Mum's Diary: Peer Pressure

Transiting to Primary One is a big deal for kids. It's the beginning of formal education in Singapore and for many of the kids, it's their first encounter with serious and intensive studying. Apart from the kid feeling the stress and heat, the parents usually get stressed up and nervous as well, especially if it's the first time for them. I started this series to document the chronological order of events, my intimate thoughts and emotions on this journey, and it will continue until Joey settles down in Primary One. Hopefully, as we go along, the posts would become more and more positive and encouraging. I do believe in that. :)

Monday
28 Jan 2013
10.30pm

Peer pressure is a scary thing.

I remember a period in my life when my friends meant the world to me and I would do absolutely anything just to blend in with my gang of friends. If they were into branded bags, I would follow suit. If they ate at expensive restaurants all the time, that was what I would do too. That happened to me during my secondary school days.

My dad was very relaxed in money matters with me. I could ask him for $50-$100 to buy a new bag every week and there would be no questions asked. At that time, my friends were crazy over ELLE bags and between us, we had every style, shape and pattern of bags produced by that brand. I am definitely not that relaxed in terms of money with my own kids now because easy money is not a good thing. Thankfully, we were not bad kids. In fact, we continued to do well in our studies every year. Our only shortcoming then was our obsession with branded bags and poor management of finances. I outgrew it immediately when I graduated from Secondary School, and since then, I've never been particularly fond of branded stuffs.

Peer pressure used to be part and parcel of teenage life, but things are definitely different now. At Primary One, Joey is already experiencing peer pressure and from the way it's progressing, it's only going to get more and more intense.

She came home one day last week and told us that she wanted to get a chain to connect her wallet to her skirt so that she wouldn't lose her wallet. The chain can be bought from the school bookshop at $1.50 (You see, she's even checked out the price). The main reason why she needed to get it was because ALL HER CLASSMATES HAVE IT. Well, I seriously don't think everyone in her class has got it of course, but since we thought it is quite a useful thing to have, seeing how she always misplaces stuffs, we gave her the money and she went to buy it.

Joey bought it, came home and really excitedly showed it to us. To Joey, it is such a beauty and a bridge between her friends and her - something common they all have. She even said she chose the design with three shades of colour. =.= We obviously have very different tastes.

With the springy connector linking her wallet to her dress now, I dare say she has this air of confidence in her now. There is a skip in her footsteps.

 

 

This might be peer pressure in a mild form. The scariest kind of peer pressure would be that from exam results. I totally understand how that works - As a student, I used to compare results with my friends and if I didn't do as well, I would feel horrible that whole week. Kids have this need to compare to know where they stand. But unless you are always the top student everywhere you go, there are bound to be times when you would get disappointed. While it is important to do the best and get good results, I certainly do not want Joey to have an overly competitive attitude. That would rob away the joy of learning, and make everything seem like a task - Certainly not what I hope to see.