bad influence of friends essay

Essay on Effect of Bad Friends

Students are often asked to write an essay on Effect of Bad Friends in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

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100 Words Essay on Effect of Bad Friends

Introduction.

Friends are an essential part of our lives. They influence our behavior and decisions. Bad friends, however, can have a negative impact on us.

Effects on Behavior

Bad friends can lead us to adopt harmful habits. They may encourage lying, cheating, or even bullying, which can harm our character.

Impact on Academics

Bad friends might not value education. They could distract us from our studies, leading to poor academic performance.

Influence on Mental Health

Being with bad friends can cause stress and anxiety. It can lead to a feeling of constant pressure to fit in.

250 Words Essay on Effect of Bad Friends

Friendships, an integral part of human life, significantly influence one’s personality and life choices. However, not all friendships are beneficial. The negative impact of bad friends can be profound and long-lasting, affecting various aspects of one’s life.

Psychological Impact

Bad friends can have a detrimental psychological impact. They may encourage harmful behaviors such as substance abuse, bullying, or dishonesty. Such behaviors can lead to feelings of guilt, anxiety, and low self-esteem. Moreover, they can distort one’s perception of normality, making harmful behaviors seem acceptable.

Academic Consequences

Bad friends can also affect academic performance. Students may be persuaded to neglect their studies in favor of unproductive activities. This can lead to poor academic performance, limiting future opportunities and career prospects.

Social Implications

The social implications of bad friendships are significant. Bad friends can isolate individuals from their families and positive peer groups, leading to a sense of alienation. This isolation can further exacerbate negative behaviors and mental health issues.

In conclusion, bad friends can have a devastating impact on an individual’s psychological well-being, academic performance, and social life. It is crucial to recognize the signs of a toxic friendship and take steps to distance oneself. After all, the quality of friendships is more important than quantity. Choosing friends wisely is not just about personal happiness, but also about mental health and future success.

500 Words Essay on Effect of Bad Friends

The psychological impact.

Bad friends can have a significant psychological impact. Often, they are manipulative and exploit vulnerabilities for personal gain, leading to a decrease in self-esteem and self-worth in the victim. This manipulation can result in feelings of worthlessness and a distorted self-image. Additionally, bad friends can foster a toxic environment that fuels anxiety and depression, leading to a decline in mental health.

Influence on Behavior and Decision Making

Friends play a substantial role in shaping an individual’s behavior and decision-making process. Bad friends can lead one down a path of destructive behaviors, such as substance abuse, academic dishonesty, and criminal activities. The desire to fit in or gain approval can make one susceptible to peer pressure, compelling them to make poor decisions that they might not have considered otherwise.

Impact on Personal Growth and Development

Effect on other relationships.

The influence of bad friends extends beyond the individual, affecting their relationships with others. Their toxic behaviors can strain relationships with family members and other friends, leading to isolation. Additionally, they can instill negative perceptions of others, causing one to develop unhealthy relationships based on distrust and manipulation.

The impact of bad friends is far-reaching, affecting psychological well-being, behavior, personal growth, and other relationships. It is crucial to recognize the signs of a bad friendship and take steps to distance oneself from such toxic influences. Building a network of positive, supportive, and uplifting friends can counteract the negative effects and promote healthier emotional and social development. As the saying goes, we are the average of the five people we spend the most time with, so choosing our friends wisely is of paramount importance.

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Bad Friends (Essay Sample)

Table of Contents

Introduction

Ever experienced connecting so well with someone, only for it to turn out into a bad friendship?

We have all had our share of good friends and bad friends. If there is a toxic friendship you are currently struggling with, read this essay and see if these descriptions add up. For your sake and the sake of everyone around you, minimize the negative impact of this relationship by saying goodbye to it.

Writing a descriptive essay on good friends and bad friends, too? Browse through our website for essay examples, or reach out to us for essay writing services.

Essay on Bad Friends

A true friend is someone very difficult to find. This is because a friend needs to be someone you can always count on or rely on in times of trouble, just like they would rely on you if faced with the same situation.

It can be said that a good friend is someone who draws out positive emotions from you, such as affection and respect. However, not everyone you meet in life is a friend for keeps. There are also fake friends, most of whom would surround you and pretend to be good while secretly doing everything for personal gain.

Bad friends pretend to care for you. However, when you are not around, they will turn around and gossip about you with the intention of starting drama. It is thus important for one to differentiate a great friend from a bad one.

A true companion needs to be a person one can look up to. Traits such as trustworthiness, kindness, dependability, and loyalty are what makes a good friend. A good example of a rock-solid friendship is the one described by Mark Twain’s “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.”

In the story, one will see how Huck and Jim always stuck together, even though society looked down on Huck for befriending a slave. The firm foundation of their friendship superseded social norms. The situation would not have been the same if Huck was not a true friend.

A bad friend will always take advantage of your kindness. They will only want you to do things that they feel are fun, but you will not see or be able to contact them whenever you need them. They will only want to hang out with you when they feel that they can use you to their advantage.

