As you start to get older and reach high school several new things are brought to your attention. Many of these things that you know are wrong and you shouldn’t do, but what gives you the temptation to do it? That temptation can be defined as “peer pressure”. You know you shouldn’t do it, but the only thing causing you to do it is pressure from friends and people around you telling you to do it. High school surrounds you with new and older kids, and which can motivate you to want to try to “fit in”. You might be given the opportunities to smoke, drink, or take drugs, but just because you are given these chances doesn’t mean you need to give in. This pressure doesn’t just deal with drugs, smoking, and drinking. Pressure, though can also come from other scenarios including your friends wanting to cheat off of you on a big test, or wanting you to lie to get away with something you shouldn’t. Just because they want you to do these things though, that doesn’t mean you have to. You can avoid these kinds of situations that cause general pressure and any kind of peer pressure.

One thing you can do is simply state your feelings towards the situation. If you speak up and say how you believe something maybe the wrong thing to do, you can get yourself out of trouble, and you might even influence others to realize it’s not a good choice. Another thing you could do is make sure you have a friend who will stick by your side and support you. It is much easier to get through pressure filled situations when you have someone on your side from the beginning. One of the last things you can do is re-evaluate who you are friends with, and who you’re hanging out with. If your friends are the ones that pressure you into doing wrong things, you might need to reevaluate and think about if those are the people that are true friends to you. If they aren’t people you want to be around, there is always the option to go out to make new friends.

These three ways to avoid peer pressure are just three main ones. There are other little things you can do, but by doing just these to avoid peer pressure could greatly help you in the future.