5 Tips to Help Tweens and Teens Resist Peer Pressure

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Are you navigating the intricate journey of parenting or grandparenting a tween or teen? Tune in to today's episode with the insightful Barbara Mojica, an acclaimed author and educator, as she shares her five tips to help tweens and teens resist peer pressure. Discover practical strategies and eye opening advice that empower young minds to make independent, cultural confident choices amid the challenges of peer influence. Don't miss this opportunity to gain invaluable tools to foster resilience and integrity in your loved ones. Press play to transform your approach and inspire the next generation to embrace their most authentic selves.

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Welcome to Grandparents Raising Grandchildren Nurturing Through Adversity. In this podcast, we will delve deep into the challenges and triumphs of grandparents raising grandchildren as we navigate the complexities of legal, financial and emotional support. I invite you to join us on a journey of exploring thoughts, feelings and beliefs surrounding this growing segment of our society. Drawing from real stories and expert advice, we will explore the nuances of childrearing for children who have experienced trauma and offer valuable resources to guide you through the intricate journey of kinship care.

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As a parent who's raised three biological children and is now raising two of my grandchildren, I I've seen firsthand how quickly they grow and how the challenges of one stage become the challenges of the next. My granddaughter is only nine, but I can already sense the subtle hints of peer pressure creeping into her life. We all know the teen years are just around the corner, and in today's complex world, I want to be as prepared as possible to guide her safely through it. That's why I'm especially excited about today's episode with the ever inspiring Barbara Mojica.

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She's not only an author and educator, but also a sage voice who has spent years understanding the subtle dynamics of peer pressure among tweens and teens.

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Her five tips to Help Tweens and Teens Resist Peer Pressure is a treasure trove of practical advice, and as parents and grandparents, we're always learning and adapting.

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Personally, I seize every opportunity to learn from experienced professionals like Barbara, knowing her insights will make a profound difference. Hit play and let's dive into a conversation that's sure to leave us all a little wiser and a lot more prepared. So many times Our tweens and teens are struggling with self esteem issues and decision making.

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I want to welcome back Barbara Mojica, who's an historian, an author, and a retired educator with over 40 years of combined experience working with youth.

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She's designed an online course called Parenting Power that's designed for parents who want to talk with their kids about resisting peer pressure. Crucial, she says, for helping them develop strong self esteem and decision making skills. And she has five tips that can guide parents in these important conversations. And Barbara, we were talking about why this is so essential today, to have mentors and, and for us to be mentors and our friends to be mentors to kids and for other peers to be mentors for their own friends and stand up for them when they're being bullied or they're facing all different kinds of peer pressure these days. Which is why you developed this course, because as an educator and with years and years of experience in working in the schools and in education, you're still, you're hearing this come up all the time in conversations, right? I certainly am. I've worked with literally thousands of kids throughout my educational career. And while peer pressure always to some extent was a problem, it's nowhere near as prevalent as it is today. Amplifying by social media and so many of the technological pressures that our kids are subject to today. To some extent, children who spend a lot of time on social media are, on the one hand, isolating themselves and not allowing themselves to have the opportunities to be in social situations and to get the experience of handling how to use their own values and their, their own strong self, of being a person who respects himself or herself as well as other people.

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So I think talking to children about resisting peer pressure is crucial for helping the kids themselves develop a sense of strong self esteem and then using that to make decisions based on their own values and to be strong and steadfast in standing up for what they believe in and not being easily influenced.

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If parents try to be prepared for the different kinds of situations, the different types of peer pressure, the different ways their kids may or may not be influenced.

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And some parents will say, well, I think my kid has good values. We have always instilled a sense of strong individuality. We've allowed our child to pursue his passions, his dreams, and he has a very good circle of friends. And we don't think that this is going to be a problem. But all of a sudden, the problem appears in the most unexpected ways because peer pressure can be very direct, it can be very indirect and subtle. So, you know, direct case of peer pressure is somebody says, if you don't hang out with this crowd, we're going to beat you up. That that's direct peer pressure. It can be very subtle. It could be, I'm going to post something on social media if you don't go along with allowing me to cheat on the test. It can be what we might consider the traditional kinds of peer pressure, like being offered a cigarette, being offered a drug at a party. But then today we have fentanyl and we have all of these forms of drugs that are hidden, disguise as candy and other such things. And the child may not even know he's being exposed to it. So based, of course, using these five steps or tips as kind of a core way to kind of be prepared in advance long before we get to those preteen and teenage, is when the children are more apt to be exposed to it because they're out on their own and they're in social situations without parent. So let's talk about those five tips.

