Logos Academy Debate Team 2010

Logos Academy Debate Team 2010

Friday, November 6, 2009

Peer pressure or a real friend?



by Fernando Moya
A friend at least for me is very important and so essential in a teenager’s life; there are trust able persons and people that you can count on in every situation. I am so lucky and so happy that I have a lot of friends, I love them! But we should learn how to difference a REAL FRIEND from a not so good friend. In my school we have a subject that is name Creative Expressions and we had to investigate about alcohol, so I was goggling and I found interesting information about peer pressure on /www.mc.maricopa.edu/ says that:




"Come on, everyone else is doing it."

"Don't be a wimp."

"You dress like my parents."

"Come on, you never do anything wrong."



These statements and many more, are examples of peer pressure. But peer pressure can also be quiet and subtle. Kaplan says, "Teens who act a certain way because they believe their friends expect that from them are feeling peer pressures, whether or not the expectation is linked to a threat of being left out". Sometimes teens and their friends all want the same thing. At other times, teens act against what they privately want just to stay part of the group.

This makes teenagers sometimes do drugs or alcohol, I was amazed but it is true. Last Friday I went to a party and this friend of mine was smoking and to be sincere I had seen other friends smoking and I told them not to do that. Well the thing is that in this party this friend came to me and offered me cigarette so I can smoke a little bit. I can’t believe but in that moment I actually thought about it! Like I said to myself why not? But like 2 seconds later I said, "No, thanks". Thank God I am intelligent and I know how to make wise decisions but a person that is not feeling secure about himself or a person that just wants to fit in a group WILL TRY IT and that’s not good at all. People should not do drugs or alcohol just for having more friends or for making people like you. A real friend will like you the way you really are! If not, you are making a fake friend an unreliable one and, a friend that might take you to bad things. Teenagers should not be offering cigar rates to their friends like they are offering a glass of water. Let’s think about our friends and choose them correctly also if a friend is a having problem help him or her!

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

I like it very much. Almost every people smoke, drink or take drugs. We should take care of those false friends. We should be intelligent, take care, know the best for us. We should be obedient to our parents words: Take care. We should not be to crazy in parties or celebrations, dont follow the stream and think with your head

Anonymous said...

I agree with this article ...some teen do stuff just s¿to stay int heir groups...and some friends offer there friends ciggars....but you should never take them since their 'bad for you!!!...and if they have any drinking problems you should bea good friend and help them out!!

Melanie

Jackie said...

So, Fernando, how many true friends do we really have?? Topics like this one can help peer pressure stop! Let us know if you come up with tips to avoid peer pressure!

Anonymous said...

i think that is true and some times we follow what everybody do.
some times im not being a real friend because i also follow those easy and fun actitudes but then i realise and i try to change those bad actitudes because i now that im not being a good friend and maybe i can be destroyin someone´s life
Romina PAredes

Anonymous said...

the real friend is the one that you can trust and count with that person all the time, that you can have a conversation with that person not only about gossips or parties
alejandra lascano

Anonymous said...

I agree with you Fernando, I understand that choosing a friend is not always an easy job because most of the time we are pressured by the people which surround us.

Psicologically every human is born to be in company with somebody else, so once we start feeling alone, truoubles seem to become hard to go through and although we have to be with people we don't like at all, we prefer them instead of loneliness.
So what I could tell you because of my own experiences, is not to desperate and start to make a profit from the times when you're alone... met yourself. That always help

María José Jaramillo Mendoza

Anonymous said...

actually peer preasure is something that is there and some friends can be good peple but they do it without knowing, with this i ment to say that some people dont offer you drugs or alcohol because they want to harm you they do it because they like it and they think that you share the same intrests as them so they feel as if they are being generous to you , there will be people which will call friends that actually want to harm you and will do anything for you to try bad things in your life because of envy or social resentments but that why you have to be smartt enough to say no and keep going and dont need to foollow what other people wantt

valeria zavala