What is Peer Acceptance? Why is it important? What impact does it have on our children? This week we'll address these questions and talk about what exactly peer acceptance is. We'll explore the importance of peer acceptance on the mental, social and moral development of our children. We'll also look at what things affect peer acceptance. Why certain teens find it easier to gain acceptance than others. Why certain groups seem to naturally gather in their own groups and how to handle cliques and the lack of acceptance. We all yearn to be accepted. This week we discuss why, and why it benefits us.
An original podcast by a husband and wife team of self professed pop-culture geeks. It is a discussion about all things entertainment from movies and music to television and pop culture. We examine some of the more obscure aspects of the entertainment industry.
What is Peer Acceptance? Why is it important? What impact does it have on our children? This week we'll address these questions and talk about what exactly peer acceptance is. We'll explore the importance of peer acceptance on the mental, social and moral development of our children. We'll also look at what things affect peer acceptance. Why certain teens find it easier to gain acceptance than others. Why certain groups seem to naturally gather in their own groups and how to handle cliques and the lack of acceptance. We all yearn to be accepted. This week we discuss why, and why it benefits us.
An original podcast by a husband and wife team of self professed pop-culture geeks. It is a discussion about all things entertainment from movies and music to television and pop culture. We examine some of the more obscure aspects of the entertainment industry.
Insightful podcast by informative insights, a podcast network.
Speaker 2:[inaudible].
Speaker 3:Welcome to insights into teens, a podcast series, exploring the issues and challenges of today's youth. Your hosts are Joseph and Madison, Whalen, a father and daughter team making their way through the challenges of the teenage years.
Speaker 2:[inaudible]
Speaker 4:welcome to insights into teens. This is episode 55 peer acceptance. I'm your host, Joseph Waylon and my brilliant and insightful cohost Madison Rayland. How are you doing today, Maddie? I'm fine. Slightly freaked out by that stinkbug on the wall over there. It does have dimension that didn't have to know. It was just an added bonus. So today we are talking about peer acceptance. What is peer acceptance? Well, peer acceptance is the degree to which a child or adolescent is socially accepted by peers. It includes the level of peer popularity and the ease with which a child or adolescent can initiate and maintain satisfactory peer relationships. Some sort of similar to school drama. Wonderful. Well I think peer acceptance contributes to school drama for sure. Yup. So this definition comes from health of children.com and most of the notes that we're going to be working off of today, uh, come from the same origin. So a couple of things we're going to look at. We're going to look at what the importance of pure acceptance means to kids. We're going to look at what affects peer acceptance, uh, what affects peer assented acceptance with teens. Uh, hopefully by the end of the show we'll actually learn how to pronounce it correctly. Uh, and then we'll look at, uh, your closing remarks and shout outs. So it's, it's a fairly short one, but I think it's an important topic and I think we kind of have to address this in order to support some of the topics that are coming up that we want to talk about. So it's kind of a foundation relaying down here for some, some later topics, uh, ready to get into it. Okay. Don't worry about that. Stinkbug he doesn't eat much. So the importance of peer acceptance. So peer acceptance and relationships are important to social and emotional development. Would you agree with that?
Speaker 5:Um, yes, I would definitely agree with that. Pure acceptance is basically how you can find who your friends are. Um, but they also can have some negative impacts. But I guess we're just focusing on the positives as positive aspects right now.
Speaker 4:So let me ask you, um, do you think you are successful with peer acceptance? Are you happy with the level of peer acceptance that you have right now?
Speaker 5:Um, yeah, for my own personal benefit, yes, I'm fine with the peer acceptance. I definitely know other kids have higher levels, but honestly this level is perfectly fine for me,
Speaker 4:so. Okay. So, so they can offline. It's really, it's okay. We'll do a, a FSOs on stinkbugs next week. I think. Um, pure acceptance and friendship provide a wide range of learning and development opportunities for peers. And these include, um, companionship, recreation, building social skills, participating in group problem solving, managing competition and conflict, self exploration, emotional growth and moral and ethical development. Do you find that you get any all, some or none of those benefits from your peers?
