Unlocking the Power of Positive Peer Relationships

In this Still Waters Podcast episode, Teri urges parents in the back-to-school season—whether public, private, or homeschool—to focus on who their child is “doing life” with, since peer networks strongly shape what teens see as normal and influence risk behavior. The episode explains that peer influence can pull teens toward risky choices or serve as a protective factor, and that even one close friend making healthy choices can shift a teen’s trajectory. 

00:00 Back to School Social Circle
02:25 Peer Influence Science
04:44 Why One Friend Matters
06:25 Biblical Wisdom on Friends
08:51 Homeschool Peer Pressure Reality
11:48 Practical Steps for Parents
15:04 Talk and Practice Refusal Skills
16:28 Check Ins That Build Trust
18:37 Closing Challenge and Wrap Up 

This episode was inspired by the Ascend Universal Standards for Optimal Sexual Development, a K-12 educational framework available at weascend.org.

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www.stillwaterslife.com

Email us at:

• Julie@stillwaterslife.com
• Rufus@stillwaterslife.com
• Teri@stillwaterslife.com
• Abrielle@stillwaterslife.com
• Melissa@stillwaterslife.com
• Chris@stillwaterslife.com

Let us help you find healing and wellness at The Still Waters.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:23

Hello and welcome back to the newest episode of the Stillwaters Podcast. So if you're anything like most of the parents that I've been talking with recently, you are in full back to school mode. It's that time of year. And when I say back to school, I'm including every parent out there with school-aged children. Whether your child's heading into a traditional public school classroom, a private school classroom, or whether school takes place around your kitchen table in a homeschool setting, I want you to listen carefully because what I'm talking about today in this episode, it doesn't matter how your child goes to school. It really doesn't. Every young person, no matter where they learn, how they learn, has a social side of who they are. A social side to their personhood. So here's the question that I want you to think about for a moment. Who is your child going to be spending time with this year? Not just at school, not just at the homeschool co-op or the church youth group or the sports team or the neighborhood or their phone. In other words, who are the people your child is doing life with? The ones whose opinions they care about the most? Whose text messages do they respond to first? Whose presence makes them feel like they are seen and heard and belong, that they matter, that they have value. The social network your child is part of right now is one of the most powerful influences in their life. More powerful in many cases than anything that we can teach in a traditional or homeschool classroom. The people your child walks with are shaping their sense of what's considered normal, what's acceptable, what's expected, and whether they have the confidence and self-efficacy to make good decisions, whether they are challenged. So today, let's look at what the research says, what scripture has taught for thousands of years, and what you can do now as this new year begins. So let's start with the science because I always like to look at the science behind things, because it shows just how significant this is and how much it applies to every child, no matter how they're educated. There's research from the Journal of Youth and Adolescence that reported that peer influence has a strong effect across nearly every type of adolescent risk behavior. So, put simply, that means that friends can pull a teenager toward risky choices, but they can also become one of the strongest protective factors in a young person's life. So, in other words, it's going to work both ways. The same force that makes a harmful peer group risky also makes a healthy peer group protective. Peer influence cuts both ways, and as parents, our role is to help our children end up on that the wise life-giving side of it. So here's an interesting perspective coming from a sexual risk avoidance standpoint. And research consistently shows that a teenager's perception of what their peers are doing, in other words, what they think is normal in their social circle, is a strong predictor of their own behavior. Not just what their friends are actually doing, but what your child believes their friends are doing. Think about what that means. If your child's social network is full of kids making healthy choices, your child's sense of what's normal shifts towards those healthy choices. However, if their social group normalizes risky behavior, things like substance abuse, violating boundaries, violation of sexual integrity, right? Then your child's sense of what's normal shifts in that direction. And once again, this is true regardless of how your families choose to school. The peer influence dynamic, it doesn't care about your educational model and it and goals. It cares about who your child is spending time with and looking up to. So walk with wise people, you become wiser. Walk with foolish people, and you suffer for it. The company we keep shapes who we become. And your teenager is not exempt from it, no matter how well you've raised them or how carefully you've structured their education. First Corinthians 15, 33, Paul tells us, do not be misled. Bad company corrupts good morals. Good character. Paul doesn't say bad company might affect good character. He says it corrupts it. That's pretty strong language. And it's because that reality is strong. The values and habits and decision-making patterns that you may have spent as a parent, may have spent years building into your child through your home, your faith community, your teaching are not invincible to peer influence. No childs are. Once again, let's get practical about what parents can actually do. What can a parent do? What kind of steps can they take to be intentional, regardless of how their child goes to school? Well, know the names of your child's friends. Know who they are, know where they come from, what their family situation is, what they're into. Now, I'm not suggesting that you do this in a controlling way, but in a genuinely interested way. Because it needs to be a I care about my kids' world type of thing. This applies just as much to homeschooling families as well as public school families. Know the kids