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greatest danger in life especially for students is to lose your purpose of life and direction because you hang around with the wrong people. So many people have found themselves on the wrong end of the things they wanted to do in life or they wanted to become rather, because of the company they had.
“C’mon. Everyone’s doing it, so why shouldn’t you?” is a common phrase among teens. Say you’re invited to a party where you know there will be alcohol or drugs; a friend decides to skip class or someone offers you a cigarette. It is very difficult to say no especially if that is the group you spend most of your time with. So the best thing is to leave that company.
At some point, everyone has the desire to fit into a group. If you’re interested in sports, you might hang out with those who are also interested in sports. If you’re interested in music, you spend time with others who enjoy music. You belong to that group, and feel secure when you’re part of it. The group identifies who you are and what you’re about.
Since the idea of belonging to a group is rife in teens, it is therefore advisable to try as much as possible to hang around with the company that won’t influence you into losing focus as well as fail to realise goals.
Munashe from Mandara said: “We are a product of who we spend most of our time with.
“The most dangerous thing for us is then to spend time with bad company because the effect of peer pressure cannot be underestimated.”
Farai from Ellis Robins Boys High also reinforced that same idea. “Spending most of your time with a group of your friends is all right.
“You must also understand your patterns of thought, your activities as well as the way you carry yourselves become more or less the same.
“The danger then comes when the group is the wrong type of friends, because you will participate in the bad things they do. It is therefore wise in school to try very much to associate with positive elements around school, that way you will save yourself a lot of trouble.”
Marian from Eaglesvale High said: “In life people must associate themselves with positive energy, not only students but all people in general, the closer you hang around who are negatively minded, that is the more you will also act like them.”
She further added that the reasons people stick to a particular group or stick to their old friends is because they feel left out when they stop hanging around with the old friends.
Parents must also try to scrutinise the type of friends their children hang around with. Parents must encourage their children to bring their friends in. This way you will be able to monitor your child’s friends’ behaviour.
Parents must also try to have open communications lines with their children as well as their children’s friends.
Mrs Makoni from Budiriro said: “A long time ago I had problems with the group that my son hangs around with, because once he started hanging around with them his grades started dropping, I tried to tell him to stop hanging around with them but he couldn’t listen to me.
“Then I invited him and his friends for lunch one Saturday afternoon. From that very day things changed, we talked a lot that day,” she said. “Ever since that day it’s been almost six years now my son’s friends are like my very own children, the other one is now an engineer in France and the other one is an accountant.”
“I am glad to say I saved the futures of three boys when they were still young. When children are young they are misguided and need guidance, and I rescued them with that Saturday lunch six years ago,” she added.
So parents need to be friends with their children. That way they also get involved in the activities that their children are doing, they also get to win the children’s friends’ trust.
Research suggests that children do not normally want to disappoint people who believe in them, trust them as well as those they trust in return.
Online Reporter