Speaker 5:I definitely know I get most of those benefits and some of them come from group projects. Others just come from hanging out with some friends.
Speaker 4:So you were hanging out with friends today, aren't you? Yep. And this was more recreational than anything else, right? Yeah. So do you, let's talk, I'm going to go down the list real quick. So companionship. Do you get companionship?
Speaker 5:Yes, I do. Um, whenever I hang out with my friends or just sit with my one friend at lunch, um, we normally talk and discuss about what's been going on and then we'd discuss about other like crazy stuff that's going on and then, um, um, I definitely feel some convenience from it.
Speaker 4:Okay. Obviously recreation, you, you experienced that today have all building social skills?
Speaker 6:Mmm,
Speaker 5:some times. I mean, I have younger friends and I'm having the talk with them, helps me build, um, a way on how to talk to younger people because I definitely think I can, like whenever they have a small problem, I'm able to, um, comprehend the problem and hopefully find a solution for them. And then, um, basically I'm a, and I've done that over time and now if someone younger than me is struggling with something, I can always help them out. And even someone my age or even someone maybe even older when they're struggling with a problem, I understand, I can try and help them.
Speaker 4:That's a very good point. Peer acceptance is a two way street, so, so your peers benefiting from, uh, their relationship with you works just as well as you benefiting from others and you make a very good point. And that in dealing with, um, you know, friends that are younger than you, it gives you experience and problem solving for them and how you might be able to help others your own age cope with it. Yeah. Um, let's talk problem solving. How about participating in group problem solving? Do you, can you give an example of that?
Speaker 5:Uh, that's normally when we, um, are in projects and we figure out, well, group projects and we're like, okay, who does what? And whenever, like one of us, um, is having a problem looking something up or figuring out how to word something. One of, um, our group members will work on it with them.
Speaker 4:Okay. That's a, that's a good example. Um, the next one here is one that I know you've encountered a lot and, and we've talked about how the boys in your, your school tend to be very competitive, but have you found your peer engagements helping you to manage competition and conflict?
Speaker 5:Um, well let me just say two of my younger friends who I hang out with don't always get along. Um, they are constantly sort of arguing and it's like play fighting basically. So I normally after stop it and calm them down, um, and basically, um, the way I can cope, I've learned how to cope with it by just stepping back, taking a breather and trying to handle the situation in any way I can by either calming the, um, to the, to the, to my two peers down or just letting them set a load out and wait till they cool off.
Speaker 4:Okay. That's, that's certainly a good example. Self exploration. Now when they sell, say self exploration, what they're talking about here is do you learn more about yourself by interacting with other people? Maybe you see a reflection of yourself and others, maybe you learn to have patience with others. Is there a Zara benefit that you yourself are getting or learning about yourself through your peer interactions?
Speaker 5:Yeah, like whenever I hang out with my friends, um, I can learn how I can react in certain situations. Like if I'm, they're having troubles in[inaudible] having trouble in school or having trouble with their like with other, with some of their other friends or some of their classmates. I um, have found out and learned that, um, I myself am able to comprehend, um, certain solutions first, um, certain problems.
Speaker 4:Good. That's good. Uh, let's talk a brief moment about emotional growth. Do you find that you're able to grow and mature emotionally through your relationships with your other peers?
Speaker 5:I mean, definitely with my younger friends, I've definitely grown in maturity because I'm basically the oldest one and I have to be the one who stops them from doing stupid stuff basically.
Speaker 4:So you're kind of in that leadership role. Air just by dent of being older.
Speaker 5:Yeah. Um, and I've definitely learned how to be a bit more mature. Like, um, whenever my friends had trouble with homework, when I used to go to school with them, I would always, um, try to help them by explaining it to them, but in a way that they can actually understand it. And I also try to make it a bit fun since they're younger than I am and really don't like listening to a lecture.
