One of the great fears parents have is that their early adolescent
children will become part of the wrong crowd. Their fears are justified.
tis very easy for junior highers to choose friends who do not hold
Christian values and who may exert a negative influence on them.
There are many junior highers who smoke, drink. use drugs., or involve
themselves in other kinds of harmful behaviors. It is natural to want to
discourage this kind of behavior, if possible, and to encourage our kids
to choose the right kinds of friends.
One thing is certain: we cannot choose friends for our kids. They
must have the freedom to make their own friendship choices. We can
and should offer guidance, but it is usually counterproductive in the
long run to criticize or to put down the friends our junior highers have.
To do so is to attack their judgment and to show that we have little or
no faith in them. When it is apparent that there are some dangers
inherent in a particular relationship, then it should certainly be
discussed, but we must never assume that antisocial behavior is always
contagious.
I sometimes remind parents that when they were teenagers,
they probably had some friends they wouldn't want their own kids to
have as friends. Remembering this helps us to relax a little bit. We
survived a few bad friends; chances are pretty good our kids will, too.
Psychologist Eda Le Shan advises:
There are times when it is a necessary part of growing up to live
through a particular relationship. Much growth and learning about
oneself can take place, even in some of the most ill-advised
friendships.... The only real protection against poor friendship
choices is whatever help we can give our children in respecting
themselves so much that they are unlikely to choose relatíonships
that will hurt or demean them. ..."
Most adolescents choose friends from the group they feel most
comfortable being a part of. If youngsters choose friends from a group of kids who have low self-esteem and no sense of self-respect,there are
two possibilities: either (a) they are experimenting to see how it feels to
be part of this particular group; or (b) they ídentify with this group"
Young people who have no self-respect tend to seek out other kids who
have no self-respect. They will stick together and reintforce their
collective outlook on life. Conversely highly motivated kids who have.
healthy sense of self-respect don't feel comfortable being part of that group. Instead they tend to choose friends who are like themselves and
who have higher aspirations.
We must remember that young adolescents generally get a
sense of who they are (their self-image) from the feedback they get
from other people. They get it from their parents, their family
members, and from other adults who interact with them, as well as
from their peer friends and the media. If the primary message a young
person hears is you will never amount to anything, You are so stupid,You are a troublemaker, etc., it should not surprise us when she chooses friends who have low self esteem. Dr. Le Shan is correct: the best way to help kids to choose good friends is to give them a high view
of themselves. The best strategy we can take to help kids choose good
friends is to affirm them and let them know that we like them, believe
in them, and expect the best from them.
Another way we can help kids choose the right friends is to create a place where they can find the right friends. That's one of the primary goals of an effective junior high ministry. A junior high group
should be a place where kids are able to socialize, to have fun together to get to know each other, and to make friends with others who share their faith and values. Research has proven that if a young person has just one friend who will stand with him against the crowd, he will be much less likely to give in to negative peer pressure and much more
likely to take a stand for Christ."To have attended many junior high
conferences and watched kids stand together committing themselves
to be witnesses for Christ, or to abstain from sexual immorality, or to
say no to drugs and alcohol. Obviously it would be very hard for kids to
do that all by themselves. But positive peer pressure is just as powerful
as negative peer pressure.That's why its important to help junior highers find friends in the family of faith.
Watch Out For Loners
Within any junior high group there are usually a few kids who just dont
seem to fit in. While this is not a problem for most junior highers, there
are some who have real difficulty making friends and finding
acceptance from others in the group. They may be rejected because of
their appearance, personality, where they live, what school they go to,
what their family is like, their abilities, interests, mannerisms, language.
or perhaps just because they are new.
One junior high pastor told me
recently of a seventh-grade boy in his youth group who had been
sexually abused as a child and had a number of psychological problems
that caused him to be labeled as an outcast. A group of boys caught him
after school one day, beat him up, and literally set his nose on fire. I still
have trouble imagining this, but when I think about that boy, my heart
breaks for him.
The list of reasons why a person might be excluded from the
group can be endless, and they are undeniably insensitive from an
adult perspective. Even though junior highers may seem cruel to eacn
other, they are merely being typically junior highish. They have
discovered that one way to satisfy their own need to feel accepted or
superior is to find someone else whom they can look down upon,
ridicule, pick on or simply ignore. If a junior higher can identify
someone else in the group as a nerd or a loser, then that makes him look superior by comparison. It's a rather
sinister, although not unusual, way for a
young person to build his own self-esteem.
It can also be extremely painful to the young person who is the object of this kind of
discrimination-as most junior highers are
at one time or another.
No junior high group should allow a
situation like this to exist unchecked. It is
wise for junior high workers to stay on the
lookout for those in the group who appear
to be rejected and try to help them find their place in the group. While you can't force people into being well-adjusted and having friends, doing nothing is usually not the best alternative. Kids should
be made aware that one of the things that sets the Christian
community apart from the non-Christian community is that no one is
shut out. Everyone is accepted, regardless of how the world sees things.
That has always been an identifying mark of the Christian.
Some junior highers who are rejected are quite capable of living
with the situation without any negative impact, and they may appear to
accept their roles as loners with ease. We should, of course, be supportive and thankful for them. But that is usually not the case. Most young adolescents who have no real friends in the group and who are unhappy will, given the opportunity, simply leave and seek acceptance elsewhere
Those who, for whatever reason, must stick it out will more than likely
have a hard time and experience some long-term negative impact. We
should do whatever we can to find out why a person is being rejected
and, whenever possible, provide help.
A few years ago in one of my junior high groups, an eighth-grade girl was being shunned by the other girls (and boys) in the group.
it was having a negative effect on her, so we youth workers decided to
see if we could help. We discovered that her parents had been divorced
for some time and that she lived with her father, who had never
remarried. One result of this was an apparent lack of guidance in
personal hygiene and other social graces that are important for young
ladies emerging into womanhood. One of our female counselors was
able to spend quite a bit of time with this girl and helped her
considerably. Of course, acceptance did not instantly occur just
because she smelled or looked better, but gradually she did grow more
comfortable as barriers between her and the others in the group were
broken down. Her self-image began to improve as well.
There are no easy answers here, of course, but the sensitive
Junior high worker will give special attention to kids who need it and
will find creative ways to discourage the natural tendency for junior
highers to discriminate against those who may be a little bit different.
We Can help by getting kids involved with each other more and by
allowing needy kids to get more recognition by being allowed to do the
things they do well. Sometimes it just means that we must be an
especially good friend to every person in the group, thus becoming a
common link between them all. Perhaps in us they can see Christ, the
one who is able to make us all one.
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