Autism Soccer: Peer Pressure: How to Teach your Children to be Themselves

Children often feel pressured by classmates or peers in general to do things they don't want to do.

Teaching children how to face the challenges in their lives is not an easy feat. In fact, one of the concerns for parents, when their kids are in school-age, is how to teach their small children to deal with the pressure that other’s can put on them to do certain things. Although it’s less than obvious, kids mostly look for ways to contact and feel a sense of belonging in their classrooms. Doing the same thing as the others can lead to friendship, but in some cases, the complying nature of children can make them prone to be victims of peer pressure.

This can happen for a variety of reasons when it comes to what we know as bad behavior: it can go from simply skipping a classroom activity, to bullying other children as a result of being pressured by others kids with the promise to be accepted in a group. As you can see, there is a wide range of situations in which a child might feel compelled to bend to the will of a group, whether by fear or simply to feel like he belongs to something. What can you do to help him avoid these situations? The reality is that you are not with your child 24/7, and there’s no realistic way of pulling him out of these situations if it's not by dropping the child out from the normal school system and homeschooling him. For some parents, this might sound like a viable, however radical way of helping your child cope with peer pressure, but there are some other ways in which you can help him stand out by himself and avoid being pressured into doing things he doesn’t want to do.

For example, the group of children that play with your child wants to do something bad, like bullying another child. What will your kid do in this situation? This is when the education you give him will kicks in. Some will jump right into the action without thinking twice about it, guided by the mentality of bending to peer pressure. However, an assertive child will recognize the mistake in the behavior, and will more likely react against it, whether by looking for ways to deter the others from doing harm, or getting an adult involved in the situation to prevent it from escalating from that.

Here are a few simple ways to avoid peer pressure that you can teach your child:

Let him be assertive.
Show him the importance of saying “NO”.
Make him walk away from situations they don’t feel comfortable.
Instill the feeling of responsibility and liability in their actions.
Ask him to contact other adults if he sees something strange.
Let him know that it’s ok to be selective with friendships.

Teach your child to stand out and defend himself, as this is going to help him understand the situation in other people’s shoes and he’ll be more than willing to defend and stand up against peer pressure. One way to make him connect with other children in different environments is Autism Soccer. The fact that this organization reunites children with different special needs, makes it the perfect place to share and relate with others outside of school, helping your child form a strong and assertive personality with the help of sports.