Speaker 4:Uh, well yeah, I can certainly see that. And the last point that they make here is a moral and ethical development. Um, so do you find that in dealing with your peers, you seem to be developing your sense of right and wrong and, and no better, you know, either. And, you know, the thing is that your peers can serve as both good examples and bad examples. So if you have a, you know, a friend of yours who's always doing something big, you can learn from their mistakes. Right? Yeah. Do you find that you're benefiting morally and ethically from your peers?
Speaker 5:Um, yeah. Uh, whenever I, um, um, I don't have a specific example of this, but I definitely can benefit off of doing what learning what my friend, seeing how my friends act and seeing whether it's right or wrong and that's how I basically figure out the best solution in order to stop them from play fighting or you know, getting hurt.
Speaker 4:Okay. So the article goes on to say that parents, teachers and other adults are good source of social support for children, but it is among other children that kids learn how to interact with each other. Would you agree with,
Speaker 5:yeah. I mean like throughout your life you're basically going to be around many different people, but most of those people are probably going to be those who are similar in age to you. Like you're not going to just interact with your parent when you're like nine. You're not always going to interact with just your parents and teachers. You're also going to interact with children who are slightly older or younger and maybe even the same age as you.
Speaker 4:That's a very good point. So we'll come back and we'll talk about what affects peer acceptance on teens. So as you might imagine, you know, when we, when we first started talking about this and associating this with, uh, school drama and stuff, the popularity factor comes into play with pure acceptance. So one of the factors they talk about here as factors such as physical attractiveness, cultural traits and disabilities greatly affect the level of pure acceptance with a child's degree of social competence being the best predictor of pure acceptance. Have you found, um, these factors themselves, whether you're attractive or you are, have cultural traits that the norm, you know, the majority of kids, um, don't share. Uh, or do you see other kids that are kind of ostracized and shunned and not part of the in crowd as part of, as a result of these things, um, or kids with disabilities? Do you see them being excluded from a pure accepted group of people?
Speaker 6:Mmm,
Speaker 5:well I can definitely say that my one friend, um, in the beginning of school didn't have a good time because people were misusing, um, their pronouns and were making fun of them.
Speaker 6:Um, but, um,
Speaker 5:and, but they did have a good support system of people who would support them and eventually I joined him on that.
Speaker 4:Good. I'm glad to hear that. Uh, the article goes on to say that peer groups of adolescents, especially teens, are often based on athletics, social or academic interests and abilities on distinctions of race, ethnicity and social class and all proclivities such as drug use and delinquency. So what they're saying here is certain groups of people tend to congregate together, tend to flock data. So you'll have all the athletes in the jocks, you know, they're the, they're the ones that are in one crowd and yeah, all the smart kids are in another. And then all the, the outcast kid, the we, the, they used to be the smoking crowd, you know, they're in another one. Do you see, uh, cliques like this forming in school yet? Uh, where certain groups are people tending to congregate together and you're getting separation of these groups?
Speaker 5:Honestly, yeah. I mainly see it with the girls who, um, are pretty loud and outgoing. They seem to be together and all the quiet girls seem to be together. Um, I've honestly never thought that I was in any relation to my friends because, um, most of my friends aren't at the end. I'm not trying to be rude, but most of my friends, um, are not as similar to me. Um,
Speaker 4:academically speaking,
Speaker 5:I'm not trying to be rude, I promise.
Speaker 4:No, that's fine. You know, academically speaking, I think you, because you bring home straight A's, you probably are in a different category that way. But the fact that you still associate with the friends that you have who are not overachievers academically, I think, uh, kind of flies in the face of what some of these observations are.
Speaker 5:Yeah. But we, we also, um, I also encounter, I have a group of younger friends who are my neighbors coincidentally, and, um, um, we hang out like that. Honestly, there's not really many factors that bring us together. Um, there's only really a few things that bring us together. Like the fact that we are all fans of certain things. That's, but like, um, honestly worry, have all different personalities. But, um, we're, we all ended up still being friends and that's still a possibility. Like you can have like groups of people who like have pretty much similar personalities, but then you can have like a group of people who just have completely different personalities, completely different backstories and basically just for some reason they're just like, makes well together.
