PEER RELATIONSHIP

1. PEER RELATIONSHIP DR. SALMIZA SALEH

2. Teenager group • Types of teenager groups: • Peer group A peer group is a group with members of approximately the same age, social status, and interests. Generally, people are relatively equal in terms of power when they interact with peers. • Clique An informal, tight-knit group, often in a High School/College setting, that shares common interests. Most cliques exhibit an established yet shifting power structure. • Gang A gang is usually an urban group that gathers in a particular area. It is a group of people that often hang around each other. They can be like some clubs, but much less formal

3. Peer Group Peer group: - A social group consisting of people who are equal in such respects as age, education or social class. - An informal primary group of people who share a similar or equal status and who are usually of roughly the same age, tended to travel around and interact within the social aggregate - Members of a particular peer group often have similar interests and backgrounds, bonded by the premise of sameness. - However, some peer groups are very diverse, crossing social divides such as socioeconomic status, level of education, race, creed, culture, or religion.

4. Peer Relationship - A peer relation is someone of your own age who you have chosen to associate with - Peer groups are an important influence throughout one's life, but they are more critical during the developmental years of childhood and adolescence - It appears that the power of the peer group becomes more important when the family relationships are not close or supportive.

5. Peer relationship Children may turn to their peer group for emotional support: - If parents work extra jobs and are largely unavailable - When the conflict between parents and children during adolescence, or at any time during a child's development, becomes so great that the child feels pushed away and seeks closeness elsewhere. Most children and adolescents in this situation are not discriminating about the kind of group they join. They will often turn to a group simply because that group accepts them, even if the group is involved in illegal or negative activities.

6. Developmental psychology • Developmental psychologists, Lev Vygotsky, Jean Piaget, Erik Erikson, and Harry Stack Sullivan, have all argued that peer relationships provide a unique context for cognitive, social, and emotional development, with equality, reciprocity, cooperation, and intimacy, maturing and enhancing children's reasoning abilities and concern for others. • Modern research echoes these sentiments, showing that social and emotional gains are indeed provided by peer interaction. • The successful formation and navigation of interpersonal relationships with peers is a process central to adolescent development in all cultures

7. Why are peer relationships important? • Peer relationships become more important as children grow into early adolescents. • Research indicates that older youth interact with peers more frequently and longer than do younger youth, both within school and out of school (Larson & Richards, 1991). • By high school, teens are spending more than half of their time in the company of their peers (Updegraff et al. 2001).

8. Why are peer relationships important? • Developing high quality peer relationships and friendships are important because young people who have difficulties in developing or maintaining friendships are more likely to— • Engage in aggressive behavior (Newcomb, Bukowski, & Pattee, 1993). • Report low academic achievement and high unemployment later in life (Woodward & Fergusson, 1999). • Exhibit higher degrees of loneliness and depression (Parker, Rubin, Price, & de Rosier, 1995).

9. Why are peer relationships important? • Children who are unable to form close or satisfying relationships with peers: • Miss out an opportunities to learn social skills that will be important throughout their lives such as skills needed to initiate and maintain social relationships and to resolve social conflicts, including communication, compromise, and tact (Asher and others 1982). • Miss opportunities to build a sense of social self-confidence. • May develop little faith in their own abilities to achieve interpersonal goals and, thus, are easily overwhelmed by the normal ups and downs of social interaction.

10. Why are peer relationships important? • May suffer from painful feelings of isolation (Asher and others 1984). • May ultimately become truant or drop out altogether (Kupersmidt 1983) (school may be an unpleasant place for the children). • May become vulnerable to the influence of delinquent or drug-abusing peers (Isaacs 1985).

11. Functions of peer groups • Provide a wide range of learning and opportunity to develop various social skills, such as leadership, sharing or teamwork, and empathy • Offer the opportunity to experiment with new roles and interactions. • Allow for self-exploration, emotional growth, and moral and ethical development. • Assist social development (building social skills) • Assist emotional development • Serve as a source of info • Teaches sex roles. • Serves as a practicing venue to adulthood. • Teaches unity & collective behaviour • Managing competition, conflict and problem solving

12. Research Findings on positive influence of peer relationship • Peer relationship: • Are associated with self-esteem and contribute to forming self-image (Azmitia, 2002) • Are related to social competence (Newcomb & Bagwell, 1995) and enhanced leadership skills (Berndt, Hawkins, & Jiao, 1999). • Can buffer youth from the negative impact of family troubles (Gauze, Bukowski, Aquan-Assee, & Sippola, 1996; Bolger, Patterson, & Kupersmidt, 1998). • Influence academic achievement (Fleming, Cook, & Stone, 2002; Wentzel, Barry, & Caldwell, 2004).

13. Negative influence of peer relationship • Peer relationship are also associated with: • Experimentation with drugs, smoking cigarettes, alcohol use, marijuana use, and engagement in illicit sexual behavior (Prinstein, Fetter, and La Green 2001). • Vandalism, • Bullying, • Stealing, • Early sex, unprotected sex and do have multiple partners. • Academic failure and school drop out.

14. Peer Acceptance • The degree to which a child or adolescent is socially accepted by peers; the level of peer popularity • Peer acceptance is measured by the quality rather than the quantity of a child or adolescent's relationships.

15. Peer Acceptance • Factors such as physical attractiveness, cultural traits, and disabilities affect the level of peer acceptance, with a child's degree of social competence being the best predictor of peer acceptance. • Children who are peer-accepted or popular have fewer problems in middle and high school, and teens who are peer-accepted have fewer emotional and social adjustment problems as adults. • Peer-accepted children may be shy or assertive, but they often have well-developed communication skills

16. Peer Accepted children tend to: • Correctly interpret other children's body language and tone of voice. Well-liked children can distinguish subtleties in emotions. For example, they can distinguish between anger directed toward them versus toward a parent. • Directly respond to the statements and gestures of other children. Well-liked children will say other children's names, establish eye contact, and use touch to get attention.

17. Peer Accepted children tend to: • Give reasons for their own statements and gestures (actions). For example, well-liked children will explain why they want to do something the other child does not want to do. • Cooperate with, show tact towards, and compromise with other children, demonstrating the willingness to subordinate the self by modifying behavior and opinions in the interests of others. For example, when joining a new group where a conversation is already in progress, well-liked children will listen first, establishing a tentative presence in the group before speaking (even if it is to change the subject).

18. Peer Acceptance • These skills are crucial in initiating and maintaining relationships, and in resolving conflicts. • By contrast, rejected children tend either towards aggressive, antisocial behavior, or withdrawn, depressive behavior. • They also don't listen well, tend not to offer reasons for their behavior, don't positively reinforce their peers, and have trouble cooperating.

19. Peer Acceptance • Antisocial children will interrupt people, dominate other children, and either verbally or physically attack them. • Depressive or withdrawn children may be excessively reserved, submissive, anxious, and inhibited. • Competitiveness or dominance by itself is not necessarily indicative of low peer acceptance. • In fact, popular children tend to have the characteristics of both competitiveness and friendliness.

20. Peer Acceptance • Lack of opportunity to participate normally in peer interaction is especially problematic for children who differ in some obvious way, either culturally, racially, or through some mental or physical disability. Issues of peer acceptance should be addressed as early as possible in order to prevent loss of self-confidence and self-esteem.

21. Peer pressure • The term peer pressure is often used to describe instances where an individual feels indirectly pressured into changing their behavior to match that of their peers. • Taking up smoking and underage drinking are two of the best known examples. In spite of the often negative connotations of the term, peer pressure can be used positively.

22. Coclusion Peer relation is important in order for teenager develop various skills of human livelihood and can have positive and negative impact.