Teen Peer Pressure: Raising a Peer Pressure-Proof Child

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?

So, just what high-risk behaviors might your adolescent feel pressured to engage in? Plenty, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which periodically conducts surveys on health-risk behaviors among youth. The latest survey results indicate that teen peer pressure is real. Many adolescents are engaging in behaviors that place their health at risk -- including cigarette smoking, alcohol consumption, illegal drug use and sexual activity. And in all likelihood, their peers are pushing them to try these behaviors.

Here are some of the survey's findings.

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.

Well-documented risky behaviors aren't the only ones teens may feel pressure to try. Health professionals who work with adolescents report other equally troubling behaviors that may not be as common, but are, nonetheless, on the rise. And they point to teen peer pressure as a culprit.

Consider teens' ardent attempts to emulate unrealistic body ideals. "There's a lot of peer pressure to have your body look a very specific way," says Lauren Solotar, PhD, chief psychologist at May Institute in Massachusetts. While the desire to look "fit and thin" is more pronounced among girls, she notes that many boys as young as middle-school age are on the quest for "six-pack" abs. "It's scary, all the push and the pressure," Solotar says.

Intentional self-injury, in some instances provoked by teen peer pressure, is also on the rise. "It's a method of coping with difficult emotions," says Alec L. Miller, PsyD, chief of Child and Adolescent Psychology at Montefiore Medical Center/Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York. "There seem to be some peers who are engaging in this behavior [slashing their arms], and persuading others to try it." For example, a survey conducted at Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School in Massachusetts during the 2004-05 school year, based on the CDC's Youth Risk Behavior Survey, revealed that 20% of high school students had intentionally hurt themselves within the past year.