Speaker 4:Yeah. And that's, that's good to see. And I was one of those kids, you know, growing up through school, you know, I was the type of person who I kinda got along with everybody, you know, it was, you know, the, the athletes I could hang out with those guys or you know, the, I was in honor society so I could hang out with the, the smart kids. And I even got along with a couple of the, you know, what we would've called at the time, delinquents at the time, because there were certain hobbies that, that we had, you know, couple of the delinquents that we have were computer guys that, you know, I kind of got along with them for that. So I, I never really fell in with any one particular crown. I just, you know, I kind of Rose above all of that stuff and was able to get along with everybody, which I'll tell you later in life. And it helps to be able to do that, especially when you're in a divert and accompany with a diverse set of departments where you can actually interact with different departments and do it in a cooperative way.
Speaker 5:Yeah. Honestly, that's, um, kind of what I feel. I mean, I don't get along with everyone. I probably don't fit well with the athletes. I mean overall most people, most of my friends can say I have a pretty good personality. I'm not like, I actually don't have one kind of personality. I can be smart. I'm caring. I'm, I can also be a bit wild at times and crazy but
Speaker 4:and crazy.
Speaker 5:Yeah, you can sometimes see that. I can also be weird. I honestly have so many different personality traits like unfit on with almost everyone.
Speaker 4:You're a very complex person. Cool. So the article goes on to say, the teens who are pure accepted or popular have fewer problems in middle and high school and teens who are pure accepted, have fewer emotional and social adjustment problems as adults. Now I'm sure you're aware of, even though you might not associate with, I'm sure you're aware of some kids in school who probably aren't as pure accepted as you are or some of the other kids. Um, do the kids that are linked that, do you see them having any kind of, uh, emotional or social problems or run ins with teachers or discipline problems or any, anything along those lines?
Speaker 5:Um, well I'm, I'm not completely sure of this, but there is this one girl life sort of mentioned about on the podcast, never said her name before. Um, but she seems to qualify for some of those traits because you will actively try to talk to people. Um, she also doesn't have the best behavior because I've heard she's gotten a restricted multiple times, um, and detentions. Um, so I think she's not as pure accepted even though like the people she talks to, like they completely talked to her also. I've heard some people do call her annoying and she kind of is like, I have to be kinda honest there.
Speaker 4:So one of the other things that they do go on to say is that pure accepted teens may either be shy or assertive, but they often have well-developed communication skills. Now we've described you as pure accepted in the podcast so far. Do you feel you have well-developed communication skills?
Speaker 5:In a sense, yes. I can. Um, start, uh, well I can, I talk a lot in conversations, but I don't know why I can't start conversations. I just have this fear that I might be annoying someone if I started and unless they talk to me, um, I won't talk to them. I mean, except for my friends. That's the only occasion I can only talk to my parents, um, teachers and friends, um, without,
Speaker 4:and the millions of people who listen and watch the podcast on a weekly basis.
Speaker 5:E I'm pretty sure it's on a
Speaker 4:no, but you know, good advertising. So the uh, the article goes on to talk about a characterize some, some functions that these pure accepted teens tend to be more adept at. Wanna throw these at you one at a time and see what your reaction is. So the first one they say is that pure excepted children, uh, correctly interpret other children's body language and tone of voice? Well like children can distinguish subtleties in emotion. For example, they can distinguish between anger directed toward them and anger directed toward a parent. Do you feel you're able to read people's body language and tone of voice?
