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

I keep worrying that Xenia wasn't joking about the 'interesting' questions for the woman?

Xenia sounds rather like my mother, who was deeply disappointed that she couldn't persuade our nanny to read the Guardian when we briefly stayed with her when our kitchen was being replaced (our nanny very kindly came over to my mums for that couple of weeks). She genuinely thought that everyone would want to read and discuss things "of interest". No concept of thinking what might be relevant to our nanny though!

I would like my children to be friends with and be influenced by children who have expectations of changing the world, not turning into stockbrokers and earning lots of money (how stultifying).

Our family, being psychiatrists etc, we would often talk about the family dynamics, about menstruation, dreams, as well as politics and history and stuff. Obviously people's conversations differ. She was saying the problem is they seem to do very little and not say much and perhaps the boyfriend gets his good side from his father (who lives abroad). I don't know it certainly didn't sound a very interesting set up. She thinks it's because the mother is depressed which presumably means the mother's said she's depressed I suppose. I think she's the thinnest woman my daughter knows (perhaps she has an eating disorder (their little daughter has to leave the room when adverts come on the TV!! can you imagine that, weird or are all families weird to outsiders) and she does nothing (house wife), serves the family hand and foot - or is that knees? Anyway something my daughter regards as amazingly sexist and not something we often come across. People are fascinating and I'm sure she says whatever is appropriate. In fact she said she doesn't say much when she is there as there's not much to say.

There are ways to get people talking about interesting things. She could ask her about how the family adapted to a remarriage and step child, pretend I want to know or something or say she's not sure if she should work or be a housewife and could she have this woman's perspective on it? The son is okay. He came on holiday with us last year, although they look like a pair of models in a Jack Wills catalogue together - not sure if that's good or bad. We want substance not just form.

"There are ways to get people talking about interesting things."

No Xenia there aren't. Lots and lots of people just don't want to dig beneath the surface of anything.

'Looking like a pair of Jack Wills catalogue together - not sure if that's good or bad' BAD, BAD, BAD on all counts. If there has ever been such a ghastly uniform for the upper middle classes/aspiring middle classes (how v.v. boring to look exactly the same)please enlighten me.

Surely, this whole thread is a joke. Also perhaps (tiny voice) this state educated boy is actually more naturally clever than Xenia's delightful privately educated daughter.....and that's the problem. Maybe the mother can't stand the sight of Xenia's hideously private school cloned daughter.

For the record, Xenia, I have state school educated children at (gasp) Russell Group Universities who are perfectly well mannered AND we have 'proper' discussions around the dinner table......

As far as I am concerned this is exactly the reason we chose, yes chose, not to privately educate our children. OK rant over.

Maybe the boyfriend has a personality of his own, and hasn't "got his good side" from either of his parents.

In answer to the original post, I do think that peer pressure is a huge influence on our children. I think parents do have a lot of influence though, especially in their early years and that will make a difference to the sort of friends our children seek out. The private/state part of the debate is completely irrelevant. Just because parents have chosen private education doesn't make them good people.

Xenia, you have cheered me up this morning. Encouraging your daughter to spark up a conversation (with her potentially future MIL) about how she manages with a man so much shorter than her. PMSL

It is cheering to read this and remind myself how terribly dull aspirational parenting is

This thread must be a joke but scarily probably not.

My cousin who was educated privately because his parents were teachers there, has the group of incredibly wealthy friends and who now works for a merchant bank. He doesn't think he earns enough money (200K+) and is worried how he will afford the farmhouse in France.

Thanks for that, Xenia, I haven't laughed so much for days.
Can't wait till DD1 is old enough to have a boyfriend who can ask me how I deal with DH's lack of stature. I shall start composing my answer now.

Ooo it certainly brings a new perspective to motherhood. Having coped with the fears of preeclampsia, threatened miscarriage, long nights in A&E, bullying and the threat of permanent disability- I am now Haunted by the fear of the Prospective Daughter-in-Law.

-Oh, mrs Cory, I am so happy to be meeting you at last, Coryboy has talked so much about I feel I know you already, will you show me the pictures of him as a baby, oh and will you just tell me how you feel your menopause is affecting your mental health...help, help, help, POLIIIICE...

It did not occur to you, Xenia, that people have different registers and what is interesting conversation in the close family circle becomes downright impertinence when addressed to comparative strangers. Adressing people as if you were their psychiatrist when they have not asked you to do so is unbelievably rude. Particularly if done by a younger person to an older.

