Peer pressure is when "friends" persuade your child to do something that your children do not want to do. Or maybe your child want to do it, and he/she just don't have the courage to do it and their friends talk them into it. Peer Pressure can be broken down into two areas; good peer pressure and bad peer pressure.

The pressure of doing something in which your child is not comfortable with doing it such as shoplifting, doing drugs or drinking, taking dangerous risks when driving a car is termed ass bad peer pressure. But peers have a profoundly positive influence on each other and play important roles in each other's lives which is called good peer pressure such as

• Positive Examples. Peers set plenty of good examples for each other. Having peers who are committed to doing well in school or to doing their best in a sport can influence your child to be more goal-oriented, too.
• Encouragement. Peers encourage each other to work hard, to get the solo in the concert, help study, listen and support when you're child is upset or troubled, and empathize with them when they've experienced similar difficulties.
• Good Advice. Peers often give each other good advice.
• Feedback and Advice. friends listen and give feedback as your child try out new idea, explore belief, and discuss problems. Peers can help make decisions, too: what courses to take; how to handle a family argument or the things in which a teen don’t feel comfortable talking to their parents.

But what to do if your teen is having a bad peer pressure. Here are some tips for you:

• Talk to your teen. State clearly that you do not have a problem with their friends as people. You understand that that your teen’s friends can make mistakes – just like your teen made a mistake. But you do have a problem with the risk-taking behavior and there needs to be a change on your teen’s part and on their friend’s part in order for you to be comfortable with them hanging out again
• Open up the lines of communication with the other parents. Let them in on what is going on so that there is no miscommunication happening. Keep in mind that everyone has their own perspective, so there is no need to argue any points on who may have done what. Simply let them know that you are an involved parent and you wish to be informed if your teen is mixed up in any more harmful behaviors.
• Build an action plan with your teen. Address changing the behaviors that are concerning you in the plan and allow your teen to come up with different options to these behaviors. Learn more about the problem behavior and use your discipline skills as necessary. Limit your teens unsupervised time with the friends that were involved until you feel comfortable to slowly give back more of these privileges. You will need to be more involved with your teen at this time and offer more supervised activities with their friends.
• Take caution: don’t allow your teen to place all of the blame at their friend’s feet. This is an easy out and may be the way to even bigger problems for your teenager down the road. Even if your teen’s friend was 90% accountable for the misbehavior, you still need to hold your teen accountable so that he can actively deal with the problem and move on. Part of learning how to make the right choices is learning how to deal with mistakes.