in your co-op, know who your child's texting, know whose online communities they're a part of. This is nothing more than responsible parental awareness. And it's considered, once again, as a strong protective factor in adolescent decision making. Number two, make your home a place where their friends want to be. When your home is the gathering place, you have visibility into your child's friendships without having to work harder at it. You get to observe the dynamics, you get to see the kids are real people, and your values are present in the environment without anyone being lectured. So this applies to homeschool families too, actually, especially to homeschool families, because your home is already the center of your child's daily life. I know when our kids were growing up, that was something that we made known to our kids is that they were always welcome to have friends from different backgrounds. Um, and our home, we always made it a place that was open to their friendships. Because our thinking was we'd rather have our children feel safe in our home and their friends, their children and their friends feel safe in our home and be welcome in our home. And that hopefully that would make it to where they didn't want to be away all the time and getting into things that they shouldn't be. All right, the next thing put your child in environments where their kind of people tend to gather. Okay, so when I'm talking about things like our faith communities, our churches, our service organizations that we participate in, academic competitions, fine arts programs, athletics where strong character-based coaching is taking place, homeschool co-ops built around shared values. These environments don't guarantee a perfect peer group. I mean, every community of people is going to have its challenges because we are human, right? And we are going to make mistakes. We are flawed. But they dramatically increase the odds that your child ends up walking with people who reinforce rather than undermine what you're trying to create in your home. Number four, talk about peer pressure before it happens. Don't wait for a situation to arise before you have a conversation. Have it now, and at the start of the school year is a perfect time to get these types of conversations going. Because honestly, the stakes are lower right now, and there's no crisis in the room, so to speak. Talk about what peer pressure feels like, what it sounds like, what your child can actually say in the moment when someone is putting pressure on them to do something that they're not comfortable with, and then practice it together. This is nothing more than teaching refusal skills to your child. I know that role-playing this kind of thing feels a little awkward sometimes, but it is worth every second of awkwardness because teenagers who have literally rehearsed say no are significantly more likely to actually say it when they're in a situation where it's necessary for them to say no. And finally, check in with them, not just at the start of the year, but all year. Stay engaged. The back to school time is a great window of opportunity for these conversations to begin, to get started, but that window also needs to stay open. You need to create regular low pressure check-ins throughout the year with your child. You can do this in car rides, you can do this around the dinner table, or you can do it when you're sitting side by side with them and nobody's having to look at each other. That's why the car is great. You can have difficult conversations, but you don't have to make eye contact with one another. But ask real questions to your child. How's your friend group feeling this year? Is there anyone in your co-op or your youth group who's hard to be around? What friend do you feel most like yourself when you're with them? The research on the parent-child connection shows that teenagers who feel genuinely heard, not just monitored and overseen, but genuinely heard, are significantly more likely to come to a parent when something goes wrong. And that is a really great goal for a parent to have with their children. So here's one thing that for this back to school season that's that is starting up is sit down with your child somewhere. It could be, as I said earlier, it could be in the car, it could be at the dinner table, on the sofa, wherever. Okay, and ask them a question. Ask them this question specifically. Who are you excited to spend time with this year? Who makes you feel like the best version of yourself? And then you know what? It's real easy how you need to respond. Just listen. Just listen and express genuine interest in what your child has to say. That is a small action that can open a door that needs to stay open all year long. So as we close, let me reiterate that in my work with young people, I have seen the power of a strong peer network change a teenager's entire life. I've watched kids who were heading in a dangerous direction get pulled back toward a healthy spot because one good friend showed up at the right time. But I've also watched kids with strong values and loving involved parents make choices that simply broke everyone's hearts. And largely because of the social environment around them, slowly normalized those choices one small step at a time. The peer network is not a side issue, it is one of the most powerful forces operating in your teens' life right now, and it operates just as powerfully in a homeschool co-op group or a youth ministry as it does in a high school cafeteria. The writer of Proverbs was right all those years ago. The research is confirming it every single day. Walk with the wise and become wise. Your child needs wise companions for this life journey. And you, the parent, right now at the start of this year, have a real opportunity to help them find those people. Don't let this get lost in the sometimes chaotic shuffle of navigating the teenures because it simply matters too much. If this episode was helpful to you, please consider sharing it with another parent in your circle of influence. Whoever you know that's navigating this back to school season alongside you. If you have a question or a comment about this episode, feel free to send us some fan mail. You'll find the link to our fan mail below in our show notes. Thanks for being here. I hope you have a wonderful back to school season. And until next time, may you find healing and wellness at the still waters.