A bad friend does not keep a secret. They will always be talking to someone at school or in the neighborhood, spilling all your personal thoughts. This means that they are hard to trust. They will manipulate the truths you tell them in order to make others dislike you. Usually, there is a personal motivation to cast you in a negative light. Others, because of jealousy, will do this with the intention to hurt you or someone else.

When your trust in them becomes a blind spot, you may not be aware of their hidden agenda. For example, when pressed with a problem, you might approach them for advice. However, they will knowingly give you bad advice. They may convince you that they support you by being nice to you, but you will begin to realize that the advice they are dispensing is not actually the best. In fact, following their counsel will cause a lot of problems for you, be it socially, academically, or professionally. 

In addition, fake friends will always take advantage of you in any situation. For example, if you win the lottery, he or she will make sure you have spent the money to the last dime without giving you advice on how to invest. They will only be there in good times, but run away from you when you need them.

It is always good to weigh out the positive and negative effects of the people you live or socialize with before you decide to call them friends. The above descriptions could be a good starting point in solidifying those filters for evaluation.

If you have had several encounters with not-so-true friends in the past, I hope you don’t lose hope just yet. Sometimes, it takes us a while to find people who we want to keep in our lives. On the other end of the spectrum, if you have old friends you have somehow drifted apart from and miss, don’t pass up the chance to make them an important part of your life again.

A secure and empowering friendship is always worth every effort you put into it. Just as it takes two people to make a relationship, it also takes the same two to break one. Be wary of bad influences around you that could peer-pressure you into jeopardizing the great friendships you are already blessed to have. Stick to your tribe in both good and tough times.

Good Friends And Bad Friends (Short Essay Sample)

One of the most popular topics people discuss is friendship. Whether it’s our amazing best friends who are there for us through thick or thin or that dreadfully bad influence we had to get rid of, it would be hard to run out of stories about the many friendships that have affected our lives.

Many of us have experienced a fake friendship. These are connections with people who have the ability to hurt us because most of the time, we don’t see them coming. In the beginning, they always seem like positive influences and at one point, we probably considered them true friends.

A fake friend always has an ulterior motive. They create a relationship with people who they believe they can benefit from. While sometimes the goal is not primarily to hurt you, their deceptive behaviors ultimately will.

What we hope for in life is to have more friendships we consider authentic, secure, and loving. These are the kind of relationships we want our life to be filled with. We don’t even have to have that one best friend; we can enjoy many friendships that enrich our stories in unique ways.

5 Signs Of A Bad Friendship

• They peer-pressure you into doing things you don’t want. Usually, when someone tries to convince you to do what they want, there is a hidden gain. Other times, the person lacks empathy and awareness of your needs and blindly feels that what they’re asking you to do is for your good.
• They make you work harder to please them. They turn you into a people-pleaser and your ultimate goal in the friendship is to make them happy, even at the cost of your own.
• They make you guess what they’re thinking all the time. They assume that you are their mind-reader who automatically knows the right things to say and do. A secure relationship is always honest about unmet needs.
• They talk a good talk, but don’t really come through when it counts. Most of their assurances turn out to be empty promises, and you always find yourself on the losing side.
• They’re obsessed with their social network. When being friends with you becomes disadvantageous to the clique they are trying to build, they distance themselves from you without remorse.

What Are The Consequences Of Choosing Bad Friends?

It’s quite simple. A fake friend will always influence you for the worse. If you discover that you are liking yourself a lot less since meeting someone, it probably means he or she is not a keeper. You need to cut your losses and move on from the toxic friendship.

French teenagers on a boat in the Seine river, Paris, 1988. Photo by David Alan Harvey/Magnum

Bad friends

Even the best of friends can fill you with tension and make you sick. why does friendship so readily turn toxic.

by Carlin Flora   + BIO

Think of a time when you sat across from a friend and felt truly understood. Deeply known. Maybe you sensed how she was bringing out your ‘best self’, your cleverest observations and wittiest jokes. She encouraged you. She listened, articulated one of your patterns, and then gently suggested how you might shift it for the better. The two of you gossiped about your mutual friends, skipped between shared memories, and delved into cherished subjects in a seamlessly scripted exchange full of shorthand and punctuated with knowing expressions. Perhaps you felt a warm swell of admiration for her, and a simultaneous sense of pride in your similarity to her. You felt deep satisfaction to be valued by someone you held in such high regard: happy, nourished and energised through it all.

These are the friendships that fill our souls, and bolster and shape our identities and life paths. They have also been squeezed into social science labs enough times for us to know that they keep us mentally and physically healthy: good friends improve immunity , spark creativity , drop our blood pressure, ward off dementia among the elderly , and even decrease our chances of dying at any given time. If you feel you can’t live without your friends, you’re not being melodramatic.

But even our easiest and richest friendships can be laced with tensions and conflicts, as are most human relationships. They can lose a bit of their magic and fail to regain it, or even fade out altogether for tragic reasons, or no reason at all. Then there are the not-so-easy friendships; increasingly difficult friendships; and bad, gut-wrenching, toxic friendships. The pleasures and benefits of good friends are abundant, but they come with a price. Friendship, looked at through a clear and wide lens, is far messier and more lopsided than it is often portrayed.

