Kick Peer Pressure with Martial Arts

Kick Peer Pressure with Martial Arts

 written by: Bruce McCorry's Martial Arts

If you ask a child psychologist or educationist about the prime factor that pushes a kid to risky behavior, he/she is sure to name peer pressure. It is clinically shown that by the time children are in the middle school, gradually the influence that parents or adults hold over them diminish. Instead, what their friends and peers think of them becomes important. Parents have to be aware of the pitfalls of peer pressure to help kids through it.

Getting to Know Peer Pressure 

From the age of seven to the late teens, every child goes through a socially vulnerable phase where it becomes important for them to fit in, win social approval from their peers and be popular among them. The core of the peer pressure mentality is the inability to say no to the peers even if the child might know that they are up to potentially risky behavior. Anything that a peer picks up from a movie or an older kid might become a fad and lead your child to the same path, potentially destructive. This might include serious behavioral problems such as cheating, bullying, and trying out smoking, alcohol or drugs. In short, peer pressure can wreck every effort you put into right parenting from the time your child was born.

 Dealing with Peer Pressure through Martial Arts

As parents you can help your child to resist peer pressure in many ways: 
* By developing a comfort zone with your kid where he/she can tell anything to you
* By taking it coolly if you come to know of a peer pressure situation
* By getting to know your kid’s friends
* By trying to tell them the difference between what is cool and what is risky. 

But all this might potentially backfire as this is a phase where kids might be naturally hostile to the parents. The child might cut off completely from you if he/she feels that you are overreacting or stalking them. 

A more effective way would be to put your child in a positive hangout where he/she will get to learn the right path from a source other than family. A great example is a martial art school. Training at a positively oriented martial art school like Bruce McCorry’s Academy is an example of how martial arts can help your child to resist peer pressure in the following concrete ways:

1. Martial art teaches your kid to stand up for what they believe is right and defend themselves from peers and bullies

2. It gives them the courage to say no to negativity and face the consequences 

3. It gives them a positive act to channelize their energy 

4. A martial art school acts as a positive peer group that can counteract the negative peer influence

5. Martial arts gives your child an alternate way to be cool and popular among peers and they no more have to subject themselves to peer pressure to feel belonged

6. Above all, martial arts will teach them that to be truly cool is to be independent of others’ ideas


Parental advise can only last as long as the children step out of their home. But martial arts stay with them when they are actually put through a peer pressure situation. Make the choice and help your child to kick peer pressure with martial arts.

   Choose Bruce McCorry's Martial Arts - Peabody MA

www.brucemccorrys.com