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What's the first one? The first one, and this can be done from toddlerhood, is fostering an open sense of communication, making sure that the child feels comfortable sharing their feelings and their experiences with you. And there again, there are lots of parents who really don't know their children because they haven't taken the time to ask those important questions and to lay the foundation, like, do you know who your children best friends are? And do you know why they choose those particular children as their best friends? Some of the things that our kids are interested in these days are things that aren't interesting to us naturally. Like, I'm really not interested in video games, but I've had to force myself to ask questions about the video games and listen to the things that they want to share with me just because it gives me an insight into what they're listening to every day. Well, that's one of the good ways to start this process again.

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When the kids are little, you answer their questions, who is that? What are they doing? Why are they doing? How? How are they doing it? Is it the way you would do it? Is it the same? Is it different? Can you compare it from before, different. Times now, to be inquisitive. Right, right. You just, you know, give them imaginative scenarios like if you're the child has a favorite toy.

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Well, if your toy could talk, what would your toy say to you? What would you say to that toy? Even things that negatives you could turn into positives, like what's your favorite chore and why do you like to do that or what, what chore do you hate doing and why do you hate doing it? Giving them, like, examples of leadership and how would they act if, if you were the teacher, what subject would you like to teach? And how would you teach your kids? You can learn about what the kid, you know, their learning style, what they like, you know, would you show the movies? Would you talk to them? Would you have them do things with their hands about things that scare them? What, what scares you?

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What makes you feel happy? There are millions of possibilities, but just, if you just use a few of these types of conversation starters every week, you'll learn an awful lot and the kids will become more open to communicating because you're asking them things that they want to open up about, you know, not, how was school today? You know, we don't want to be judgmental about the things they're sharing. Right. We just want to listen. Right, Exactly. Don't say, oh, that's interesting. Yeah, yeah. Even if you hate it. No, like, oh, I hate that. Oh, oh, okay. Why do you think that? Or, or how did you come to that conclusion? Or, you know, again, making it easy for them to talk to you will make it easier for them to talk to you when there's something really important that they're concerned about. Make them a lot more likely to open up to you. So that's the first thing. And that kind of leads you to the second thing, which makes some parents uncomfortable. Again, they are more likely to be uncomfortable if they don't have that open communication to be able to role play with kids about these kinds of things that might come up. Kids love to do that. They don't always love to do it with uncomfortable situations where they're really going to have to open up. You can do. So how do you get them beyond that? Well, by practicing and switching the roles. You know, again, try to get them to open up about a situation that they've seen or maybe heard one of their friends experienced. What's going on in school? School is usually a good place to start with this because that most often it will be a school or sports team or, you know, some kind of activity that they're.

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They're really involved with a lot. And then set up a situation. Like if they say bullying is a problem at school, then set up a bullying situation and say, if someone told you that you have to bully someone to be in the, in the crowd or in that friend group, what would you say?

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So let them practice and teach them to Respond assertively. Not. Well, maybe I would practice an assertive response like I like so and so. And I wouldn't feel comfortable putting her in that situation. Or I respect people and I don't think I'm comfortable in doing that.

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Or no, thanks, I'd rather not do that. But always I always putting the I showing that I am asserting the authority over it. Not you. You don't. You're not asserting the authority over me responding to you. And I'm saying that I don't want that situation.

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But more importantly, I think it's important to reverse the roles sometimes. Have the parent play the part of the one being pressured and have your child practice bullying.

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Bullying or whatever the situation is. Being off the grass. Have your child do it both ways.

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Smoking cigarettes. Have your child do it both ways.

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A situation with the teacher. Have your child play the student and have your child play the teacher. I love that idea. So they can see the perspective of the person being pressured and what that person who. Doing the bullying or whatever the social pressure is, is how they're approaching it. So they get a sense of the conversation and give them sense of, well, yeah, I know how to control this.

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Yeah, I can think. And eventually they become more confident and. I can see that. I think, again, it leads to better communication overall between parent and child and a better understanding of what each is going through. And they can experience the empowerment. The idea of standing up and saying, I. Looking that person in the eye too, that's very important too. Not shying away or putting your head down or walking a little bit away.

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Body language. Looking them right in the eye and saying, no, I do not.