The first cold splash on an idealised notion of friendship is the data showing that only about half of friendships are reciprocal . This is shocking to people, since research confirms that we actually assume nearly all our friendships are reciprocal. Can you guess who on your list of friends wouldn’t list you?

One explanation for imbalance is that many friendships are aspirational : a study of teens shows that people want to be friends with popular people, but those higher up the social hierarchy have their pick (and skew the average). A corroborating piece of evidence, which was highlighted by Steven Strogatz in a 2012 article in The New York Times, is the finding that your Facebook ‘friends’ always have, on average, more ‘friends’ than you do. So much for friendship being an oasis from our status-obsessed world.

‘Ambivalent’ relationships, in social science parlance, are characterised by interdependence and conflict. You have many positive and negative feelings toward these people. You might think twice about picking up when they call. These relationships turn out to be common, too. Close to half of one’s important social network members are identified as ambivalent. Granted, more of those are family members (whom we’re stuck with) than friends, but still, for friendship, it’s another push off the pedestal.

Friends who are loyal, reliable, interesting companions – good! – can also be bad for you, should they have other qualities that are less desirable. We know through social network research that depressed friends make it more likely you’ll be depressed, obese friends make it more likely you’ll become obese, and friends who smoke or drink a lot make it more likely you’ll smoke and drink more.

Other ‘good’ friends might have, or start to have, goals, values or habits that misalign with your current or emerging ones. They certainly haven’t ‘done’ anything to you. But they aren’t a group that validates who you are, or that will effortlessly lift you up toward your aims over time. Stay with them, and you’ll be walking against the wind.

In addition to annoying us, these mixed-bag friendships harm our health. A 2003 study by Julianne Holt-Lunstad from Brigham Young University and Bert Uchino from the University of Utah asked people to wear blood-pressure monitors and write down interactions with various people. Blood pressure was higher with ambivalent relationships than it was with friends or outright enemies. This is probably due to the unpredictability of these relationships, which leads us to be vigilant: Will Jen ruin Christmas this year? Ambivalent relationships have also been associated with increased cardiovascular reactivity, greater cellular ageing , lowered resistance to stress, and a decreased sense of wellbeing.

One research team, though, found that ambivalent friendships might have benefits in the workplace. They showed that in these pairings workers are more likely to put themselves in the other’s shoes, in part because they are trying to figure out what the relationship means and what it is. Also, because ambivalent friendships make you feel uncertain about where you stand, they can push you to work harder to establish your position.

‘Frenemies’ are perhaps a separate variety in that they are neatly multi-layered – friendliness atop rivalry or dislike – as opposed to the ambivalent relationship’s admixture of love, hate, annoyance, pity, devotion and tenderness. Plenty of people have attested to the motivating force of a frenemy at work, as well as in the realms of romance and parenting.

A s with unhappy families, there are countless ways a friend can be full-on ‘bad’, no ambivalence about it. Susan Heitler, a clinical psychologist in Denver, and Sharon Livingston, a psychologist and marketing consultant in New York, have studied the issue, and found some typical qualities: a bad friend makes you feel competitive with her other friends; she talks much more about herself than you do about yourself; she criticises you in a self-righteous way but is defensive when you criticise her; she makes you feel you’re walking on eggshells and might easily spark her anger or disapproval; she has you on an emotional rollercoaster where one day she’s responsive and complimentary and the next she freezes you out.

In 2014 , a team at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh found that, as the amount of negativity in relationships increased for healthy women aged over 50, so did their risk of developing hypertension. Negative social interactions – incidents including excessive demands, criticism, disappointment and disagreeable exchanges – were related to a 38 per cent increased risk. For men, there was no link between bad relationships and high blood pressure. This is likely because women care more about, and are socialised to pay more attention to, relationships.

Negative interactions can lead to inflammation, too, in both men and women. Jessica Chiang, a researcher at the University of California, Los Angeles, who conducted a study showing as much, has said that an accumulation of social stressors could cause physical damage, just like an actual toxin.

Some of our most hurtful friendships start out good, but then became bad. Among teens, for example, the rates of cyber aggression are 4.3 times higher between friends than between friends of friends. Or as Diane de Poitiers, the 16th-century mistress of King Henry II of France, said: ‘To have a good enemy, choose a friend: he knows where to strike.’

The writer Robert Greene addresses the slippery slope in his book The 48 Laws of Power (1998). Bringing friends into your professional endeavours can aid the gradual crossover from ‘good’ to ‘bad’, he warns, in part because of how we react to grand favours:

Strangely enough, it is your act of kindness that unbalances everything. People want to feel they deserve their good fortune. The receipt of a favour can become oppressive: it means you have been chosen because you are a friend, not necessarily because you are deserving. There is almost a touch of condescension in the act of hiring friends that secretly afflicts them. The injury will come out slowly: a little more honesty, flashes of resentment and envy here and there, and before you know it your friendship fades.

Ah – so too much giving and ‘a little more honesty’ are friendship-disrupters? That conclusion, which runs counter to the ethos of total openness and unlimited generosity between friends, provides a clue as to why there are so many ‘bad’, ‘good and bad’, and ‘good, then bad’ friends. In his paper ‘The Evolution of Reciprocal Altruism’ (1971), the evolutionary biologist Robert Trivers concludes that ‘each individual human is seen as possessing altruistic and cheating tendencies’, where cheating means giving at least a bit less (or taking at least a bit more) than a friend would give or take from us.

