams, homework etc). And, as far as I know, neither did any of the other students.
There was plenty of opportunity to take drugs, smoke etc but no pressure to do so.
Well, while I’ve never experienced pressure from other people eg. “Do this or I won’t be your friend”. I did sometimes feel internal pressure to “fit in”.
Probably everyone has/does feel this pressure sometimes but when you’re young to are more susceptible to it.
When parents see little Johnny or Janet do things like drinking, smoking etc. it is much easier and comforting to blame other people rather than their precious child. It is also easier for the child to blame external pressure on their mistakes which IMO has led to the impression that “peer pressure” is more rampant than it actually is.
Add to that lazy screenwriters, journalists etc. and you’ve got a myth of something that while it probably exists is nowhere as prominent as we are led to believe.
I don’t know if it would qualify as “pressure”, but I did have a few friends give me the “sales pitch” about how great pot was. But when I wasn’t interested, they eventually gave up. I guess for some kids, the desire to fit in would have made them succumb to such a “sales pitch”.
I think some kids are so afraid of not looking “cool”, so they go along and try the drug. But this fear of not looking cool is mostly in their head. I was treated with respect, even though I didn’t smoke pot at a certain party. I just hung out with all the pot-smokers, but didn’t smoke it. I was complimented for that - for not being “holier than thou” and for hanging out with them even though I wasn’t interested in the pot.
Maybe I’m misunderstanding peer pressure, but I never thought it was supposed to be that direct. Isn’t the idea that if you hang about with friends that smoke/drink/other-fun-stuff when you’re with them you’ll want to try those things out. Not them forcing you to do things you don’t want to.
On a related note, I remember seeing some programme on TV which related some research into children’s upbringing, and found that their peer group had far more influence on the children’s attitudes and behaviour than their parents did. I wish I could remember what it was called though.
OTOH, I agree that some parents are far too quick in blaming Canada rather than themselves.
I’m sure that’s a lot more common… but I’ve never seen it covered in an anti-drug curriculum. Instead of suggesting that kids find a better crowd to hang out with, they offer a list of “100 Ways To Say No”, including “I have to stay healthy for sports” and “it’s against the law”. I also remember being taught–by a uniformed police officer–that when approached by someone urging us to use drugs, we should yell “STOP!”, stick out one hand in a stopping gesture, and run off. We practiced this.
It seems pretty clear that they’re concerned about direct, confrontational pressure.
I agree. The confrontational-type peer pressure that they target in DARE is probably almost nonexistant. The internal want-to-fit-in type personal pressure is surely a far greater problem. We ought to be teaching our kids tools to combat the need-to-be-a-sheep. In fact, this is exactly what I’ve tried to do with mine – teach them to have their own opinions and tastes and defend them if need be. It’s worked pretty well, my 14 year old son is a bit more of a follower than my 13 year old daughter – having CP and walking with crutches makes her stand out anyway, so she seems less prone to want-to-fit-in pressure than Nick. I guess she figures she isn’t going to fit in anyway, so she might as well do as she pleases. She cares so little about public opinion that she is an open and out country music fan in middle school! I worry a bit more about Nick, but not much. We talk about this stuff all the time – he isn’t proud of himself for worrying about being cool, and I believe that as he gets older and moves into high school he’ll become more comfortable with his natural differences – and he has Dori’s example to help him.
Hey, folks, we’re talking D.A.R.E., here. It’s a nice way to pump the Feds for some money for “community service” by the local police, but it has no bearing on reality.
Anyone notice the results of the last dozen or so studies on the effectiveness of D.A.R.E.?
Hell, I had just the opposite experience in high school. Pot was so expensive that people were reluctant to share!
The first time I tried it was with two of the school’s biggest badasses (and future dropouts). They could be total a-holes sometimes, but not when it came to pot. They must have asked me a dozen times if I was really sure I wanted to do this before I took my first toke.
I agree totally. I suspect that by aiming the curriculum at the direct-pressure sort of situations, the kids will automatically be able to handle the less-direct ones.
Maybe I was just sheltered, too. I was a nerd in high school, and I never drank, smoked or tried drugs. College changed all that, but I don’t remembered being explicitly pressured into it. I think folks have made a good point about peer pressure being subtle. Interestingly enough, I found myself tempted to give in recently (several years after college) when a friend was encouraging me to join in a round of shots at a party. So, for me anyway, peer pressure doesn’t go away.
