Positive Peer Influence

I had a very interesting conversation Sunday with a preteen, Ross, who is new to our group.  The conversation was a reminder of how peer influence can be positive.  But the story doesn’t start with him.  It starts with Matthew, a 5th grader in the group.

The first time I noticed Matthew his neck and face were red hot and was screaming at another preteen.  He was upset about a seemingly insignificant thing.  After a few minutes away from everyone, he cooled down joining the rest of the group.

But it was just the beginning.  Just about every week, he would erupt in anger.  It was a regular event often happening at the most random times making everyone else feel uncomfortable and confused.  He was also emotionally distant from the rest of the group. Others reacted to him much the same way.  They kept their distance.  They often made fun of him and had a general bad attitude towards him.  They quickly have him negative social status.  Despite our efforts, they simply did not accept him.

Then came Winter Camp.  Matthew was there and had regular freak out episodes.  But a major breakthrough was right around the corner.  The outbursts became normal behavior.  The group saw that he wasn’t going to rip anyone’s head off and after a few minutes he was okay.  So, they begun to tolerate his behavior.  They were beginning to accept him and he felt it.  The outbursts lessened over the weekend.  He was making friends and they actually thought he was an overall cool guy.

After camp, everything changed.  Matthew was accepted by his peers.  They were now his friends.  He was engaged in large group and had thoughts to share in small group.  His outbursts were less frequent.  And when they did occur, everyone just dealt with it.  Matthew’s behavior didn’t confuse or make others feel uncomfortable anymore.  The group now had a positive attitude towards Matthew.

Now enters Ross, a newcomer, who didn’t go to camp.  Ross is cool well liked by his peers.  Even though he is new, within a few short weeks he somehow is Mr. Cool and very influential within the group.  He thinks Matthew is odd and sort of crazy.  Even starts to make fun of him and loudly complains about his behavior.  He tries to tip the group to be negative towards Matthew again.  But they don’t budge.  They’ve crossed the tipping point.  Ross senses that something is different about this group.  They won’t make fun of Matthew.  He seems to not have influence over the group in this area.  I have a conversation with him asking him to bring out the best in Matthew not the worse.  Take the group’s influence over Ross out of the equation and my conversation with Ross wouldn’t have been effective.  He would have run the show.  I simply gave him the little extra push over the edge.  Ross seems to have gotten the message and is changing his attitude and behavior towards Matthew.   A great example of positive peer influence.

We all want our preteen ministry to be a place of positive peer influence.  Not simply a place we teach love and acceptance, but a place we inspire each other to live it.  A place where preteens actually pray for one another and care about each others problems.  A place where living outside of God’s ways actually is looked down upon.  Not in a legalistic way, but in a healthy way.  A place where it isn’t cool to curse or put others down.  A place where preteens are doing life together with God in the picture.  Stories like Ross and Matthew are signs that we’re on the right path.