Among the most common reasons kids are pushed into bad behavior and activities is through peer pressure. This normally happens in school where a lot of schoolchildren are pressured by their classmates to engage in prohibited activities and be influenced to display unruly behavior just to blend in with the crowd. Fortunately, there are a lot of things that parents can do to prevent such a thing from happening.
For one, there are children’s fitness business franchise opportunities that offer programs for kids to keep them healthy and away from the negative influences around them. These service providers have sports programs and fitness lessons where your kids could develop a positive attitude, such as sportsmanship or love for fitness activities. By engaging in such programs, your kids will learn to stay away from bad influences with your guidance, of course.
Here are other tricks to keep your kids out of reach of negative influences:
Educate them
As a parent, you must reach out to your kids and educate them about the risks involved in establishing friendships with fellow kids who are known to cause troubles. You should discuss the different kinds of negative influences such as problematic kids, sites that promote violence, use of illicit substances, and other things that kids should be exposed to. Carefully explain to them why each is bad and why kids should stay away from them, plus what negative effects such bad influences can do to them.
If your child has an unruly friend, don’t hesitate to break up the friendship
You should also remain vigilant about the kind of friends and acquaintances that your kids are having. For this, you have to wear your Sherlock Holmes cap and do some investigative work on the kind of character that your kids’ friends have. If you see some with a demonstrably bad attitude, do not hesitate to break up such friendship. However, you should do it as carefully as possible in such a way that your kids won’t feel that you’re being a killjoy. Always, it’s how you explain things to them that would dictate how they will react to your actions.
Turn on safety features of search engines and websites
It’s also critical for you to turn on the built-in safety features of websites and search engines you’re your kids are using for school research. These include Google’s SafeSearch and YouTube’s Restricted Mode which you can activate with just a few clicks of the mouse. You can do it discreetly so as not to alarm your kids or make them feel that you’re spying on them or don’t trust them.
Set clear rules and monitor your kids’ compliance
You should set very clear rules on your kids’ online and offline activities, such as establishing the maximum hours that they can use for TV time, doing online research, or playing computer games. Your kids should be made aware of why such rules as enforced such as that they need to devote their time interacting with you and other family members or doing other worthwhile activities.
Train your kids to be open with you
Finally, initiate open communication with your kids and train them to not be afraid to speak with you about things. These should include other kids who bully them or make them do things that are against school rules, such as cutting classes or cheating in exams. By making them open with you, you can avoid instances wherein your children will keep negative experiences to themselves, which could lead to depression and other negative consequences.
Smart parenting involves protecting your children against all types of threats. Just keep these five tricks in mind and you will surely guide your kids away from negative influences and their effects.
