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For most of us, dealing with Nega ve Peer Pressure and Nega ve Personal Pressure is a life long ba le.
Nega ve Peer Pressure, is de ned as: other people trying to in uence you to do something, which is harmful to others, society or yourself.
Understanding this and dealing e ec vely with it is an obvious problem for most children. This fable illustrates di erent types of nega ve peer pressure with the characters, the Rabbit, the Owl and the Bull. You are able to observe this process in your home, the classroom and on the playground. Your child can become aware of this type of manipula on and can be helped to counteract it using some of the coping skills being taught in this program.
Of even more importance, par cularly as your children grow older, is internal version of this process called Nega ve Personal Pressure. This is when these “nega ve characters,” have become nega ve mental self-messages messages. When we no longer need another person to nega vely manipulate our behavior because we are doing it to ourselves.
The chronic underachiever has an “Owl” belief system about himself or herself. They tell themselves the same type of messages that the owl character told the girl in the story and as a consequence they avoid new, novel or di cult situa ons. The overly shy child has a “Bull” belief system and catastrophizes every situa on. They see disaster at every turn and believe that this danger should be avoided at all costs.
Most children have a combina on of these irra onal beliefs, which comprises their nega ve personal pressure. In some situa ons it is the Bull, in others the Owl, in s ll others the Rabbit.
You realize that it is this nega ve belief system at work, when the child is doing or not doing something when the opposite is obviously be er or easier and in their best self-interest. On those occasions, when you can’t understand why a child behaves in a manner that is contrary to common sense, realize that it is their Nega ve Person Pressure. You may have no access to nega ve self-talk and they may have very limited awareness of it.
Use your opportuni es to reinforce cogni ons and behaviors that address both external and internal nega ve pressures. The external is easier to address,
the internal is more important to address. Since you will have less access
to these internal pressures (beliefs), focus on the external situa ons and model appropriate thinking with the hope that it may generalize into a more appropriate rational belief system for them.
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