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Yeah. Which takes them off guard because they're expecting to be in control of the situation. Great point. Most bullies are actually very in. They're very weak and they're very uncomfortable themselves. They're. They're. You know, I think that's important to. Share with them because we talk about that. About how when kids are teasing you or something, that there's usually an more of an underlying insecurity going on and think about what's really being said, what's really underlying. What's the. What are the emotions underlying, lying under that. And it's. It's kind of like feeling like you have a superpower. Yeah. And that. That's another scenario that you can use to get kids to open up to. What kind of superpowers would they like? And if they had that superpower, how would they use it? And you can use that kind of in the role Playing scenario to pretend you are in control, and you have the superpower of being able to express yourself better than anyone else, and you are able to stand up for what you believe in. Most superheroes do that. Right. So you can equate that as well. And then I guess that kind of goes into. The third thing that you have to really stress is individuality, and that we are all individuals, very important. And peer pressure really encourages us to lose some of that individuality. And while we want to interact with groups, whether they be friends at school or clubs, sports teams or music or art, or, you know, whatever group that we belong to, we have to have strong personal values as well, and we have to stick to them. And even though we are part of different groups, we still are not one and the same. We all have our unique talents, abilities, attributes, values. And where do our values come from? Well, they should come initially from our family. There are a lot of great books out there now, too, that authors design around characters that are celebrated for their unique differences. Yeah. And it could be something physical, or it could be something that's not tangible.

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Like, you know, kindness is my superpower. Brave braveness is my superpower. Or empathy, you know, I. I feel for others. Or the other side of that too, of course, is gratitude. Being grateful for what we do have. We may not all have everything that we would ultimately desire, but we should be grateful for of those things that we do have and the talents that we do. Kids do that a lot. They talk about, oh, my friend has this, and I don't have that, and do you think I could get one of those? And well, you know what we can do too. We can also tell stories.

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I think sometimes it helps a great deal if a parent can tell a story of an experience that was somewhat similar to what the child is going through, or a member of their family that went through a serious experience and how they stood up to it, or to a character from history who was sorely tested and how they faced the situation and how they showed strength. Even though the situation had the odds stacked against them, they were still able to overcome that. So just the value of being true to oneself and using these kinds of stories as a basis for developing that sense of self, what worth and dignity. Very important that we need to have. The fourth thing is, I'm always talking about this because as a historian and a teacher, all critical thinking, because our schools have really fallen down on the job with that. Yeah, talk about critical thinking. And what's really involved in that critical. Thinking really is trying to find the truth, to look at a situation or an event, doing research to find out what's true and what isn't true. How is that connected to peer pressure?

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Well, in social media today, we are often not given the truth.

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We are given someone's opinion, and that opinion is repeated over and over again in the algorithm. And when we are on social media, we are given the opinions that we appear to agree with. So we develop this group of friends who has similar opinions because we've all been fed the same message over. It's important to talk to that, about kids, about algorithms and social media, because. Critical thinking means finding the truth, no matter what it appears to be. Because sometimes the truth is exactly the opposite of what we're getting on social media. We may be getting one person's opinion. We may also be getting only part of the information.

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So when we do critical thinking, we keep delving into the research. We look at who's doing it, we look at what all the. What's. What's happening. We look at all the possible reasons as to why it's happening. We look at when it's happening. How is it connected to the time before and after? We look at how different people are reacting to it. How can we relate that issue to children or to kids or teens? Those questions and, and you can. Once they understand that critical thinking is, is finding the truth and they understand the difference between facts and opinions, which is what somebody thinks may be true, but is not necessarily true. Once they understand that, we can use it to examine the motives behind peer pressure.

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Why would they be doing this?

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What are the motives behind it?

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What could happen if you follow along, what could happen to you today and what could happen to you down the road? One good example, there would be drugs or cigarettes.

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That would be probably the most concrete example.

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Okay. What would happen if you took this drug?

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Well, maybe nothing would happen to you immediately, but ultimately it could lead you into a myriad of health problems. It could lead you into dangerous situations like driving in a car and getting into an accident. So if we start doing that with kids when they're young, and we continue doing that when they're. By the time they're teens, then we've already gotten them into the mode of thinking more critically and letting them come up with the answers. Right? Letting them come up to the questions, coming up with the questions. You know, basically the who, what, when, where, why, how is this connected to me? How is this connected to the person who is putting forth the pressure? And again, once they have practiced this in role playing scenarios and they have a good sense of self esteem and individuality. They're going to be a lot more likely to make decisions that are in their best interest than not in the best interest of other people. And that gets us to your fifth point, which is all of these things are building their self esteem because you're actually asking them to come up with the answers, right? They, they come up with the answers and they have learned to be strong in valuing their own opinions and their own self worth and self respect. So they're going to respect themselves and they're going to be confident in their own decisions and not place their trust in people that are trying to get them to conform to somebody else's values and somebody else's interest. So what we can do is as parents, as teachers, as counselors, as coaches, celebrate their achievements, every achievement that they, that they make as part of developing a strong sense of self esteem, encourage them to find, follow their interests and even if they fail in some of those interests, it's still a good learning experience for them because they learn that we're not going to be successful at everything in life and that sometimes by failing, we learn a lot more about ourselves than we did before.

