How to Teach a Child Not to Be Influenced by Others

Educating children so that they don't allow themselves to be influenced by others should be a priority for parents. Learn how.

Without realizing it, we raise our children to be influenced by us, which ends up being part of their lives. Usually, we’re not bothered when the little one grows up in the shadow of our influence. But it’s something that should begin to worry us at a certain stage of their life. A child who’s easily swayed at home may carry this weakness elsewhere.

Some children are sufficiently independent from an early age, something that sometimes makes their parents lose patience. Others allow themselves to be guided without objection and almost never assert their opinions… Although at home this encourages a proper parenting process, it could be harmful, because the child may be repressing their feelings or be too easy to manipulate as a person.

Educating a child not to be influenced by others should be a task that occupies us from the first stages of independence, especially if we’ve already seen signs of weakness in these cases. We know that some influences can be positive, which is why it’s something that education must complement, teaching them to distinguish the good from the bad.

Peer pressure

Peer pressure is a main element for a manipulation system to unfold. Many children have the need to join groups that may not favor them. At the same time, there are children with innate leadership skills, which are capable of subduing other equals to their will.

At the same time, those children who are used to being led by their parents or siblings are more likely to suffer this submission as well. Perhaps the group isn’t bad at all, but the disadvantage of these is undoubtedly that they pressure their members to do the same things (which may not be to everyone’s liking).

In this sense, many of the children belonging to the group allow themselves to be influenced by the ideas of the leader, in order to be accepted and avoid the reproaches that may occur. In this regard, these impositions may lead to potential behavior problems and actions that are out of order or even illegal.

Educating a child not to be influenced by others

Although influences can be good or bad, depending on the values that the child obtains at home, they’ll be able to better avoid the lurking of bad influences. Teaching children to express their own criteria and promote their self-esteem along with critical thinking are the main tools to help them not be influenced by others.

In this sense, it’s essential for children to be educated with very clear values, knowing how important it is to enhance their worth from an early age. Their own opinions and desires must always be taken into account.

Recommendations

Next, we’re going to give you some keys so that you can teach your children, on a daily basis, ways to avoid being influenced by others, thus enhancing their own criteria in different situations in life.

• Encourage their sense of belonging so that their feeling of adaptation and positive assessment of what they have grows.
• Genuinely care about their behavior and the red flags they might be giving off.
• Teach them to be responsible for their actions and seek approval for their actions before executing them.
• Show interest in their things and let them know that they have our unconditional support.
• Value their opinions and respect them as independent individuals.
• Teach them to negotiate and develop leadership elements.
• Stimulate their autonomy. This can be achieved by assigning them responsibilities that they’re able to fulfill.
• Promote values from home in order to be able to distinguish positive attitudes from negative ones.
• Encourage them to share their experiences, talk about their friends, tell how they’re doing in school, and what things are fun for them.
• Avoid confronting them so that they distance themselves from certain friends or being very critical of them, as this is something that could make them more defensive and uncompromising about it.
• Develop their self-esteem and self-confidence, as this will help them to be more independent when moving away from the influence of others.
• Promote proper communication between the child, parents, and teachers, so that they can feel confident to talk about their problems and clarify their doubts.
• Try not to compare or criticize the manifestation of their personality, because this could create a certain rebellion that involves the relationship with children that are different from them.
• Guarantees proper rest and recreation, enrolling them in extracurricular activities that are aimed at strengthening their values, companionship, and integral development.