![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.highspeedtraining.co.uk\/hub\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/peer-pressure-1.jpg\")
<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\nChildren can be pressured to take part in dangerous challenges, to send inappropriate content, to dress a certain way, act a certain way or to adopt certain views and behaviours. When this pressure follows them from the classroom, to the playground, to their homes via social media, it can quickly become all consuming and overwhelming. For many young people it then becomes much easier to say yes in an attempt to find some respite from the relentless pressure or to feel a sense of community that may have been lacking up to that point. Peer pressure can be a form of child-on-child abuse<\/a> and it\u2019s power lies in a child or young person\u2019s desire to fit in. This need for belonging can make some students more vulnerable to peer pressure than others and less likely to question what they are being asked to do. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The consequences of negative peer pressure for children and young people can include:<\/p>\n\n\n\n There are a myriad of reasons why someone may succumb to peer pressure. These include, but are not limited to:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Children and young people are particularly vulnerable to peer pressure as their bodies and brains are still developing. This means that they are experiencing hormonal changes and developmental changes in the brain that can impact their impulse control and limit their ability to fully understand the consequences of their actions. This, coupled with pressure from peers, can make it hard for them to say no. Moreover, a natural curiosity to try and experience new things can make certain risky behaviour more appealing for children and young people, especially if their peers are already engaging in that behaviour. <\/p>\n\n\n\n As mentioned above, peer pressure can feel inescapable for children and young people. Social media has permeated into almost every aspect of our lives and children are not exempt from this. Students at schools without a clear mobile phone policy<\/a> are likely to access and utilise social media throughout the day. If this social media is being used to cyberbully<\/a> a student by peer pressuring them into doing something, the relentlessness of the pressure can make it feel impossible to say no. Furthermore, when children and young people have access to their phones, it\u2019s not just pressure from their peers that they are dealing with. Platforms such as TikTok<\/a> and Instagram are algorithmically designed to be addictive and show content based on previous content that has been engaged with. If a student has been pressured by their peers at school to engage in a certain trend, they are also highly likely to see that trend on their phones at the same time, making the pressure even harder to ignore when seemingly everyone is doing the same thing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Our CPD Courses for Teaching and Education<\/a> can boost your knowledge and provide you with the understanding to assist your students. Courses such as our Challenging Behaviour<\/a> and Child Mental Health<\/a> courses can provide you with the tools to spot signs of peer pressure and support students who may be struggling.\u00a0<\/p><\/div>\n\n\n\n Below you will find three examples of peer pressure scenarios that you may encounter at school. These scenarios have been created to help you understand the different ways that peer pressure can manifest and to highlight some of the warning signs that a child or young person is being subjected to peer pressure. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Scenarios can be useful hypothetical examples of how different issues may present themselves. You can find examples of safeguarding scenarios in education, here<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Maggie, aged 11<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n Maggie is an intelligent and academically gifted student who particularly excels in maths. Maggie has recently become friends with a new group of students who are not as invested in their education, rarely try as hard and at times actively disrupt class. Maggie is encouraged to join an extracurricular club to further develop her maths skills and prepare for an upcoming voluntary maths challenge that she signed up for. After inviting Maggie to join the club, she tells you that she needs to think about it for a bit and will give you her answer in a few days. You overhear Maggie talking to her new friends about joining the group and they clearly do not share her enthusiasm. When you mention the club to Maggie again, she tells you that she is no longer interested in joining or in participating in the maths challenge. Over the next few weeks you notice a significant change in Maggie\u2019s behaviour and attitude towards her studies, as her friendship with her new social circle grows.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n <\/div>\n Graham, aged 17<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n Graham is in his penultimate year of school. He has a lot of friends in the year above who have already turned 18 and will be heading to university soon. To make the most of the time that he has with them before they go their separate ways, he has been spending his weekends and school holidays hanging out with them. Many of Graham\u2019s friends drink and smoke and as they are already 18, they are able to legally purchase these items themselves. Graham neither drinks nor smokes and isn\u2019t interested in trying either. However, the more time he spends with his friends the more he is made to feel like the odd one out for not doing so. His friends imply that it will be hard to invite him to visit them at university if he doesn\u2019t drink or smoke, because he won\u2019t be able to partake in the socialising activities that they will be doing. They begin sending Graham videos of freshers week activities and different clubs in the cities they will each be travelling to, in an effort to show him how \u2018normal\u2019 drinking and smoking is. Graham, who is already worried about maintaining his friendships once his friends move away, decides to take up drinking so that his friends will continue to want to see him.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n <\/div>\n Fatima, aged 14<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n Fatima is a skilled sports person who exercises regularly and is on the school swimming team. As a result of this, Fatima has a stronger build than many of her peers. When a popular new film comes out, you notice that many students of a similar age have begun to idolise the main female character; so much so that they have started to style their hair in a similar way to hers. You notice that one group of girls have taken this idolisation a step further and are dieting so as to adopt the same physique as this character. These girls begin making comments about Fatima\u2019s body and how her sporty build is \u2018unattractive.