Speaker 5:Yeah, pretty much. Like whenever I can, like I can, like when I, my one friend, when we would go to school, she never had a good time in it. And whenever I could just like tell from her facial expression and just her movements that she had a bad day. And once we talk about it, she feels better. I don't know why I just have that superpower on seeing if my friends are down. Same with you guys. Like, like when I can tell you're angry about something, I can tell when mommy's a bit sad. I don't know why, but I can just tell when people aren't feeling good and I try to um, make them feel better.
Speaker 4:Okay. Well that's a good point. The article also says that pure accepted children, uh, directly respond to the statements and gestures of other children. Well like children will say other children's names, establish eye contact and use touch to get attention. And these are all communication skills that you tend to learn later in life when you're doing interviews or if you're working in any kind of customer facing position. When you communicate with someone, you learn to use their names and you know, when you're talking to them or they're talking to you establish eye contact, it makes you more engaging. Do you find that you tend to do that as well?
Speaker 5:Yeah, I mean, I know all my friends names. Um, yeah. Um, and I've actually seen that I can only really do eye contact with the people I've known more. Like whenever another student tries to talk to me, who I don't know that well, like even like the teachers on the first day of class, like I just couldn't do eye contact with them and I just felt like weirded out. Like one time when we were in ELA, my one teacher was like staring at me and I was like, I had no idea what the heck was going on. And like I just got nervous. I thought I did something wrong. And eventually after like a minute, she looked away and I'm just like, what the heck goes[inaudible]
Speaker 4:Hey, you blinked first. I win.
Speaker 5:Honestly, I'm just, I'm still wonder why she did that. I don't know if she was looking directly at me or at the board behind. I don't know. But, um, yeah, I can't stand eye contact with people who, I don't know that well. Like I'm D I, I'm literally looking at your eyes right now and I don't feel weird. I don't really, I honestly don't feel weird. Whenever I look at my friends, um, my parents and even some of my teachers, but people I don't know, I can't do eye contact with.
Speaker 4:So peer accepted teens, uh, often give reasons for their own statements, gestures and actions, for example. Well lay children will explain why they want to do something. Uh, the other child does not want to do. So if you're, uh, hanging out with a friend of yours and you want to, uh, and I'll go have a catch and they want to go play video games, a well-liked child, and, and it's almost, it's almost as though they learn the art of manipulation of human manipulation by giving a sales pitch as to why you should do what I want to do. Um, do you, do you find yourself doing those things?
Speaker 5:Um, I mean, sometimes I give reasoning on like funny stuff to do with my friends. Um, and also like sometimes whenever we're talking about problems, I give them reasoning on like an action that they could take. But yeah. So yeah, I've kind of done that. I don't do it very often. I only do it with like certain situations.
Speaker 4:So the last one that they have here is that a pure accepted teens cooperate with show tact towards and compromise with other children, demonstrating the willingness to subordinate themselves by modifying behavior and opinions in interest of others. So what they're saying here is if you have a couple of your friends and they all want to do something different than you do, um, you'll cooperate. You'll do what the group wants to do for the greater good of the group instead of just being selfish. Is that something that you tend to do?
Speaker 5:Yeah. I never liked being selfish. Um, whenever anyone else in the group just wants to do something and I don't really want to do it or don't understand how to do it all agree with it, just so that, um, they honestly don't feel bad and think I'm a, Oh, I'm a mean person.
Speaker 4:Okay. Well that's a very good point. So they also give characteristics, contrast and characteristics of uh, children that are less pure accepted or they, in this case here they say rejected. But I think that's a little strong. Um, so I want you for the next couple of items here. I wanna I'm going to go through the list here and I want you to hold your thoughts for a moment. Think of the kids that you think are not pure accepted and then see if these apply to them. Uh, they tend to be aggressive, antisocial, withdrawn, exhibit depressive behavior. They don't listen well. They tend not to offer reasons for their behavior. They don't positively, positively reinforce their peers. They have trouble cooperating, they interrupt people, they dominate other children and the either verbally or physically attack them. Do you see any of those qualities in the kids that you know that are not pure accepted?
