How to Deal with Bad Influence Friends and Protect Your Child

Children are naturally curious and active, often surrounded by a wide circle of acquaintances and spending a significant portion of their day outside. Inevitably, situations arise where someone tries to influence them – be it friends, teachers, or strangers.

How to deal with bad influences from friends on your child? How can you help them resist the efforts of those trying to steer them in the wrong direction? How to teach your child to protect themselves?

Identifying types of Influence to protect your kid

To effectively shield your child, it's essential to understand the various types of psychological influence they might encounter. You need to know them to protect your child. This classification applies to everyone, regardless of age. It's important to explain to your child that people can attempt to influence them in different ways.

1. Persuasion

This involves changing one's perspective on something beneficial for the influencer. For instance, a friend might convince your child to skip gym class with arguments like it being the last lesson, the gym being cold, and that going home is a better option. Children who initially intended to attend the class might agree with the arguments and adopt them as their own. They're easily swayed and are more likely to leave the class.

2. Coercion

This type of influence doesn't rely on arguments. Instead, it's about imposing someone else's opinion on your child, even if they disagree. Through authority within a group, psychological pressure, intimidation, or other tactics, an influencer eventually replaces your child's beliefs with their own. It's crucial to be aware of this to protect your kid.

3. Self-promotion

In every class, there are popular kids who are active, charismatic, and possess the latest gadgets and trendy items. These individuals, often unwittingly, influence others around them. Their strong personalities create an influential backdrop. Gradually, these "stars" become opinion leaders and can impose their will on others.

4. Imitation

This form of influence encourages your child to mimic someone they admire in everything. Teenagers often rely heavily on peer opinions, and deviating from the norm risks their social standing. Imitation is a strategy to maintain the status quo temporarily. However, deciding whom to imitate is another important consideration.

5. Criticism

Critics aim to humiliate their target, wearing them down psychologically and shifting focus from real issues to fabricated ones. For instance, if three girls plan to go for a walk but one changes her mind, opting to go with another girl, she might criticize the third girl's outfit. The third girl leaves, convinced something is wrong with her clothes. The true motive remains concealed. Understanding this type of influence helps in dealing with negative peer pressure.

6. Manipulation

This is perhaps the most common form of psychological influence. Manipulation involves getting the "victim" to perform actions that benefit the influencer. For instance, classmates might decide to steal a top student's notebook to cheat on a test. The influencer selects who should do it and uses clever manipulation to achieve their goal. Therefore, it is important to know how to deal with bad influences from friends on a child.

Also: What Causes Aggression In A Child And How To Deal With It

Strategies for how to deal with bad influence friends

To protect your child from negative influences, we've compiled effective techniques that empower them to resist such pressures. Keep in mind that some strategies are suitable for all types of influence, while others are best applied in specific situations. It's important to practice these techniques with your child, so they can easily identify the method of influence and choose the appropriate countermeasure.

Absolute Refusal

When your child recognizes they are being influenced, they can directly refuse: "I won't do this." This communicates that they are aware of the influencer's tactics and are prepared to resist. This is a cool way to teach your children to protect themselves. No elaborate arguments are required—simply saying "no" suffices.

A drawback of this method is that if the influencer holds authority or is dominant, refusal might trigger aggression or bullying. 

Indirect Refusal

This involves subtle evasion: your child appears to agree but doesn't fully comply with the influencer's plan or carries it out differently. Delaying or not fully adhering to the plan eventually frustrates the influencer, causing them to shift their focus elsewhere.

A limitation of this approach is that if the influencer realizes their plan isn't working, they might resort to other methods.

Appeal to parents

A straightforward way to shift the blame for refusal is to claim that parents forbid the action. For example, if offered to smoke behind the garages, a child could say that their mother will detect the smell and ground them for a month. While not explicitly refusing, they avoid compliance. This is another good option to deal with bad influence friends.

This method might not be applicable in every situation.

Finding like-minded friends

To counter influences like imitation and self-promotion, your child can seek friends who share their disdain for informal leadership.

However, it's sometimes challenging to find friends with similar values and viewpoints.

Responding to criticism

This technique is effective against critics. Your child can counter a remark about their appearance with a well-considered response. By addressing the critic's personality or actions, they neutralize the influence.

The drawback is that if your child is shy or struggles with quick-witted responses, they might have difficulty implementing this method.

Psychological self-defense

This involves using specific behaviors and phrases to buy time when facing pressure from an influencer. Teach your child neutralizing phrases like:

• "Let's discuss it later."

• "I'm not ready to answer right now."

• "I'd rather not talk about this."

• "Can we talk about something else?"

This approach is a good way to teach your children to protect themselves, but might not be suitable for all situations.

Ignoring

Only emotionally resilient individuals can disregard manipulation and other negative influences. Yet, this is one of the best ways to avoid bad influence.

If your child realizes they're being influenced, they should either limit communication with the influencer or ignore their requests, suggestions, and criticisms. Pretending not to understand or accept these actions can help thwart their efforts.

The drawback of this method is that influencers will eventually tire of pursuing your child, as their primary goal is to evoke an emotional response and manipulate behavior. Thus, ignoring them significantly reduces their impact.

Confrontation

Engaging in open protest against an influencer's actions isn't about becoming aggressive but responding firmly to a threat.

The limitation here is that confrontation requires support (from peers and relatives), confidence in one's position, courage, and resourcefulness. These qualities tend to develop in late adolescence, around the age of 14.

Also: 9 Ways How Not To Be A Toxic Parent

How to protect your child: tips for parents 

As parents, your role is to help your child understand that injustice and cruelty exist in the world, and that there are people who may try to harm them. Protecting your child is paramount. However, it's crucial not to protect children from all bad influences, but instead empower them to recognize and respond to such action.

• Engage in conversations with your child about challenging topics like bullying, cruelty, substance abuse, and violence. Share your perspective on these events, explain preventive measures, and discuss what could have been done differently.

• Observe how your child interacts with peers, their choice of games (both virtual and real), and their behavior in groups. Your goal is to discern whether your child is becoming a victim or displaying provocative behavior. Both situations are problematic but require different responses.

• Remember that democratic parenting isn't synonymous with turning a blind eye. If you notice your child getting involved with a negative crowd, don't allow the situation to persist due to fears of being overly authoritarian.

Instead, calmly discuss your child's interest in spending time with certain individuals. Express your concerns and give your child time to reflect on whether these friends are a positive influence or if it's better to distance themselves from questionable personalities.

It's important to recognize that you can't predict every situation your child will encounter as they grow up. However, your role is to prepare them to navigate the challenges that arise within their peer groups. By arming them with effective strategies and fostering open communication, you empower your child to protect themselves and develop resilience in the face of negative influences.

Remember, your goal is to equip your child with the tools they need to confidently stand up to negative peer pressures and make choices that align with their values and well-being.