We are from Miles Coverdale School and our contribution to the Children’s
Parliament is about ‘Peer Pressure’. Peer pressure is a big
problem if it means that children are doing something they don’t
really want to do.
We would like to begin to telling you the facts about peer pressure. We
have researched these facts by watching plays, taking part in workshops,
interviewing adults at the Urban Studies Centre and carrying out a questionnaire
in our school. The research has taught us that peer pressure is a part
of life. It happens to younger and older children than us as well as adults.
It will effect us at secondary school and it’s effect can be dangerous.
We found out in our research that people get influenced to do things that
they don’t want to do – that is a negative type of peer pressure.
“I was forced to beat up someone at school by my friends”
Steve,
Youth officer for Hammersmith Police Station
But peer pressure can also help – if there are children who can listen
to you, who you can talk to and get help from then peer pressure can be
a positive thing. Through our School Council, Miles Coverdale is looking
at how peer pressure can help. It is called peer mediation, peer pressure
that can make a difference.
To find out more about peer pressure we researched some of the problems
young people face in their lives. The problems we researched included:
Bullying, Stealing, Drug Abuse, Truancy, and Racism.
We found that peer pressure can lead to all these problems. Our class
visited the Urban Studies Centre where we interviewed:
Bernie Baker, Hammersmith
& Fulham Children’s Rights Officer.
Sara Hepburn, Hammersmith
& Fulham Young Carer’s Project Worker.
Lily Makurah, Hammersmith
& Fulham Tackling Teenage Pregnancy Co-ordinator.
Gary McKenzie, Children’s
Society Campaigns Officer.
Samm Postance, Police
Officer – Borough Youth Officer.
We learnt that peer pressure is something that always seems to have been
around. Many of the adults we interviewed had experienced a lot of peer
pressure in their own lives.
When we interviewed two police officers about bullying, we learnt how
often bullying happens, and that it happens to young and old alike. Samm
Postance, Community Police Officer said:
“When bullies start bullying they don’t stop to think what the
victims feel like, they think more about what their friends are thinking”.
At the Urban Studies Centre we asked Lily Makurah if she had been forced
to do things she didn’t want to do. She told us about how she bunked
off secondary school with some friends and how she and her friends had
bullied a new girl at primary school because the girl seemed different.
When we watched the play ‘Wasted’, the character Ryan started
smoking cigarettes because he wanted to part of a group. Later on we saw
how hard it is to say ‘no’ when Ryan’s friends were doing
something. They all took drugs, and he took them to be like his friends.
Ryan ended up addicted to drugs. He had to steal money to pay for the
drugs.
We carried out a questionnaire in school and asked our year 2,3,4,5 and
6 classes about peer pressure. We asked each class what kind of things
had they been made to do by their friends. We found that 33% had been
dared to do something, that 23% had been made to steal by their friends,
that 35 % of the children had been rude to adults because of their friends
and 15% had bunked off school with their friends. Makes you question who
your real friends are?
We wanted to help children know more about peer pressure and the kind
of problems they will encounter. We decided to design posters that explained
these problems and show some of the tactics you can use to help you.
Each poster describes the problem and also has a ‘helpful hand’
to give the reader a few rips about how to cope with the problems. We
are now using our computers to publish these posters on our school web
site. They will also be available at the Urban Studies web site. We are
looking for money to publish these posters as handout pamphlets.
Through the School Council, we are looking to train some children as mediators.
These children will learn how to listen to other children’s problems
and help solve these problems by mediating with everyone concerned. This
is another kind of peer pressure, what we are calling a positive kind
of peer pressure.
So we would like to leave you with something we’ve learnt.
Always
try to be yourself.
Always talk to someone about a problem.
Discussing our concerns about peer pressure with Lily Makurah, H&F
Tackling Teenage Pregnancy Strategy Co-ordinator
and
designing a poster to help other young people
