Positive Peer Pressure |
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What shapes a child’s
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GENES
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- that’s nature
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Countless studies, theories, essays and more have been published on the influences that make a child the individual it will grow up to be. Which factors decide on the kind of woman or man it will be, what forms its character traits and its ability to manage life? We are convinced that the split of genetic, educational and environmental factors has
no given percentages - their powers differ from child to child. |
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We conducted a survey amongst members in 2011.
2017 and 2022 it was repeated with virtually identical results. One of the most important findings was the fact that an overwhelming majority of 92% of all mothers and fathers stated: “We want to create peer groups for our children that are mutually beneficial. We want to lift each other up.” Positive Peer Pressure means ...Expanding our kids' peer groups for wider mental horizons, a broader set of values and role models
Letting them grow up with friends who speak
other languages and live different lifestyles Raising them amongst passionate global citizens,
with plenty of mutual support and inspiration |
Judith Harris's big idea - namely, that peers matter
much more than parents - ran (in ‘98) counter to nearly everything that a century of psychology and psycho-therapy had told us about human development. Freud had put parents at the centre of the child's
universe, and there they had remained ever since. Steven Pinker, the renown psychologist,
wrote in his foreword to the book: “For one thing, the biological interests of
the parent and the child are not identical” ... “It makes sense that children should take their calories and protection from their parents, because their parents are the only ones willing to provide them, but that they should get their information from the best sources they can find, which might not (necessarily) be their parents.” 
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Peers are doubtless a very powerful force, their influence shapes a kid's definition of what’s cool and who’s a nerd, where it is desirable to belong and what can be safely dismissed as a waste of time.
In order to guide juvenile opinion-forming as subtly and efficiently as possible it is a good idea to look out for ways to influence who the peer groups are. Global Natives open up ways to create new circles of friends who help to ensure that youngsters end up neither lonely nor as part of a group of mindless trend followers. |
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