Good people do attract more friends (though being a high-status good person helps)

Trivers goes on to explain that we have evolved to be subtle cheaters, with complex mechanisms for regulating bigger cheaters and also ‘too much’ altruism. He writes:

In gross cheating, the cheater fails to reciprocate at all, and the altruist suffers the costs of whatever altruism he has dispensed without any compensating benefit… clearly, selection will strongly favour prompt discrimination against the gross cheater. Subtle cheating, by contrast, involves reciprocating, but always attempting to give less than one was given, or more precisely, to give less than the partner would give if the situation were reversed.

The rewarding emotion of ‘liking’ someone is also a part of this psychological regulation system, and selection will favour liking those who are altruistic: good people do attract more friends (though being a high-status good person helps). But the issue is not whether we are cheaters or altruists, good or bad, but to what degree are we each of those things in different contexts and relationships.

P erhaps this seesaw between cheating and altruism, which settles to a midpoint of 50/50, explains why 50 per cent keeps coming up in research on friends and relationships. Recall that half of our friendships are non-reciprocal, half of our social network consists of ambivalent relationships, and – to dip into the adjacent field of lie detection – the average person detects lies right around 50 per cent of the time. We evolved to be able to detect enough lies to not be totally swindled, but not enough to wither under the harsh truths of (white-lie-free) social interactions. Likewise, we’ve evolved to detect some cheating behaviours in friends, but not enough to prohibit our ability to be friends with people at all. As the seesaw wobbles, so do our friendships.

Should this sound like a complicated business to you, Trivers agrees, and in fact speculates that the development of this system for regulating altruism among non-kin members is what made our brains grow so big in the Pleistocene. Many neuroscientists agree with his conclusion: humans are smart so that we can navigate friendship.

The psychologist Jan Yager, author of When Friendship Hurts (2002), found that 68 per cent of survey respondents had been betrayed by a friend. Who are these betrayers? At such high numbers, could ‘they’ be us?

We somehow expect friendships to be forever. Friendship break-ups challenge our vision of who we are

That scary thought leads me to ask: are we really striving to forgive small sins? To air our grievances before they accumulate and blow up our friendships? To make the effort to get together? To give others the benefit of the doubt? Are we giving what we can, or keeping score? Are we unfairly expecting friends to think and believe the exact same things we do? Are we really doing the best we can? Well, maybe that’s what most of our friends think they are doing, too. And if they aren’t being a good friend, or if they have drifted away from us, or we from them, maybe we can accept these common rifts, without giving into a guilt so overwhelming that it pushes us to slap a label on those we no longer want for friends: toxic.

When a friend breaks up with us, or disappears without explanation, it can be devastating. Even though the churning and pruning of social networks is common over time, we still somehow expect friendships to be forever. Friendship break-ups challenge our vision of who we are, especially if we’ve been intertwined with a friend for many years. Pulsing with hurt in the wake of a friend break-up, we hurl him or her into the ‘bad friends’ basket.

But, sometimes, we have to drop a friend to become ourselves. In Connecting in College (2016), the sociologist Janice McCabe argues that ending friendships in young adulthood is a way of advancing our identities. We construct our self-images and personalities against our friends, in both positive and negative ways.

As much as we need to take responsibility for being better friends and for our part in relationship conflict and break-ups, quite a few factors surrounding friendship are out of our control. Social network embeddedness, where you and another person have many friends in common, for instance, is a big challenge. Let’s say someone crosses a line, but you don’t want to disturb the group, so you don’t declare that you no longer think of him as a friend. You pull back from him, but not so much that it will spark a direct confrontation, whereby people would then be forced to invite only one of you, but not both, to events. Sometimes we are yoked to bad friends.

The forces that dictate whom we stay close to and whom we let go can be mysterious even to ourselves. Aren’t there people you like very much whom you haven’t contacted in a long time? And others you don’t connect with as well whom you see more often? The former group might be pencilling you into their ‘bad friend’ column right now.

Dealing with bad friends, getting dumped by them, and feeling disappointed with them is a stressful part of life, and it can harm your body and mind. Yet having no friends at all is a far worse fate. Imagine a child’s desperation for a playmate, a teenager’s deep longing for someone who ‘gets’ her, or an adult’s realisation that there is no one with whom he can share a failure or even a success. Loneliness is as painful as extreme thirst or hunger. John Cacioppo, a professor of sociology at the University of Chicago, has found associations between loneliness and depression, obesity, alcoholism, cardiovascular problems, sleep dysfunction, high blood pressure, the progression of Alzheimer’s disease, cynical world views and suicidal thoughts. But if you have friend problems, you have friends – and that means you’re pretty lucky.

Virtues and vices

Make it awkward!

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Citizens and spinning wheels

For Indians to be truly free, Gandhi argued they must take up traditional crafts. Was it a quixotic hope or inspired solution?

