Importance of the right Influences
As your teenager enters high school, he may have to worry about finding a whole new set of friends to go with his new environment. Here’s where things may get tricky. An adolescent’s peer group can be quite an influence on your teenager’s choices. Sometimes the road to becoming a troubled teen can even be decided upon by who his friends are to begin with. It is crucial for him or her to be surrounded by the right influences. If they find themselves in a new peer group who all skip class and stay out all night smoking and drinking, you can expect that that’s exactly what they’ll be doing as well.

Finding Good Influences
In this case you must try and gear them towards a different set of peers. But this won’t be as easy as it may sound. A definite no-no would be to force them to get new friends. This may fire up his rebellious side even more and end up becoming a “loyalty” issue about their peer group which will glue them to the group further. What you can do though, is talk to other parents or adult friends of yours in the neighborhood whose children go to the same high school. Find out which teenagers appeal to you as good influences and which you believe will appeal to your child as well in terms of similar interests.

Tread Carefully
Once you’ve decided, introduce them to your teenager. But remember, you shouldn’t make these introductions a big thing because it may just appear like you’re forcing friends on them. Make things light, so the teenagers have a chance to gravitate toward one another in a natural manner. If they really gets to like these new friends, they’ll enjoy their company and want to be with them. Once your child has his own set peer group, it may be difficult to change this.

 

You will want to try to prevent this to begin with if you notice that his friends are bad influences. If this is the case, don’t hesitate to keep them from going out. Once you let them do this several times, they will take it into habit and when the time comes when you realize how detrimental their friends are to them, it will be too late. If you keep them from seeing a new group at this point, they might use the instances prior to this against you.
   
Awareness and keen observation is an important key in making sure your teenager’s peer group is right for them.