I also have a fair proportion of psychiatrists in my extended family, but they keep a different set of conversational topics for their social life.

My children frequently and light-heartedly call me fat, but the day they say the same to the deputy head I shall run away to the Continent under an assumed name. The difference between private and public register is one that I would expect a child to have mastered by the time they are six.

Good manners are about adapting to what other people find interesting- particularly if you are a young girl coming into your boyfriend's family. Instead you are encouraging her to criticise his background and (in consequence) his upbringing- sounds like you are doing your best to mess up her private life. It is not for you to decide whether this relationship becomes serious- but if it does then her loyalty will belong to him not to you. Nothing wrecks domestic happiness so quickly as the MIL ganging up with her offspring to discuss the other side.

What Cory said

But Xenia, please keep posting on this topic. I haven't laughed so much in ages

Xenia - I am a child of a psychiatrist and a clinical psychologist. I can't say I agree with your assertion that what follows from this is that we all talk about "family dynamics, about menstruation, dreams".

I am very sure we would never have thought your suggested topics of converstaion were good ways of breaking the ice with new people. In fact I think suggesting those topics, and imagining they were a good way to build a relationship with your DD's MiL, shows a pretty extreme misunderstanding of peronal relationships and human interaction.

Anyway, I thought you were a lawyer, not a shrink?

Only read the OP but I remember reading ages ago that peers have a lot more influence than parents by age? ? can't remember what age but I remember thinking omg, I don't want it to be true. I think a lot of us know it is, really and remember what it was like to be children or teenagers where all that mattered was what your mates thought (unless that was just me).

I know as a result there are certain pita friends of ds's that I actively discourage. They are allowed to do lots of things that ds isn't and I just don't like them, frankly. I DO think they're a bad influence and ds, while not Good Boy of the year (FAR, far from it), is also easily led. A friend's dd persuaded him, for example, to climb out of his window onto the roof which he wouldn't necessarily have thought of on his own but once she suggested it he did it.

I realised this mornng that one of the reasons I want ds to get into the local grammar (apart from its excellent adademic record) is that his peer group will probably be a nicer one than those at the local, very, very failing school. And I know it matters, frankly.

I do think insulting Xenia is uncalled for. Xenia is entitled to her opinion and I don't see any rudeness from her. But I'm sure she doesn't need me to stick up for her, she is perfectly capable of fighting her own battles.

PPH said once in a debate about private schools that one of the reasons she paid was so her children mixed with 'people like us' and I think that's very often true and has a lot to do with why people choose the schools they do. This is hardly new, parents recognising that peer influence (as opposed to pressure) is important.

fwiw, I wouldn#t have thought the menopause q was appropriate either tbh. Xenia are you really hoping your dd will ask those questions and be banished from the boy's house, never to go out with him again?

I wasn't taking it very seriously and my father was very very weird and socially unacceptable in many of the things he used to say to complete strangers and we were savvy enough as teenagers to know that. His accountant after his funeral recently was writing t me and said at the first meeting in my father's office my father had asked how the accountant's sex life was. But there's a middle ground between being very dull and my father's extreme.

Of course I realise you talk about different things with different people depending on the situation but I think and she would never cause trouble, I'm sure. She's a very nice girl. It's very good for her to learn how other people live and how different people are from each other anyway.

But what was interesting is boy with similar A levels to her but lower aspirations, who is probably as clever (and yes of course might be brighter - I've never said my children were mega bright but they're reasonably so) but kind of sets sights lower or rather doesn't seem to set them anywhere.

I don't think girls should acquire their status or make their fortunres on their back in bed by nabbing a rich or successful man so I've certainly no plans to be a "Mrs Kate M. Doors to manual" in furthering my daughters' marriage prospects. The more they're obliged to pay their own way the better for their self esteem and for the cause of women in general.

I certainly don't want her banished. There are 5 children here. 365 days a year one or other of them is here, lovely though they are when one is away it is more peaceful and the second one went to Glastonbury this morning so that leaves three.

Peer influence is quite strong - that was my only point. I remember going to my ex husband's family and they are mostly so dreadfully boring, it was bringing back memories of that, not that I would ever say (and of course I'm probably terribly dull myself to others).

I love that "clever but state educated" phrase. Are you worried they might marry adn produce children who are only partially privately educated?