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Psychiatry and psychotherapy

For those who hear voices, the ‘broken brain’ explanation is harmful. Psychiatry must embrace new meaning-making frameworks

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C L R James and America

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Neuroscience

The melting brain

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How Friends Influence One Another–For Better or Worse–in High School

Please try again

High school students face many of the same friendship dynamics as elementary and middle school students, yet friendship operates in distinct ways in these later adolescence years. The buffering effect friends provided in earlier childhood, for example, seems to disappear. “Not only did the presence of friends not reduce stress,” writes Lydia Denworth in the 2020 book Friendship : “It made things worse. Cortisol levels went up.” 

By the time students reach high school, friendships become more stable. “In middle school, it’s unusual for an individual to maintain the same group of close friends over the space of 18 months,” says B. Bradford Brown, an educational psychology professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison: “In high school, that is no longer the case.” 

Likely because  individual identities are more solidified , older teens  tolerate greater dissimilarity  in one another. As a result, compromise and collaboration increasingly take the place of conformity.

Like friendship churn, concern over one’s reputation in broader groups peaks in middle school (and early high school). That leaves most high school students relatively less worried about their larger reputation and more focused on the social dynamics within their chosen peer groups, Brown says. It’s a much more adult-like approach. Though we care about being popular our whole lives, many of us begin to focus more on the likeability aspect of popularity than the status side of things as we age, says Mitch Prinstein , a professor of psychology and neuroscience at the University of North Carolina and author of Popular . 

A shift in the primacy of romantic partners vis-a-vis friends takes place as well. Over the course of mid-to-late adolescence, romantic partners “increasingly rival and eventually surpass friends in terms of closeness,” says  Brett Laursen , a child psychology professor at Florida Atlantic University. By the tenth grade, teens tend to interact more with romantic partners than anyone else, and research Laursen has been part of shows that as adolescents become involved in romantic relationships, their drinking increasingly mirrors that of their partners rather than their friends.

Peer influence as a positive?

As a predictable corollary, romantic partners begin to exert more influence than friends in high school, and friend groups more than larger crowds.

Most educators know the basics of peer pressure. One famous study showed that the number of one’s friends using drugs is the biggest determinant of drug use. We also know that when peers are present, adolescents take more risks (for example, teenage males drive faster in the presence of other teenage boys). 

But recent research reveals a twist: It’s not necessarily because of any direct egging on. Just presence is enough, because the reward centers of adolescents’ brains are more active with peers than when alone, according to the research of Temple University’s Laurence Steinberg . For her book, Denworth tracked him down as well as Sarah-Jayne Blakemore , a professor of psychology and cognitive neuroscience at University of Cambridge, who explained the academic upside: “Risk taking in an educational context is a vital skill that enables progress and creativity.” 

That’s just one positive lens on peer influence . Scott Gest , a University of Virginia professor, says: “People talk about negative peer influence … but they neglect the pretty substantial literature that shows a lot of negative behavior of high school kids is discouraged by friends. There is a lot of very positive pressure that peers apply, like, ‘No man, that’s stupid.’” This “obstructing” is one of the many underreported modes of peer influence, Brown says. There’s also teasing, reinforcement such as laughing or nodding, and creating situations that facilitate a certain type of behavior, like throwing an unchaperoned party. None of these modes is inherently good or bad, Brown points out. A teen could just as easily create a situation conducive to altruism, like asking a friend to meet them at the food pantry before a concert, knowing full well they’ll end up handing out meals for a few minutes—or cracking a joke about tongue brushing that reinforces oral hygiene.

“Behavioral display,” or modeling that leads to emulation, is another type of peer influence. In one 2018 study of college freshmen, researchers found “having friends with higher propensities to study is predictive of receiving higher freshman grades.” Because the study looked at both assigned roommate pairings and chosen friend groups, the researchers were able to show the effect wasn’t just a reflection of “selection bias,” with studious kids having already chosen to befriend each other. Hanging out with someone studious, they concluded, caused adolescents to study for more hours and post higher grades. The findings confirm previous research showing a correlation between how a child views the importance of doing well in school and how their friends do. 

Similar effects have been demonstrated for volunteer work and health-promotive behaviors, such as exercise, Prinstein says. Positive change has also been documented in high school students dating high-functioning peers.

What does all this mean for educators? Influential students can be explicitly tapped to improve classroom dynamics. In one program , kids were trained to publicly encourage anti-conflict norms. Disciplinary reports of student conflict dropped 30% over one year. This success may be owed in part to the fact that the program enlisted kids’ help. Efforts that engage teens in actual, real-life tasks have been the most promising when it comes to changing the content of the values transmitted within adolescent peer groups. Other successful efforts to “benevolently exploit peer influence,” as Prinstein puts it, include using small group discussions to combat bullying and drinking.

Why meddling can backfire

Ready for another twist? In the anti-conflict norms study, the effect among kids was stronger when the messengers were popular, but were popular for their likeabaility, not status. 

Laursen, who is also editor in chief of the International Journal of Behavioral Development , helps explain why: “Influence within friend pairings is unilateral and unidirectional, flowing to the child who has the potential to have more friends outside the relationship.” That means, “if I’m better liked, and I drink less than you, your rate of increasing drinking is going to slow down,” he says. But it cuts both ways . Delinquency, for example, tends to increase when a less-accepted child befriends someone more delinquent. When it comes to academic improvement, Laursen says, “if it’s the less-liked peer doing better in school, forget about it.”