\u2019 As some of the girls are also on the swimming team with Fatima, they begin offering her unsolicited advice on how she can change her physical appearance to be more \u2018attractive.\u2019 They begin sending her links to different websites and articles and making comments throughout practice on how she should adapt her moves to avoid \u2018becoming bulky.\u2019 Throughout this time Fatima continues participating in sports, however you notice that the type of sport changes and that her eating habits have also changed. Fatima now focuses more on cardio based exercises and avoids any sport that requires extensive upper body strength, such as swimming or rounders.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n\n There is an undeniable overlap between peer pressure and bullying and oftentimes peer pressure is used as a means to bully people. However, the insidious nature of peer pressure lies in the fact that it often comes from friends, making it harder to spot as a form of bullying. Peer pressure often occurs face-to-face and online with the pressure building up over time. If a student is pressured to do something whilst at school, it\u2019s highly likely they will continue to be pressured at home via social media, links they are sent or messages they receive. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In the scenarios above, each student was subjected to pressure from people they deemed peers. For Maggie, the pressure sought to get her to conform and adopt a similar attitude to her studies as her new friends. For Graham, the security of his friendship was brought into question for not partaking in the same activities as his friends. For Fatima, a socially popular trend resulted in her being pressured to change her physical appearance. Whilst there are elements in each scenario that are overt examples of peer pressure, it\u2019s important to remember that a lot of peer pressure can occur behind closed doors with no sign that it has happened until the pressure has worked. <\/p>\n\n\n Peer pressure can often consist of a series of seemingly innocuous behaviours that wear down a person\u2019s hesitation over time. In so doing, the conforming behaviour is normalised and the victims’ reasoning for refusal undermined. In the scenarios above, each student adopted uncharacteristic habits in order to fit in, however there would have been signs that this was happening before <\/em>the new habit was adopted. For example, with Fatima, changes in her eating habits and the sports in which she was willing to participate, are a clear indicator that some influence is being imposed on her choices. However, these signs are not always obvious nor do they occur where you can see them. For example, Graham socialising with his friends at the weekend is something that an educator is unlikely to know about unless concerns were raised about his behaviour in the week as a result. In this instance, it can therefore be much harder to spot signs of peer pressure as they do not pertain to the school environment or a student\u2019s studies. <\/p>\n\n\n\n As mentioned above, peer pressure is something that everyone experiences at various stages throughout their life. Whilst it\u2019s not possible to avoid peer pressure entirely, it is possible to provide children and young people with helpful guidance and support so that they can spot signs of peer pressure and ignore it where possible. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Below you will find some useful tips on what you can do to handle peer pressure in your school and support students who have been impacted by it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n As mentioned, peer pressure and bullying go hand in hand and peer pressure can be used to force a child or young person to take part in dangerous or illegal activity. If you have any concerns that this is happening, you must speak to your designated safeguarding lead as soon as possible. The suggestions above can help to reduce the overall impact of peer pressure and provide students with the tools to challenge it. However, if you think a student has been pressured into doing something unsafe, you must take immediate action and raise your concerns with the necessary party so that support can be offered to those affected. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Peer pressure can impact anyone at any stage of their life, however children and young people are particularly susceptible to it. A desire to fit in, a desire to try new things and low self-esteem can all contribute to someone\u2019s susceptibility to peer pressure. Celebrating individuality, fostering community and encouraging open communication are effective steps that you can take to counteract the negative effects of peer pressure in your school. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Children and young people are particularly vulnerable to peer pressure. Explore some peer pressure scenarios and how to handle the issue in your school here.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":72,"featured_media":79386,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[81,75,80],"class_list":["post-79355","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-safeguarding","tag-education","tag-safeguarding-children","tag-teachers-and-parents"],"acf":{"schema_disabled":false,"schema_properties_FAQPage_question_answer":null,"schema_properties_HowTo_howto_tools":null,"schema_properties_HowTo_howto_supplies":null,"schema_properties_HowTo_howto_steps":null,"schema_properties_WebPage_cssSelector":null,"schema_sameAs_repeater":null,"schema_custom_json_repeater":null,"schema_custom_json_override":false},"yoast_head":"\n\n
\n\n\n\nCauses of Peer Pressure in Schools<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\n
![\"Young](\"https:\/\/www.highspeedtraining.co.uk\/hub\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/peer-pressure-3.jpg\")
<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n![\"Expert](\"https:\/\/www.highspeedtraining.co.uk\/hub\/wp-content\/plugins\/hub-custom-blocks-plugin\/expert-tip-icon.png\"){kind=icon}
<\/div>Want to Learn More?<\/h3><\/div><\/div>
\n\n\n\nPeer Pressure Scenarios<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\n Scenario A
![\"drop](\"https:\/\/www.highspeedtraining.co.uk\/hub\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/down53.png\")
\n <\/h3>\n \n Scenario B
\n <\/h3>\n \n Scenario C
\n <\/h3>\n ![\"Young](\"https:\/\/www.highspeedtraining.co.uk\/hub\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/peer-pressure-2.jpg\")
<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n
\n\n\n\nHow to Handle Peer Pressure<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\nFurther Resources:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
\n