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Raising a Peer Pressure-Proof Child

Teen Peer Pressure: Raising a Peer Pressure-Proof Child

Learn what kinds of peer pressure teens face, who’s most vulnerable, and how to help your son or daughter resist.

Remember when your teenager took her first steps as a toddler? You hovered behind her — back bent, arms spread — prepared to catch her should she fall. Much as you might like, you can’t shadow your adolescent as you did back then, being there to break her fall when she missteps.

But, say experts, there are steps you can take to support your adolescent in the face of teen peer pressure. Follow them and you’ll rest easier when your teen heads out of the house on a Friday night.

Teen Peer Pressure: What’s Being Pushed?

Here are some findings from recent surveys.

• Smoking. By the time adolescents are just 13, one in five has tried smoking.
• Alcohol use. Two-thirds of teens between the ages of 14 and 17 have tried alcohol. Of teen boys who have tried alcohol, 20% did so by the time they were 12. Episodic, or binge drinking, is also fairly common. Of the adolescents aged 12 to 17, one in four said they’d had five or more drinks consecutively within the past month. Almost a quarter of drinkers aged 16 to 21 admitted to driving after drinking.
• Drug use. Slightly more than 25% of adolescents aged 14 to 17 have used illegal drugs. One-third of young adult marijuana users aged 18 to 21 started using the drug by the time they turned 14.
• Sex. About one in every three kids aged 14 to 15 has had sexual intercourse. Of sexually active teens, almost 30% used no birth control during their last sexual encounter.

Other subjects in this article include;

• Identifying Vulnerable Teens
• Why Teens Fall Prey to Peer Pressure
• Making Your Child Resilient to Teen Peer Pressure

In spite of adolescents’ vulnerability and the strong influence of peers, parents can exert a positive influence on their adolescents’ decision-making processes, offering them ways to combat the effects of peer pressure. Experts explain how. Strategies include;

• Keep communication lines open
• Practice peer pressure scenarios
• Listen to your teen’s perspective
• Keep inviting your kids into your life
• Think beyond punitive responses

This article has some excellent proven strategies and can be found at; Raising Peer Pressure Proof Teens.

The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Surviving Peer Pressure for Teens by Sara Jane Sluke, Hilary Cherniss, Sara Jane Sluke Hilary Cherniss

Friends, Cliques, and Peer Pressure: Be True to Yourself (Teen Issues) by Christine Wickert Koubek

See also;

• A Problem Shared is a Problem Halved
• Adolescent Children of Alcoholics
• Adults give booze to kids
• Alcoholic Family Roles
• Is Your Teen Using Drugs or Drinking?

Helping Teens Cope with Stress

Stress is a common problem among teens, and as a parent, you have a role in helping the teen in your life cope with it. So what exactly is stress? According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), stress is the body’s physical and psychological response to anything perceived as overwhelming. This may be viewed as a result of life’s demands—pleasant or unpleasant—and the body’s lack of resources to meet them.

While stress is a natural part of life, it often creates imbalance in the body, especially a teen’s body, which is already experiencing so many changes. Girls also report feeling "frequently stressed" more than boys. Visit Teens Today: An Inside Look to learn more about how teen girls and boys change from early to middle to late adolescence.

A certain amount of stress can be helpful as a way of keeping your teen motivated. But too much or too little may render them ineffective and interfere with their relationships at home and socially, as well as their physical well-being. According to a recent survey, 43 percent of 13- to 14-year-olds say they feel stressed every single day; by ages 15 to 17, the number rises to 59 percent. The day-to-day pressures teens experience, such as the pressure to fit in and to be successful, can lead to stress. Jobs and family economics can also prove stressful for teens, as nearly two-thirds of them say they are "somewhat" or "very concerned" about their personal finances.³

If stress becomes unmanageable and teens are left to their own devices without guidance from a parent or caregiver, they may find their own ways of coping. Sometimes these coping mechanisms involve unhealthy behaviors such as drinking, smoking marijuana, and engaging in other risky behaviors.⁴ Here’s how you can help the teen in your life with healthy, productive coping strategies.

1. Recognize when your teen is stressed-out. Is your teen getting adequate rest? Are they eating well-balanced meals? Do they ever get to take breaks to restore their energy? If these needs are unmet, your teen will show it through chronic moodiness, irritability, anxiety and/or long bouts of sadness. If you have a teen daughter, be particularly aware if she is obsessing about looks or weight.
2. Introduce positive coping strategies to your teen. Let’s face it, stress will be a part of your teen’s life. Help them identify ways in which they can relieve their stress in a healthy way. It can be as simple as having your teen talk to you about their problems or pressures. Other ideas include: exercising, getting enough sleep, listening to music, writing in a journal, keeping a healthy diet, seeing a counselor and reminding them of their accomplishments.
3. Be a good example. Young people often pick up their coping strategies by watching their parents. If a child sees a parent drink an alcoholic beverage or smoke a cigarette every time they are overwhelmed, they are more likely to imitate the same behavior. So, be mindful of your own reactions to stress and set a good example for your children.

If signs of stress persist, ask for help. Some sources you can consult include: a health care provider, mental health center, social worker, counselor, nurse, therapist or clergy.

Full story at Managing Teen Stress

See also;

• A Problem Shared is a Problem Halved
• Adult Children of Alcoholics
• Alcoholic Family Roles
• Seek help for yourself

Dealing with the Stuff That Makes Life Tough : The 10 Things That Stress Teen Girls Out and How to Cope with Them

10 Steps to Happiness

Ten Keys to Happiness By Deepak Chopra

Physical well being is inseparable from emotional well being. Happy people are healthy people. The wisdom traditions of the world tell us that happiness does not depend on what you have, but on who you are. Let’s take a moment to reflect on what really creates happiness in us.