For this same reason, he says adults must “tread carefully” in trying to manipulate friendships. It’s just very hard from the outside to know what a kid is and isn’t getting from interactions with a peer: “Let’s say you are a parent and you have a child who’s hanging around with somebody you think isn’t the most desirable friend in terms of their attributes. But perhaps in this friendship your child is the one holding all the cards; everybody is trying to be like your child. If you disrupt that friendship, there’s going to be another in its place, and now you may have put your child in a position where they are the susceptible one. You can make them more vulnerable to negative peer influence than they were before.” (Add on top of that research showing that teens who are alienated from their close friends become more aggressive.)

Even greater benefits of cooperation

A cousin of peer influence is collaboration , and high school students get unique benefits from it. Carefully structured cooperative learning experiences have been tied to students exerting greater effort and using higher-level reasoning strategies more frequently, ultimately boosting achievement and decreasing problematic behaviors, according to the research of Michigan State University’s Cary Roseth. What’s more, “in a study of high school seniors,” he reports, “a predisposition to work with peers cooperatively was found to be highly correlated with psychological health.”

The promise of boosted academic and social-emotional learning doesn’t always have to mean group assignments though. Laursen says by high school “many kids hate these sort of paired activities when a grade is riding on the product.” On the other hand, they appreciate the opportunity to work alongside a peer on their own work. Friends are distributed over classes so the bump students see from working with someone they like and trust may be easier to get in a study hall setting where students undertake, in toddler parlance, “parallel play” or “being with.”

Both logistical benefits and moral support can also be fostered in a high school class with no preexisting friendships. One small Australian study of first-year university students showed that when students discussed class content outside of class, they were more likely to progress to second year. Friends provided feedback, reassurance, and encouragement that “increased students’ emotional engagement, their enthusiasm and interest in the course content and in the classroom.” The study’s authors ultimately encouraged teachers to instruct students to talk to each other during breaks, exchange contact information, and consider arranging study sessions.

During distance learning this fall, Mira Debs, executive director of Yale’s education studies program, had students write introductions. She hosted a weekly virtual lunch. One student set up an optional group text message chain for the class. Each of these actions increases a sense of belonging—which in turn boosts motivation —and also provides students with tangible resources. Elizabeth Self , an assistant professor at Vanderbilt University, explains how these college-level findings relate to teens: “If you think about an AP class—high workload, high stress—the way that kids can come together to study, the way they come together to share notes, the way they come together to figure out an assignment …. For those that do, it’s a huge advantage.”

Growing importance of race

“And if you are left out of those groups,” Self continues, “the effect that has for you is not just social but also academic.” She reminds us   that as kids age , they increasingly “ experience the world from a race perspective .” Whether or not they “can be resilient and sustain themselves within systems of oppression in schooling,” she says, “comes down to who their friends are. Do I have a friend that when I feel like a teacher is being racist toward me can affirm that ‘yes, this is happening,’ versus gaslighting me?” Teenagers who have that kind of affirmation “can feel good and whole in the classroom and be successful.” That’s why Beverly Daniel Tatum concludes in Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? that as counterintuitive as it may seem, allowing Black students “the psychological safety of their own group” can actually increase the likelihood that they form friendships outside it, benefitting fully from collaborative opportunities.

Technology a nd distance

With schools across the country closed, child development experts worry most about the future of our youngest learners. After all, high school students already had mechanisms in place for connecting at a distance, practices like exchanging Snapchat videos about the parts of the homework that don’t make sense. 

But Denworth says we can’t discount “Zoom fatigue.” In a recent article for Psychology Today , she describes a book called Relating Through Technology by Jeffrey Hall, a professor of communication studies at the University of Kansas. He told Denworth, “Compared to face to face, texting and using social media, energy use during a Zoom call is higher.” Disruptions like your own image, delays, and cross-talk make video calls more intense. They also heighten loneliness: “Zoom is exhausting and lonely because you have to be so much more attentive and so much more aware of what’s going on than you do on phone calls.”

And even though teens can socialize virtually, Brown says, “the intensity of seeing close friends and romantic partners in person is difficult to give up, so the lack of those face-to-face opportunities is going to create anxiety.” Their developmentally appropriate craving for intimacy is what drives “the way that individuals 18 to 25 are behaving right now,” he says, “having real difficulty engaging in social distancing, wearing a face covering, and staying feet apart.” 

While distance learning may work best for teenagers , everything we know about friendship in late adolescence suggests they too would benefit from in-person learning experiences at the earliest safe opportunity.

This article is part of the “ Friendship in Schools ” series, which explores the complexities of friendship at various stages of learning.

Gail Cornwall  works as a mother and writer in San Francisco.

How to Recognize a Bad Influence in Your Social Circle and What to Do Next

• Post author: Valerie Soleil, B.A., LL.B.
• Post published: October 9, 2018
• Reading time: 9 mins read
• Post category: Dark Personalities / Personality / Self-Improvement

Could your friends be a bad influence? Here are the signs that you are in bad company and tips on how to deal with toxic and bad influence friends.