Xenia on Thu 26-Jun-08 15:02:31

'and of course I'm probably terribly dull myself to others'

I wouldn't worry about that one, dear

Wickedwaterwitch on Thu 26-Jun-08 13:52:48

'PPH said once in a debate about private schools that one of the reasons she paid was so her children mixed with 'people like us' and I think that's very often true and has a lot to do with why people choose the schools they do'

I think that you may find that some people think differently on this. Some of us find it a very valuable experience for our children to meet and confront different values and different ways of life while they are still young. Not to mention that it enriches our lives to be brought into contact with different families through the friends they make. One thing it has taught me is that 'people like us' aren't necessarily better when it comes to moral values or interesting lives or anything that really matters in life.

As for dangerous behaviour, I think you may be a bit over-optimistic if you imagine that this does not occur at grammar school (remembering the extremely nice boarding school which I attended for a few months in my teens- wonderful ethos and excellent academic results!- and some of the dangerous behaviour indulged in by some of its students).

Anyway, I am not sure how happy I would be if I thought my teenager, on his way to university, had only kept away from dangerous behaviour because he had never had an opportunity. Speaking as a university teacher I am very well aware of what a dangerous world, full of temptation, awaits my children once they leave the sheltered life of school and home. But only dangerous to the sort of person who is easily led. To me, parenthood isn't just about keeping them alive until they are 18; it's about equipping them for the next stage. I see too many young people mess their lives up because they have never been forced to think through their own values.

We passed two state primary schools this morning when I drove my daughter to the statoin today - one is in effect a non white school and the other is white. Then we went drove by my sons' private school where children of all colours and religions mix. In some areas you can get more mixing with others in private than state schools but I don't want them educated in classrooms where there is disruption or children who aren't as clever or even of the same sex.

But I certainly agree what they need is the internal ability to cope at university and beyond, with life and that will depend on their having been loved as children, the examples of parents and peers around them, their genes and their experience of dealing tish difficult situations and having the internal resources to cope with them. The private sector perhaps gives more independence, challenge etc than the state sector but the thread was more about different expectations and life aims.

He won't do one career path because of lack of money apparently so perhaps it's that or fear of debt as much as anything that holds some people back from other backgrounds.

You're such a snob, Xenia

If I was your daughter I'd grab the most outrageously low class, uneducated chavtastic geeee-zaaaaa I could find and have his babies just to shake you out of the strange world you live in.

I went to a very good state school. We used to die laughing at the boys from Haberdashers who owned the playing fields behind our school. They were all complete dullards . I still find men from 'good backgrounds' insufferable. Educated - great. Bright - fantastic. Cultured - brilliant. But 'silver-spooners' are just not sexy to me. Your daughter has good taste

well i have had a lot of fun with my bright but state educated man there are some things those state school boys do well...

lol @ suggested the topics of conversation!!!!
And I can't think of anything more boring thatn discussing menstruation or dreams . I hope our boys grow up to have the courtesy and common decency to talk to people about what those others are interested in - I have found that when people talk about what they are interested in it is usually interesting to listen. I once spent ages at a party where a bloke was telling me about the precise diameter required for the metal of a coke can ( it was an Imperial Colege party ) and it WAS interesting because he was clearly animated by it. Another boy once told his mates that I knew more about computers than any girl he had ever met. Geuss what - I just listened, barely said a word. Everyone has an interesting side, but I don't think you'll find it by bullying them into expressing an opinion on what its like to be married to a short-arse...
(On the OP - we have always been aware thsat our infuence as parents is limited, but in the early years we do control access to the peer group, and so can indirectly influence to that point.)

How horrific! Children who aren't the same sex!

However I do think you are right about aspirations, but then that is one reason why children from state schools who get to university (especially Oxbridge etc) often do better than their privately educated peers. Because it is their own aspiration that got them there, not just the expectation that that is what they will do next.

My dh's family is firmly working class (although several have done very well) my nephew and neice on dh's side are doing subjects such as tourism and thinking that they probably won't go on to any further education. My nephews on my side are doing A levels in traditional subjects, an one is off to university this year, whilst the other is thinking what courses he wants to do. At primary age all four children were considered bright (my niece a little less so). I think the primary driver there was their parent's expectations, because I think this feeds into how children behave at school, how homework etc is supported and also what friendships are formed.