Peer Pressure Is More Beneficial Than Harmful Essay

Good morning teachers and my fellow students, today my topic of this debate is â€Å"Peer pressure is more beneficial than harmful† and I am in favor of it. Peer pressure refers to the influence exerted by a peer group in encouraging a person to change his or her attitudes, values, or behavior in order to conform to group norms. Social groups affected include membership groups, when the individual is â€Å"formally† a member (for example, political party, trade union),or a social clique. A person affected by peer pressure may or may not want to belong to these groups. They may also recognize dissociative groups with which they would not wish to associate, and thus they behave adversely concerning that group’s behaviors. Peer pressure is when â€Å"friends† persuade you to doing something that you do not want to do. But maybe you want to do it, and you just don’t have the courage to do it and your friends talk you into it. Positives Peer pressure is not always bad. It can help you analyze yourself and contemplate on your ways of life. If you are fortunate to get a good peer group, your peers can play a vital role in the shaping of your personality. Their way of looking at life may influence you to change for betterment. Some of your peers are your close friends, who do not pressurize you to do things but rather inspire you to change yourself. Your peer group may actually persuade you to bring about a constructive change in your personality. Peer pressure can lead you to make the right choices in life. If you are fortunate to get a good peer group, your peers can play a vital role in the shaping of your personality. Their way of looking at life may influence you to change for betterment. It helps define who we are and how we feel about subjects in our lives. It is how we chose to react to peer pressure that defines who we are as an individual. Are we a leader or a follower? Both types of people are needed to make the world go around. Responsible behavior. Not all middle schoolers spend weekends getting into trouble. Many spend time doing things with their families, playing sports, babysitting, engaging in hobbies or reading. A typical weekend for your child’s friends will probably become a typical weekend for your child, too. Self-esteem. Many of the things children do because of peer pressure are not harmful. They may all like a certain hairdo or the latest pop band. Being like other kids makes them feel they belong ²and that is a very important feeling to a middle school child. Connection to school. Children don’t always fall in with the  ³wrong crowd. ´ Very often they fall in with the right crowd ‘one that cares about schoolwork, participates in activities, and tries to succeed. Such friends can motivate your child. Good peer pressure is being pushed into something that you didn’t have the courage to do or just didn’t cross your mind to do. However, as you think about it, it seems like a good thing to do. Good peer pressure can also be a situation when your friends convince you not to do something you were going to do because it wasn’t in your best interest. Some people say that good peer pressure is when you get pushed into something that you didn’t want to do and it turned out well. Well, this may be nice, but ask yourself this question: how do you know â€Å"ahead of time† whether what you are doing will turn out good or bad? Can you? Most people can’t, but if you can, your problems may be solved! When the time comes for you to make these big decisions, it is important to think before deciding. Take as long as you need just to think about whether you want to do it, think about whether you should, and finally think about the consequences. These are the important things that must be done before any big decision is made. Also, knowing who is asking you to do something helps you make the decision. If the person is not your friend, you should really consider what they want you to do, but if you know, trust and respect this person then you might seriously consider what they ask. But how do you know? For each person, deciding who is your friend or not, is a difficult decision. It might be of benefit for you to develop some sort of personal grouping system of your friends and depending on what group they fall into will determine how strong an influence you allow them to have in your life.