You already know that birds of the same feather fly together! Friendship is fundamental if you want to live a more fulfilling life. But what should you do if your closest pals keep on getting you into trouble? This is what we call a bad influence .

A good friend should bring the best in you and support you during hardships because they are like your family. You must be very objective when figuring out if your friends are helping you to build a great future or they simply are bad influences.

But what does bad influence mean? Simply put, it is a situation where someone encourages you to do wrong by example or inculcates bad thoughts on you.

If you are not sure of the type of birds you flock with, here are some signs that your friends are a bad influence.

• Your friend tells you to lie to your partner, parents or other friends
• The company is all about partying
• You feel tired, annoyed or empty after hanging out with your friends
• Your friend has a carefree attitude that costs you a lot of money
• Your get-togethers are all about gossip and making fun of other people
• You feel guilty when refusing to go somewhere or do something your friend suggests
• You often feel unappreciated, miserable or intimidated when hanging out with your friend
• Your friend is a chronic phone thief
• Drama is always finding you
• Your friend never warns you when you cross the line

How can you stay away from bad influence? Here is a rundown of the best tips.

Identify bad friends.

It’s not that hard to notice a bad friend. You can tell by how they make you feel. Many times, you’ll feel uncomfortable around bad people . They will pressure you to get into things you don’t want to. And when you refuse to do it, they start teasing or intimidating you.

Often, they’ll use reverse psychology to get what they want, making you feel guilty when you don’t concur with their suggestions. This is exactly what a bad influence is. It comes from someone who does not have respect for your values or opinions.

Here are some questions to ask yourself to find out who your friends really are.

• Have they tried to manipulate you?
• Do they boss you around?
• Are they disrespectful and mean?
• Do they abuse drugs?
• Do they belittle your opinions?
• Do they make you feel bad about your body and eating habits?
• Are they violent?

If the answer to any of these questions is yes, you need to start realizing the negative effects your friends have on you. Perhaps, you give them too many chances or even defend them in front of your partner or parents when they object how your friends treat you.

Many times you’ll feel used, trapped, drained, frustrated, unappreciated, and guilty for what you do with your friends. That is when you know you are too good at being influenced.

Embrace positivity and shun negativity

The truth is it is not easy to block all the negative people in your life. You also need to know that your friends will abandon you when you start moving towards positivity.

You don’t need to ignore them completely. All you have to do is change the frequency of interacting with them . Gradually reduce the exposure to these toxic friendships .

Consider having a few weeks away from them to allow the emotions to subside. Then follow minimum interaction in the future. Toxic friendships are like germs in the air: there is no way to avoid them completely. But you can take the necessary precautions not to come close to dirty places or share drinks with the bad guys.

Using this strategy, you will reduce the time you spend with the bad people and increase your interactions with positive people.

Set boundaries

Want to rise above a bad influence today and in the future? Start creating barriers between you and your frien ds. This way, you’ll make it clear on how they should treat you. You must be very direct on what is okay and what is not when interacting with people.

But how exactly do you set these boundaries? Here are some solutions.

• Genuinely express your needs and feelings
• Limit the amount of time you socialize with bad influence friends
• Don’t force anyone to change but leave it to them
• Leave friendships where you feel offended or endangered

Turn negative people into supporters

Did you know that you can change even the most notorious individual into a supporter? While you may reduce interactions with a bad influence in the short term, you have a great opportunity in the long term to influence them positively.

This is a bold move where you try to reconnect with a negative person after a while. Most likely, your past friend will realize how your life has changed and might also want to emulate you. But you need to be very assertive when expressing your beliefs and ideas.

Let them know that your new lifestyle cannot be altered. The greatest benefit of reconnecting with a past friend is that you get to learn more about yourself.

Sleep on it and stay away

One of the main objectives of bad influence friends is to get you into an emotional rollercoaster so you can react . The first thing you should do is get away from the relationship and their environment as soon as you can.

This move will not be easy, especially if you are in the same school or workplace. It is going to turn awkward and you might hurt their feelings. There are several decisions you can make to stay away from them:

• Stop talking to them and your mutual friends
• Cut phone communications with them
• Quit following them on social media

Ensure that you’ve made the above decisions when you are not in an emotional state to avoid regrets. Make sure you have pondered on the matter and are in a relaxed state of mind.

Remember that a bad friend wants you to make irrational decisions and that’s what you want to avoid. So, any time you deal with them, make sure you are in your right frame of mind. You can delay your decision if you feel anger.

Sometimes, you don’t have to react because some people are not worth wasting your time. When you act calmly, your success increases significantly.

Initiate relationships with successful people

We all need someone to lean on. When looking for friends, ensure that they are ahead of you in terms of professional and personal development . Remember that success attracts more success. The best thing about successful people is that they are always busy so they don’t have time for gossips.

They are more likely to hang out with you only when you have something important like business ideas. Some might not initiate anything, but don’t be afraid to contact them. As you meet for coffee, emulate their lifestyles and let them guide you.

Do you know the reason a negative person goes out of their way to make you feel miserable? It’s because you may lack self-confidence , plus a combination of other factors which have a lot to do with your life and not the bad influence friends.