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So we can do that. And we can also support them when they have challenges so we can help them through the challenges and show through our love and support that we're always there for them and that it's okay to be challenged, but we usually will come out of it stronger at the other end. As long as they know that they're loved and they're valued for who they are, they will be a lot less likely to say, okay, I'm going to give in because, well, maybe this person has a better idea. No, they're going to say, no, this is who I am, this is what I believe in and I'm not going to do to it that and I'm going to be able to stand up to that person and say, no, I don't believe that. I don't want to do that. Well, I think these are all really great tips. Why don't you tell the listeners how they can access the online course and what does the course consist of? How do you run the course?

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Well, the way I run the course, I run it one time it was a pilot course. So I do it online because parents of course are very busy and they have all kinds of different time schedules. So what I do is there are the five modules to the course, so I send them in an email. Each module is a Series of very short videos where I just kind of outline the steps. Most of them are three to five or six minutes and each one has about five videos. So it takes about 25 to 30 minutes each week to go through the modules. I send them through an email and I send checklists for each module for the parents to check their progress throughout the module.

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And some supplementary materials too, like some suggestions for role playing scenarios and activities and so on. So each one is like that. So week one would be how to foster open communication. Week two is practicing the role playing and giving them some ideas to do that. Week three would be talking about individuality and how to be true to oneself, how to, how to talk about values, how to stick with them, how to use these stories of people and you can even connect it with things that the child is learning at home, in home school or at school and use that information to integrate as well. And then of course talking about critical thinking again and the basics of critical thinking, how you can develop these kinds of questions and scenarios and use it according to your child's best interests and passions and achievements and then tying that all together, building their self esteem and hopefully with all the practice, with all of the communication, with all of the things that you've worked on each week, be much better prepared. And then at the end, if parents feel that they need additional help, then I'd be open to doing more coaching, providing more. I also give them lists of other resources to look at, but I can work with them one on one if they really.

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And we can find all those that link on your website.

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I have on my blog, basically a very short summary of my website has links to my blog, my YouTube videos and I, I have videos on my YouTube channel about a lot of these things too, like fact and opinion, critical thinking. And I highly recommend listeners to take out take a look at your website because there's a lot of good information on there.

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Yeah, I try to provide all kinds of resources. I have a zillion things on my Pinterest board like yeah, reading suggestions and social emotional tips and you know, lessons. I do a short 2 minute teacher video every week and I do many teaching lessons that can be just used to supplement learning whether you homeschool or the kids are in public school. Have all kinds of videos of history told by kids. You know, just like a zillion different kinds of things. There's a lot there. Your little miss History books.

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Yes, my, my book series which of course embody the critical thinking skills. You're a wealth of information Barbara, thank you for this interview today. I appreciated it and I think that's very timely for parents that are raising teens and tweens, and I hope it. Will benefit some of them. I really do. Thank you. Barbara, thank you. Thanks for joining us today for another episode of Grandparents Raising Grandchildren.

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Nurturing Through Adversity. I encourage you to share both your challenges and your successes with us. Your story is undoubtedly one someone else needs to hear.

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Submit your stories to the links provided in the podcast information. Your contributions will enrich upcoming conversations, creating a more supportive community in which we can learn and grow together. Together.

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Are you striving to leave a legacy for your grandchildren?

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Do you dream of shifting the paradigms that they were born into?

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In today's ever evolving world, many of us are raising neurodivergent children, a concept that was often unfamiliar when we raised our own kids. While the core principles of mentorship have endured, our next episode promises something similar special. Join us as we welcome Dr.

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Debra Heiser, an applied developmental psychologist specializing in midlife and aging. As the founder and CEO of the Mentor Project and the author of the mentorship edge, Dr. Heiser brings a wealth of knowledge and expertise to the table. In this episode, we're going to explore her insights and uncover practical strategies specifically tailored to mentoring neurodivergent children. Equip yourself with the tools you need to guide the next generation with confidence and compassion.

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Don't miss out on this enlightening conversation. It's an opportunity to reframe your mentorship approach and ensure you leave a lasting, positive impact. Tune in and prepare to be inspired. Thank you for tuning in to Grandparents Raising Grand Grandchildren Nurturing Through Adversity Remember, you are not alone. Together we can find strength and hope in the face of adversity. Peace be with you, and I pray that you find some time this week to listen to your inner wisdom. Amongst the noise and the pandemonium of this world.