Yes, they do.

A few days ago, our little one came back home and telling me, “oh, Peter is going to Croatia for holiday, Maxi is going to Spain and Sara going to Slovenia; but i am not going anywhere. ”  With a bit disappointment. Oh, my child, at that moment I felt a bit amused and perplexed at the same time. To be honest, I am sure Zoey has traveled more places than any of her classmates; however at some points like this, she could not help comparing with others and definitely got influenced under the peer pressure.

I got to know that Serbia is having different holiday schedule than most western countries, at it celebrates Orthodox Christmas which is on Jan.7th, so the school will have a week holiday from Jan.1-5th, plus the following weekend.  So we decided to go somewhere else too, not because of the little one’s pressure, but we normally would go for trip with a longer holiday.  I told her that she can tell her friends that she is going to somewhere too.  She got excited and tried very hard to memorize the name of the place, and practiced more the next morning before going to school.

Like everything else, I believe the peer pressure for the young children can be good and bad. It can push them to learn something great from other kids, however can also lead to some unnecessary requests and hassle.  Parents now would need to think how to talk to our children on how different people can be, and what someone will do might not be the standard for others.  If you have any great ideas, please share with us. 🙂