Peer Influence

[Judy1234]

I as just thinking about this this morning when talking to my daughter about her clever but state educated boyfriend and how lower expectations and then I see the article in today's Times saying children are as much influenced by their peers (and genes) as by what parents do to them. Yet parents are blamed all the time for things their children do.

One thing you gain with good schools is the right peer pressure. In fact if I had to say one thing I paid for in their private schools it was the peer influence as teenagers.

www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/daniel_finkelstein/article4207274.ece

If you are talking about good schools vs bad schools then you may have a point. If by "good" you mean private then you are talking bullshit.

You cannot generalise about the type of people who go to private schhols. At my private school all the girls wanted to be farmers' wives and were dull and had no motivation to get out and earn. At my comprehensive there was a huge mix of people, some ambitious and some less so. Those of us who were high achievers tended to gravitate to each other and cheer each other on.

My SiL went to St Pauls Girls. One of the best schiools in thr country. Her peers may have all been ambitious but most were also anorexic and they certainly egged each other on in the pursuit of physical perfection. It was horrific.

Peer influence has long been regarded as a major influence on older children and teens.

It's amazing how the non-privately educated of us get by in life, with all that negative peer-pressure we were subjected to

Yes it is important - that's partly why I pay too.

Yes it's an interesting argument. If I had a daughter I sure as hell wouldn't want her to go to a single sex school privtae school because several of my friends that did ended up a right bloody mess.

My slightly rubbishy comprehensive wasn't a barrel of laughs but I survived, went to tech college, uni etc.

Personally I think boys need the civilising influence of girls and will consider ds's education accordingly. We think he might have to go to a private primary as the local school isn't that good, but he isn't even 1 yet and we'll prob have moved by then.

Peer pressure is a huge thing. Am so glad I listened to my parents about not getting in with a bad crowd (even though they were lots of fun!). Only now do I understand why they invited the swottiest, most sensible children around and encouraged friendships with them.

Am dreading this aspect of parenting as mine get older. I can't say 'You are not being friends with that person' (though I will do my best to steer them away from naughty rebel types!)

Ahem "clever but state educated boyfriend" why the But?do you mean clever and state educated

private school can and will eject students for failing academically or standards below their requirement

most state schools do not have the oppurtunity to select pupils, and so have a more socio-economically mixed cohort

So all private school kids are well behaved, studious and a good influence. I dont think so. There is probably more exposure to drugs and underage sex, demotivation to get good jobs (as daddy has already sorted it) and terrible snobbery if you are not significantly rich. OK I stereotype.

Just as other do about state school kids being thick, dropouts.

But Xenia didn't spend all that money for her daughter to go out with a state educated boy. Didn't her school matchmake them well enough with the boys public school. Oh dear you must be devasted. Thank goodness he is bright.

Xenia wanted her children to be educated with a certain demographic in order to receive the peer pressure that meets Xenia's ambitions.

Other parents choose other sorts of schools, when they can, for other sorts of peer pressure.

Nothing wrong with that, surely.

This is one of those times when I am very, very glad that I can only afford for my own children to be fully state educated

Nothing wrong with having the means to be a complete snob, I guess.

We all belong to a "tribe" (social segment or "class" in English parlance). Nothing wrong with wanting to see members of your own tribe and evolve with them.

Of course peer pressure is an important factor. Having good friends is incredibly important to children's self esteem and happiness. But its not something you can buy. My sister moved her son from state school to private school because the school he was at didn't have enough kids who were happy to be "nerds" (his term!) so he felt a lot of pressure to dumb down. My ds however was lucky to find a little gang of "doofuses" (also his term) at our state primary around the corner. Being accepted for wh you are is the cornerstone of a happy life I think.

Re the education thing, yes if you are at a school where everyone goes to university you are more likely to expect to study hard for A levels rather than scrape a few GCSEs and leave, but there is so much more to peer pressure than that. Having parents that pay for your schooling is no predictor of whether you are a nice child or whether you do stupid things. The public school which I went to for sixth from had some incredibly badly behaved dysfunctional kids (frequently they were the richest too).