The following ten keys, gleaned from the wisdom traditions, may give us some insight.

1. Listen to your body’s wisdom, which expresses itself through signals of comfort and discomfort. When choosing a certain behavior, ask your body, ‘How do you feel about this?’ If your body sends a signal of physical or emotional distress, watch out. If your body sends a signal of comfort and eagerness, proceed.
2. Live in the present, for it is the only moment you have. Keep your attention on what is here and now; look for the fullness in every moment. Accept what comes to you totally and completely so that you can appreciate it, learn from it, and then let it go. The present is as it should be. It reflects infinite laws of Nature that have brought you this exact thought, this exact physical response. This moment is as it is because the universe is as it is. Don’t struggle against the infinite scheme of things; instead, be at one with it.
3. Take time to be silent, to meditate, to quiet the internal dialogue. In moments of silence, realize that you are recontacting your source of pure awareness. Pay attention to your inner life so that you can be guided by intuition rather than externally imposed interpretations of what is or isn’t good for you.
4. Relinquish your need for external approval. You alone are the judge of your worth, and your goal is to discover infinite worth in yourself, no matter what anyone else thinks. There is great freedom in this realization.
5. When you find yourself reacting with anger or opposition to any person or circumstance, realize that you are only struggling with yourself. Putting up resistance is the response of defenses created by old hurts. When you relinquish this anger, you will be healing yourself and cooperating with the flow of the universe.
6. Know that the world ‘out there’ reflects your reality ‘in here.’ The people you react to most strongly, whether with love or hate, are projections of your inner world. What you most hate is what you most deny in yourself. What you most love is what you most wish for in yourself. Use the mirror of relationships to guide your evolution. The goal is total self-knowledge. When you achieve that, what you most want will automatically be there, and what you most dislike will disappear.
7. Shed the burden of judgment you will feel much lighter. Judgment imposes right and wrong on situations that just are. Everything can be understood and forgiven, but when you judge, you cut off understanding and shut down the process of learning to love. In judging others, you reflect your lack of self-acceptance. Remember that every person you forgive adds to your self love.
8. Don’t contaminate your body with toxins, either through food, drink, or toxic emotions. Your body is more than a life-support system. It is the vehicle that will carry you on the journey of your evolution. The health of every cell directly contributes to your state of well being, because every cell is a point of awareness within the field of awareness that is you.
9. Replace fear-motivated behavior with love-motivated behavior. Fear is the product of memory, which dwells in the past. Remembering what hurt us before, we direct our energies toward making certain that an old hurt will not repeat itself. But trying to impose the past on the present will never wipe out the threat of being hurt. That happens only when you find the security of your own being, which is love. Motivated by the truth inside you, you can face any threat because your inner strength is invulnerable to fear.
10. Understand that the physical world is just a mirror of a deeper intelligence. Intelligence is the invisible organizer of all matter and energy, and since a portion of this intelligence resides in you, you share in the organizing power of the cosmos. Because you are inseparably linked to everything, you cannot afford to foul the planet’s air and water. But at a deeper level, you cannot afford to live with a toxic mind, because every thought makes an impression on the whole field of intelligence. Living in balance and purity is the highest good for you and the Earth.

Deepak Chopra

See also;

• 10 Secrets of Happy Relationships
• 24 Ways to get the Rest You Need
• Cooking up Recovery
• Subscribe by e-Mail to Alcohol Self-help News

Chocolate Lowers Blood Pressure -Yahoo!

Cocoa, but Not Tea, Lowers Blood Pressure

More happy justification for chocolate lovers: blood pressure responds favorably to cocoa, but not tea, a new analysis suggests.

Authors of the study say that while both products are rich in polyphenols, the study findings suggest that phenols in cocoa may be more active than those in tea. The study appears in the April 9 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine.

“Products rich in cocoa may be considered part of a blood pressure lowering diet, provided that the total energy intake does not increase,” lead investigator for the study, Dirk Taubert, MD, PhD, from the University Hospital of Cologne in Cologne, Germany, told heartwire. “I believe that cocoa is healthier than other sugar confectionary or high-fat dairy products.”

Cocoa Beats Tea for blood pressure

In the cocoa studies, cocoa consumption was typically flavonol-rich chocolate in the range of 100 g per day; in the tea studies, consumption was in the range of 4 to 6 cups daily.

In the cocoa studies, blood pressure dropped; however, in the tea studies, no differences were seen in blood pressure. The authors point out that while the 2 substances contain similar amounts of polyphenols, the components of these polyphenols differ between cocoa and tea: cocoa is particularly rich in procyanidins, whereas black and green tea are rich in flavan-3-ols and gallic acid. It may be that the polyphenol components in cocoa are more bioavailable, Taubert and colleagues propose.

According to Taubert and colleagues, the effects of cocoa on blood pressure were comparable to those achieved with antihypertensive drugs. “The magnitude of the hypotensive effects of cocoa is clinically noteworthy; it is in the range that is usually achieved with single doses of medication,” they write.

“At the population level, this level of reduction of blood pressure would be expected to substantially reduce the risk of;

• stroke (by about 20%),
• coronary heart disease (by 10%), and
• all-cause mortality (by 8%).”

Research article published in the Arch Intern Med. 2007;167:626-634.

See also;

• Health Benefits of Chocolate
• Dark Chocolate OK
• Subscribe by e-Mail to Alcohol Self-help News