Speaker 5:Going back to the one girl I was talking about, I think about half of those kind of contribute to her mainly. Um, the ones about interrupting and showing ne, um, not showing positive, um, emotions toward their peers. Um, basically a few of the things like, um, um, let's say doesn't cooperate very well. That's one. Um, doesn't listen. Um, yeah,
Speaker 4:cause one of the, I'll tell you one of the other things that this list is indicative of is a lot of these can be attributed to bullies. They're aggressive, they're antisocial, um, they dominate other children. Uh, so I think it might be, uh, accurate to say that children who are not pure except it can often become bullies. Uh, so that's another conclusion to that cause and you think about it, there's a certain logic to it. So if the, if the popular groups out there aren't accepting of you, you'll make your own group and you'll do that through bullying other people to be part of your group. Because if you make them afraid of you, um, you can control them and, and basically produce the group that you want for yourself.
Speaker 5:And this can also end up turning, not being good for themselves as well, making them think that humanity doesn't accept them causing other problems. I'm not going to go into detail.
Speaker 4:And it's funny that you say that because there's a couple of, of effects that this has in this study here. They say that depressive or withdrawn children may be excessively reserved, meaning they're not outgoing and also they can't even hold a conversation. And if you can't hold a conversation in school, you're not going to function very well when you get out in the real world. Yeah. They could be submissive, so they lack the ability to stick up for themselves. They could be anxious and they could be inhibited, you know, in, in how they conduct themselves. So you're right that if, you know, society in general, if we, if we exclude people because of how they look or culturally, you know, what their religion is, what their, their ethnicity is. If we're excluding these people, we're, we're part of the problem at that point. You know, as a society we have to be a little bit more inclusive. Um, and there are people out there who have a difficult time socializing. Yeah. I mean, you have to keep that in mind too. And I think, and you don't necessarily have the caudal everyone, but sometimes you see someone needs a little bit of help. You know, it's, it's human nature to want to help people. Um, and ultimately in the long run we benefit from helping other people and the people that we help benefit from an also in society in general does. So that was really all I wanted to talk about today with peer acceptance. Uh, we'll come back and we'll get your closing remarks then. Any shout outs that you might have yo with your closing remarks. Sorry. That's okay. You can talk smash all you want.
Speaker 5:Seriously. Alrighty. So pure acceptance, hopefully something we can all experience. Um, peer acceptance can have a big impact on our personality and how we interact with others. Peer acceptance basically is something that we are all gonna need. Um, especially in the real world. You learn it in school, you gained it in school and hopefully in the real real world it'll help you in the long run.
Speaker 4:Okay. That was short and sweet. Uh, any shout outs today?
Speaker 5:I'm just going to give a shout out to everyone who's accepted me for who I am, mainly my friends, family and my teachers. I thank you all. Um, and I'm definitely glad I haven't been neglected.
Speaker 4:Okay, very good. Well, that was all we had for today. Uh, before we go, we'll give you some, uh, contact information. Uh, we'd love to hear from you, any comments, suggestions on the show, feedback, uh, anything like that. You're going to email us@commentsandinsightsintothings.com. You can get us on the web@wwwdotinsightsintothings.com. You can get all of our video podcasts@wwwdotyoutubedotcomslashinsightsintothingsyoucangetouraudiopodcastsandpodcastinsightsintoteens.com. You can get us on Facebook at facebook.com/insights into things podcast and you can hit us up on Twitter at insights underscore things and you,
Speaker 5:and you can also get us on Twitch.
Speaker 4:Oh, right. A Twitch because I'm assuming everyone's watching it right now, but you're not going to be, so it's twitch.tv/insights into things.
Speaker 5:Um, and then you can find our other two podcasts and said to no entertainment hosted by you and mommy and insert in a tomorrow on monthly podcast hosted by you and Sam. Also did you mention about our website?
Speaker 4:I did mention the website. Okay, cool. I didn't think you did it. I ran through all that real fast. Yeah. All right. Uh, that's it. We're done. Another one of the books. Bye.