Peer pressure – Is it even possible to raise your kids so that they won’t be influenced?
Tuesday, 21 February 2012 
14 Comments
“You know what colours Tom likes? Pink and purple!!!! Bleerrrgghhh….!”
“What’s wrong with pink and purple?”
“Boys are not supposed to like them.”
“Says who?”
“Well….. I don’t really like them… I prefer red and blue.”
“So just like you prefer red and blue, someone else prefers pink and purple. They’re just colours and everyone can like whatever they like.”
“Ummmm….. but they are GIRL colours!”
“Says who?”
“Ummmm….”
“Do you know that your dad has a pink shirt that he wears to work?”
A look of shock, horror and surprise.
Just then his dad walks into his bedroom after coming home from work and is wearing that very pink shirt.
“See? PINK.”
A look of confusion.
Pink wearer: “What’s wrong with pink?”
Confused child mumbles: “It’s just that I prefer red and blue…”
———————————–
“Can I get a new lunchbox?”
“Why?”
“Everyone’s teasing me that it’s last years… and that was year 1!”
Thinking how the heck do the other kids remember that he had the same one last year.
“So what would you like to have instead?”
“Star Wars.”
“And the dinosaurs are not ok?”
Looks sheepish. “I’ve had them since year 1…”
“Ok.”
“We’ll buy a new one next weekend?”
“Sure.”
A look of relief and happiness.
———————————–
Should I have said that there’s nothing wrong with the dinosaurs??? I know his brother would love to inherit that lunchbox, so I don’t mind getting him a more ‘popular’ one…
BUT – how do you raise kids who are NOT bothered by what others think?!?!?
My boy 4yo boy is severly jealous at his best friends new coat, a D&G coat, I can relate to his pain :)
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:| At least we don’t have clothes issues yet. I buy all their stuff from Mothercare or H&M :|
Pink and purple and boys.. had a conversation today in the morning with Mirjam. Containing these three words :)
A good question indeed.. How to raise kids who are not bothered what others think? Maybe it’s not in human nature and have to be learnt later on in life? I mean, there are so many adults who are very much influenced of other people’s thoughts.. I’m not sure I’m totally free of others’ opinions even though I’ve been trying to get that far and moved a long way..
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“Maybe it’s not in human nature and have to be learnt later on in life?” – good thought and definitely seems to be true…
I don’t personally think it’s all that bad. And it’s human nature. And it’s all about kids growing and moving away from the nuclear family ONLY and starting to learn from and listen to other people as well. What IS important is that they get the basics at home, that they are valued at home, and listened to – then even if at times they can be strongly influenced by others and their “not so bright” ideas, in the end they figure things out anyway ;-)
(your tiny dialogues with them are BRILLIANT. How can they NOT grow up being great people?!)
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I do hope that one day what we tell them at home will come through and they won’t be bothered by what others say or do…
Have had the same lunch box thing, they just want to fit in. Now he has a silver case that originally came with chocolates in it. Works well and should pass the different fashion tests.
Generally, with few exceptions, boys are boys and girls are girls. I never pushed pink on my daughter, she invented the whole pink world thing. My son was keen on wires and tubes very early on. In my view the whole liberal non-gender thing is pretty much rubbish, they are what they are and generally boys like different things than girls.
My daughter wants to wear a school dress instead of trousers and have short hair because her best friend does.
Expanding the range of tastes and colours comes with age. My husband also has few pink shirts, although he tells our daugther that he doesn’t like pink.
I don’t mind that he doesn’t like pink but I would prefer that he didn’t say that whoever does like pink is WRONG to do so :|
When you figure it out, please let me know. I have one child who is happy to be his own man and another than cried until he got a Ben10 lunchbox even though he had never seen it, as his animal one was too babyish and people teased him
They might grow out of it – if you are lucky… my example: we bought for our oldest boy a mobile phone when he started school (age 7) – the most basic and cheapest one in case he looses it first week. When he was in second year, his classmates started teasing him about his cheap phone (what – even no camera!) and he then unsuccessfully tried to break it so that we could buy him a new one – we did’t – instead we taped the broken key. Now he is in his third year and still with the same mended phone (it has turned out that he doesn’t loose his belongings) while his calssmates are sporting iphones,ipads etc but by now he doesn’t mind…. we have offered to give him better phone (we have upgraded ours, so there’s quite many to choose from) but he does’t want any….but this took about 2 years of talking and explaining. I think this whole brand cult is coming from home- we don’t talk about brands (even when we buy them) but my son’s mate proudly pointed out at carpooling the he’s got rossignoli gloves…honestly I find it quite amusing
If it were something expensive, like a phone, I would definitely stand my ground and refuse to buy him one ‘just because his friends have it’. You have done a great job!
As for naming brands – we don’t generally do it either, but the kids do know their Star Wars characters and Ben10 and Super Mario, etc. When it comes to clothes I’m not telling them that most of them come from Mothercare :D
I love these little dialogues with your kids! More of these please!!!!
We had a similar issue with a drinking bottle and we finally got the one we were looking for. It took us two months to find it and I think I got more excited than she :D
And could you write more about your childrens PLAY pliis :)
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If we weren’t bothered by what people think though then we would do as we like all the time – which may mean things that are immoral, wrong, illegal.
Having a child who doesn’t fit in, and doesn’t know how to, even when being teased – is very sad to watch so I’d just be happy that he is belonging but whilst giving him a sense of it’s ok to have your own opinions.
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I wanted to comment when you wrote it but wasn’t sure what to say. This topic is SO important and interesting for me but at the moment I’m still an observer, my children are too young and at home with me, even no TV, so no bad influence. Ellen watches cartoons from Youtube, but I think she even doesn’t know she could ask a doll of some character etc.
I’m waiting for the time I can have these kind of conversations :)
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