But what about when they go to university, Xenia? Can you pay for them only to be with well-behaved undergraduates? And where do you find those? Not at Oxbridge, surely?

My experience as a university teacher would seem to suggest that being privately educated is no protection against drinking yourself to death during Freshers week.

In my mind, the only reasonably reliable insurance policy is to encourage your children to be strong enough to resist peer pressure. And yes, an awful lot of that is going to have to come from them as individuals, not from either peer or parental influence.

I was educated in a state comprehensive out in the sticks where nobody in my class seemed to have any ambitions beyond getting legless every Saturday night. But they didn't actually invade my home and sit on my head if I decided to study French verbs in the evening instead. Some things you can actually decide for yourself. I did.

It's why most parents try to get children into good state schools where people work hard not the local sink comp where the average is 30% getting A- C at GCSE and hardly anyone getting to good univerisities. I think parents of younger children dont' always realise that as they age their peers (and genes too ) are so important.

Why would it matter if my daughter's boyfriend didn't go to a private school? He speaks quite poshly actually and his sister is at a private school but the family are apparently really really dull. I was trying to encourage her as to what she can say to them but they don't seem to talk about anything of interest. I said the woman's 40+ so what about things like how the approach of the menopause has affected her mental health (apparently she depressed) or politics or about step parent issues or how she manages with a man so much shorter than she is, but there is nothing of any interest at all ever talked about in that home. Anyway I'm sure she'll survive the experience. Perhaps she could liven them up.

But the point was the expectation. If everyone in your class is expecting to earn £100k then you probably expect that too. If they expect to work in a call centre, if they work at all, then most weaker teenagers move to that norm or mean.

From your post, I can only assume that he is part of the peer group you were hoping to keep her away from.

LOL Xenia your daughter has boring out-of-laws

It can happen to the best of us and isn't a big deal as long as you have no expectations of them. The harder thing to judge is whether or not the son turns into his parents or rejects them...

Words of wisdom: don't encourage your daughter to "liven them up a bit". It won't work and at very best she will exhaust herself entertaining them (at worst they will hate her).

ROFL at your suggested topics of conversation with boyfriend's parents!

Agree, they will hate her if she brings up any of the conversations you suggested.

FWIW I also know families where nothing of any interest is discussed amongst them. I thinks its great that they can just be. I am probably of the lowest tribe perhaps even an outcast (never though of myself in the tribal sense but Anna mentioned it).

However DD and I have conversation on the widest subjects. I have noticed when she tries to get a debate going amongst her peers it goes over there heads and they get back to talking about boys and msn, but that's state kids for you.

yes shades of Mrs Mertons interviewing technique there!

read somewhere that although peer effects are important in determining outcomes, the effect is less marked for middle classs children perhaps because they have role models of professional/academic sucess at home so don't need them so much as school

"I said the woman's 40+ so what about things like how the approach of the menopause has affected her mental health (apparently she depressed) or politics or about step parent issues or how she manages with a man so much shorter than she is"

Xenia, please tell me you were joking. Weren't you?

'I was trying to encourage her as to what she can say to them but they don't seem to talk about anything of interest. I said the woman's 40+ so what about things like how the approach of the menopause has affected her mental health (apparently she depressed)'

You are encouraging your young daughter to come into her boyfriend's home and make conversation to a woman old enough to be her mother about how the approaching menopause has affected her mental health???!!!

Are these the manners taught at private schools? Fascinating.... I am getting a glimmering vision here of a peer group that I would not want my dc's to be involved with. Though I don't think any amount of peer pressure could persuade my dd to behave like this when her time comes: she has a healthy sense of self preservation.

And as always, you confuse money with a good education and interesting conversation. Some of the most highly educated, fascinating people I have known, people who have really made great contributions to their particular field, have not been on high salaries. You don't have to have ambitions about money to be an ambitious person. My own ambition is that people will still be using my books 100 years after I am dead. By which time the money will no doubt be gone.

The question here is, is somebody else trolling in Xenia's name (the boyfriend?) or was Xenia always a troll but a more skillful one who's just suffered a momentary lapse of standards? Now this might be an interesting subject for debate around the boyfriend's family table.