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Hell's Peers
By Dr.
Marvin Berkowitz
Most parents have the same
nightmare. They’re afraid that all those years of building their
child’s character will be wasted once adolescent peers get their
evil hands on the kid. The nightmare goes something like this:
Parents pour love, dedication
and wisdom into raising a kid with empathy, honesty,
responsibility and all those good character traits (the same
ones Santa considers “nice” and not “naughty”). For about a
dozen years their work pays off as others remark on their “good
kid.” Then on the kid’s thirteenth birthday, he or she looks
lovingly at those same parents and announces, “Mom, Dad, thank
you so very much. For the past thirteen years you have cared for
me, sacrificed for me, taught me right from wrong. You have been
my anchor in the storm of childhood. And I want you to know how
appreciative I am. But now you are excess baggage. You see, now
I have PEERS!!!”
And, as if on cue, up rides a
wild gang of teen Hell’s An-gels, with Steppenwolf’s “Born to Be
Wild” blaring in the back-ground. Your darling child puts on a
leather jacket with Satanic emblems, hops on the back of one of
the bikes, spits into the dust, and, cackling and cursing at
your neighbors, rides off into the sunset never to be seen
again, to live a life of evil and per-version. Chalk up another
victory for those nasty adolescent peers.
Fortunately, this is not even
close to what really happens. First of all, the biggest
influence on a kid’s character is early parenting. A kid who is
nurtured and loved in infancy, as a toddler, and during the
preschool years is not likely to form poor character. Certainly,
there are no guarantees (your child didn’t come with a warranty,
did she?), but research tells us that positive emotional bonding
in infancy and supportive guidance in preschool, for example,
lead to many positive character traits in childhood and beyond.
Also, earlier experiences are
more powerful than later ones, in general. So, what happens in
adolescence will have less impact than what happens earlier. But
be careful; this is not 100% guaranteed. All times in the life
span make a difference; it is just a matter of how much of a
difference they make. And traumatic events can be very
influential at any time.
Furthermore, parents have the
greatest influence on important deep values even in adolescence.
Adolescents’ moral, religious, and political values have much
more to do with their parents’ values than with their peers’
values. Peers usually affect less important values; those that
have to do with modern peer culture (what brand of clothing to
wear, or what musical group to like) or peer spheres of life
(how to ask someone out on a date, which teacher to ask for a
postponement of an assignment, or how to impress the varsity
football coach).
Life is not a winner-take-all
game. Kids with more attachment to peers don’t have less
attachment to parents. The healthiest adolescents have positive
relationships with both parents and peers. And with school as
well. Teens without friends are a worry. In fact, peer relations
can even be therapeutic, and can help kids to solve many of
their problems. Clearly, parents don’t need to keep a friendship
ledger worrying that “one more friend means we’re history!”
So parents don’t need to fear their adolescent’s peers or worry
that their fourth grader will be snatched from their tender care
by evil teens. Certainly there are dangers out there and many of
them come from troubled adolescents. But such adolescents are in
the minority despite what the media might lead you to believe.
The good work that you do as a parent will help in-sure your
kid’s goodness. It will also protect him from those who would
lead him astray, and lead him toward healthy peer relationships.
