English

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Parental and Peer Influence

Cornelia Smith

Professor Rose Bunch

Columbia Southern University

English 1010

August 10, 2021

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Parental and Peer Influence

A child's growth from conception to adulthood comes through various challenges that

require a tremendous influence to sustain them to become responsible adults. The Influence felt by

a child as they grow up dictates a lot of their life. There are some stages during which a child goes

through before they get to adulthood that require proper guidance. Both parental and peer Influence

may have a positive impact on the child as well as negative Influence. Other than the two are other

sets of Influence that require an equally affect a child's growth into adulthood.

Parental influence starts from the mother's care and behavior toward her child. Children

learn a lot from those who raise them; hence it is up to the parent to ensure their influence is most

beneficial. In modern societies, parents tend to avoid a lot of responsibilities by letting their

children be raised and guided by teachers. Education is an essential part of everyone's life but

cannot be compared to the impact parental influence has on the child. It is noted that a child of a

thief is a thief due to the influence the child attains in his growth.

In the course of a child's growth, they are influenced by a lot of people in their lives. The

behavior of a child mostly resembles that of the closest person to them. According to Balsa (2016).

"The influence of parents is, however, stronger in outcomes less likely to be observable and

penalized by peers." Parents form an essential part of someone's life and character. In various

studies, it can be identified that there is a clear distinction between a child raised solemnly by their

parents or that who is orphaned or abandoned by the parents.

Parents in this scenario represent not only the birth parents but also guardians or adopted

parents. Abusive parents to a child also influence the child negatively. A child eventually turns out

to become a reflection of the parents upbringing. Children tend to get fond of people quickly;

hence being influenced forms part of their growth into adulthood. The influence of the teenagers

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then determines their morals, ethics, and character and also their goodwill. Teenager whose

influence negatively affected their growth finds themselves in illegal activities that lead them to

crime. Most children find themselves engaged in delinquency and end up in juvenile jails hence

ruining their lives in the process. The individual impact is also part of the process, as everybody

has their own mind and intelligence.

Peers form another part of the various influence’s children undergo in their lives as they

grow up into adulthood. The internet and other technological devices have increased the peer

influence on growing children for over a decade now. In every country and state around the world,

internet access has been the norm for every human interaction. Teenagers currently interact with

their peers ten times more compared to fifty years ago. This constant development and utilization

of technology have turned the world into a global village. Today people are recruited into terrorist

groups and cults online without a physical presence.

Most illegal groups and congregations focus and aim at the young people in society. This

use of technology has also rendered and limited the impact parents have on their children. Today, if

a teenager is being disturbed or stressed over a problem, she would rather text her colleague far

away than ask the mother, who is just a word away. This has increased the influence on children to

be more peer-focused than a parental influence. Peer influence is rarely on good terms as each

teenager wants to benefit from the other. An example of peer influence is a teenager being

introduced into a drug business being promised tons of money to which they rarely see at home.

Such peer pressure for financial freedom and away from family constraints makes one

tempted for individual life. This influence mostly happens to teenagers who have the mindset to

have grown up and need to fend for themselves. Having seen some money, most teenagers would

be drawn away from innocence and into crime. The internet also publicly influences people to

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publicly show their profiles and life making them targets of maliciously intent individuals (Soh and

Ang, 2017). During adolescence, the transition into adulthood is usually faced with decisions on

life prospects; hence the closest influence usually determines one’s future and life. Most parental

influences positively guide a teenager into taking the right actions hence living a positive life and

non-criminal life.

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References

Balsa, A. (2018) Peer effects vs. parental influence in the development of capabilities in adolescence.

Retrieved from https://ideas.repec.org/p/mnt/wpaper/1609.html

Soh, et al. (2018) Parents vs peers’ influence on teenagers’ Internet addiction and risky online activities,

Telematics and Informatics. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tele.2017.11.003.