Primary school kids and the influence of their friends.

[GlueSticksEverywhere]

I was wondering how much influence you feel that your dcs friends have over them at Primary School age. If for eg your dcs go to school with children who are being raised with rather different moral values/whose parents were of the "can't be bothered to work" variety/were not likely to encourage their children to go for further education . . . do you think this would effect your own dcs or do you feel that at that age they are still primarily influenced by their parents?

I feel that at secondary school the kids are often much more interested in the opinion and respect of their peers rather than their parents, but not sure about primary school as I can't really remember, what with it being so long ago an all!

My DCs went to a very mixed school, but they tend to make friends with DCs of a very similar background to themselves. I was the same, it is what you are comfortable with.

It depends on the DCs-friends are certainly very important by 8yrs. Mine chose nice friends-without any influence from me.

Thanks for you replies. Anyone else?

If your question is prompted by living in the catchment area of a school where a lot of the parents are likely to be the 'can't be bothered to work' type.... then it's not the influence on the children you should worry about so much but the standards of the school. If schools & children get little engagement from parents then they tend to be less effective and have worse results than schools that enjoy a high level of 'pushy' parental commitment and involvement.

My DC are nearly 8 and nearly 10 and I would say their friends have been very important to them and an influence on them (for good as well as bad) pretty much from playgroup onwards and certainly since they have been in full time school.

Not all my DC's friend's parents are necessarily people I would choose as my own friends or have loads in common with but I'm lucky that the vast majority seem to be hard working decent people who want their DC to do well at school. The conflicts I have has so far re "influence" have been on more minor issues such as friends being allowed on age inappropriate games or having bigger playing out boundaries than my DC, stuff like that. Sometimes even those kind of issues can be hard enough, I wouldn't want to deal with my DC coming home from school saying "X doesn't have to do his homework, so why should I?" or similar.

I can't say that I am aware that my DC have ever discussed further education with their friends.

However, from a young age we (as parents) have had 'when you go to University...' type conversations with our DC.. I think they are unaware that there are other options TBH! LOL

They also don't seem to have much influence on whether they do their homework or not. But that is probably to do with the school being very strict about homework being done. There are repurcussions when it isn't.

However their friends are influential in fashions and crazes,, that sort of thing...

I think at primary school it is mixed.

Their peers seem to influence their interests to a degree eg if A,B and C go to X after school then your dc might want to go too. If their peers play with X they might want to as well.

My dcs have also developed interests of their own both as after school activities and toys they like to play with.

As far as school work goes, I think I am still the major influence there. If I encourage then they do a better job I feel, on the homework front anyway, regardless of how others do.

I do get a lot of so and so has an ipad or so and so is allowed to watch 12A's or so and so has a tv in her room etc. I completely ignore it though. We don't have the money that others in the area have and my dcs know that. We also have our own values and my dcs know that too. It is a good lesson to learn IMHO.

no matter where you are in society there will always be people with higher and lower standards than yourself.

We teach our DD to aspire to higher standards... try your hardes, do your best, but encourage her not to be distracted by her less suitable friends... that word is fine for them to use, but i dont like it and neither does your dad, please dont use it.

Once they feel comfortable with who they are they understand that people are different.

My DS has a mixture of friends. (He is 6) One who is from a very similar background - working parents/same values etc and I have to admit that I do encourage this frienship in a very subtle, but not pushy way.

He has another good friend who is in his class and lives close, who's background is the total opposite. Neither parents work and def don't have the same values that I have. He gets sent out of the house by his Dad regularly and told to stay out playing all day and not come back until tea-time. This happened last Sunday and he called round to our house. He stayed most of the day. I would far prefer this lad to be at our house, than wandering the streets and it also means that I can keep an ear out for some of the things he says to my DS. Stuff like, school is a waste of time as there are no jobs out there, black people are dirty, my Dad gets free money etc.

I obviously have to be careful what I say to this lad, as its not my place to give him his morals and values or push mine on him, but I will let my DS know (in a nice way) that we all have different opinions and point out where I do not agree with his friend and the reason why.

I think that as long as I continue to bring my DS up with the right morals and values, he will be ok. He does understand that people do things differently and we have lots of convrsations about what we think is the right and wrong way to do things.