The only problem with this is that at the same time, the government and schools are encouraging kids to “refer for counseling” kids who act or dress differently. Because everybody knows that those kids at columbine dressed funny and listened to metal & industrial music.
it’s interesting how LEADERS want peer preasure to work when it serves their purposes, but don’t want it to work when it serves other purposes. if you want people to be sheep you have to put up with bad sheep. if you want people to be individualists you can’t expect them to be sheep.
Just a thought on a parrallel topic - It seems that the vast majority of commercial advertisments are based on the more subtle forms of peer pressure. Because of our total social immersion in these advertisments, teaching people to resist this could be percieved as socially detrimental (if one supported what I consider excessive social homogenity.)
I am trying to teach my kids to identify and resist these demons, and the follow-up peer pressure from the kids who have submitted, but I think it might just be something that comes with age and experience. Drugs will mess a kid up, but so will the irrational desire to own everything that some bozos say will make you cool, and to believe that you are not cool if you don’t have it.
Same here - my friend said to me, “Jesse, I have to ask you something. My birthday is this weekend and I’m having a party. Do you want to come get stoned?” “Yeah, why not.” “Are you sure?”
Come to think of it, one of the guys at that party did use a few cliched lines to try to get me to have a cigarette.
I still don’t believe in Peer Pressure because I’ve never had any personal experience. Nor have I ever seen anyone else get pressured.
Maybe it was just the friends I hung out with in High School. We were pretty close-knit, small group. but we never really judged each other on silly facetious things.
Our average conversation would go like this:
“I don’t wanna go to my 6th period class. Wanna ditch with me?”
“Naw–I can’t really risk getting a bad grade.”
“Come on–coward!”
“Bitch.”
“Asshole.”
“Scheisskopf.”
“Hey–did you see ‘Married with Children’ last night?”
Rinse. Recycle. Repeat.
I did know some people who were in the drug crowd–one of those close-knit friends included. But he, and all of the other users never really ‘pressured’ anyone. They figured that if anyone were interested–they would ask -them-. Not the other way around.
those ‘peer pressure’ video scenarios they used to show you in health class were funny. Did anyone ever noticed how the ‘drugs’ they used in the video looked absolutley nothing like any kind of common recreational drug? Most of the ones I remembered looked like candy. Either that–or they looked like antibiotic ‘gelcap’ pills with little skulls and crossbones on them.
The sex-ed videos were better. I remember a cartoon I once saw featuring “Captain Condom! Superhero extraordinaire!”
About those “ways to say no” lists–to me they seem tailored to cause the sort of direct peer pressure that the programs talk about. “Just say no” made sense. When instead you say “I can’t smoke pot because it makes you stupid” (and I have seen that in a Partnership for a Drug Free America ad) you are calling the kid offering the pot an idiot. He’s got two choices: he can beat you up (which is a lot of work for a pothead) or he can get you to smoke pot and admit through your actions that you were wrong. He suddenly has an actual motive for caring what you think.
It was also my observation that there was a lot more pressure within an age group than from older kids. Kids who say, just started doing drugs, felt insecure about it, had guilt feelings. A great way to get rid of your guilt feelings is to get your 5 best friends smoking with you so that you can all reassure each other that what you are doing is OK. Older kids with a pot-smoking peer group have no reason to try and “convert” younger kids, unless they are trying to impress them. (I did know one guy in high school, though, who did get a kick out of convincing people to smoke pot. He still gets a kick out of getting people to agree with him on some issue–he likes to argue and likes to win, and he seemed to feel that convincing someone that thier parents and the adults of the world were all wrong was the ultimate achievment).
Finally, I am studying to be a teacher and one of the things I have learned is that peer pressure is ubiquitious. In a classroom, it is always going to be there. Bad teachers work against it, good teachers use it to work for them. For example, if the class attitude rewards misbehavior, you will never have control of the class. If the class attitude disapproves of misbehavoir, your problems are over. We are all governed by peer pressure in every aspect of our lives, and anyone who thinks there is no hint of the “sheep” about them is fooling themselves. We are social animals. The best we can do is choose which herd to pay the most attention to.