To overcome the impacts of bad people on you, it takes a lot of bravery and confidence in yourself . Yes, you can defeat them no matter how influential they are. It’s time to say no to anyone who insists you follow their ways of doing things. Use your self-development tools to defeat these circumstances.

Sure, some friendships are very toxic and it may take a while to abandon them. But keep in mind that nobody should try to make you perfect . So, instead of dwelling on the situation, use the above ways to rise above the bad influence.

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The article is great. It asks a question, that is, Could your friends be a bad influence? The article presents the signals that you are in horrific company and tips on how to see to the deadly and terrible influence of friends. Friendship is essential if you would like to live a more rewarding life but poor friends can spoil your entire life.

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Essay on Friendship

List of essays on friendship, essay on friendship – short essay for kids (essay 1 – 150 words), essay on friendship – 10 lines on friendship written in english (essay 2 – 250 words), essay on friendship – for school students (class 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7) (essay 3 – 300 words), essay on friendship – for students (essay 4 – 400 words), essay on friendship (essay 5 – 500 words), essay on friendship – introduction, benefits and qualities (essay 6 – 600 words), essay on friendship – essay on true friendship (essay 7 – 750 words), essay on friendship – importance, types, examples and conclusion (essay 8 – 1000 words).

Friendship is a divine relationship, which is defined by neither blood nor any other similarity. Who is in this world does not have a friend?

A friend, with whom you just love to spend your time, can share your joys and sorrows. Most importantly you need not fake yourself and just be what you are. That is what friendship is all about. It is one of the most beautiful of the relations in the world. Students of today need to understand the values of friendship and therefore we have composed different long essays for students as well as short essays.

Audience: The below given essays are exclusively written for school students (Class 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8 Standard).

Introduction:

Friendship is considered as one of the treasures that anyone can possess. God has given us the liberty to choose friends because they are for our lifetime. It is quite normal for our parents and siblings to love us because they are our own blood but a friend is someone who is initially a stranger and then takes his/her place above all the other relations. Friendship is nothing but pure love without any expectations.

Role of a Friend:

True friends share and support each other even during the toughest of times. A true friend is one who feels happy for our success, who feel sad for our failures, fight with us for silly things and hugs us the next second, gets angry on us when we do any mistakes. Friendship is all about having true friends who can understand us without the need for us to speak.

Conclusion:

Friendship is very essential for a happy life. Even a two-minute chat with a friend will make us forget our worries. That is the strength of friendship.

Friendship is a divine relationship, which is defined by neither blood nor any other similarity. Friends are those you can choose for yourself in spite of the difference you both have from each other. A good friend in need will do wonders in your life, whenever you are in need of self-realization, upbringing your confidence and more.

Friendship serves you best not only in your happiest moments but also when you feel low in emotions. A life without a good friend is not at all complete and an emptiness will be felt all the time you think of sharing your emotion that can’t be told to anyone else.

Honesty and Patience in Friendship:

To maintain and keep going with a good deep friendship, honesty is the most important factor. You should choose a person who can be cent percent honest with you in all perspective like emotions, decision making, etc. Trustworthy friendship will help you to take better decisions and choose a better path for your future well-being.

Tolerance and patience with each other are another important characteristics of long-lasting friendship. Accepting the differences, friends should be able to be with each other in all situations. As a friend, the person should lead the other to success by being a motivation and criticize the person if they choose the wrong path.

Friendship will give you sweet and happy memories that can be cherished for a lifetime and if you succeed in maintaining that precious relation, then you are the luckiest person in this world. Love and care for each other will cherish the relationship and helps the person to appreciate each thing done without any fail.

Of all the different relations which we indulge in, friendship is considered to be the purest of them all. Friendship is the true confluence of souls with like minded attitude that aids in seamless conversation and the best of times. It is believed that a person who doesn’t have any friend lives one of the toughest lives.

The Desire to Belong:

Each one of us have been so programmed that we need a companion even if it’s not romantic, someone just to tag along. There are several definitions of friendship and it is upon you as to how you believe your relation to be. Friendship can happen when you are simply sharing a bowl of food with a person day after day. It can be expressed in the way you silently care for someone even when they may not be aware of your existence.

The Little Moments that Matter:

It is giving up the little things you love dearly for the sake of someone you cherish a great deal. Friendship often refers to the little moments of senseless laugh you two share when the rest of the world starts to look bleak. It is to know what your friend needs and being there for them even when the rest of the world has turned their back towards them.

Friendship is the kind of relation which sometimes even exceeds the realms of love because it is all about giving without even once bothering to sense what you shall get back. Every time spent is special because when you are with friends, you don’t feel the blues!

The Bottom-Line:

Of course the definition of friendship is going to vary a great deal from one person to another. But, remember one thing, when you are friends with someone, be prepared to put your heart on the line for their happiness because friendship often manifests into love, even if it is not romantic, it always is true!

Friendship is the most valuable as well as precious gifts of life. Friendship is one of the most valued relationship. People who have good friends enjoy the most in their live. True friendship is based on loyalty & support. A good friend is a person who will stand with you when times are tough. A friend is someone special on whom you can rely on to celebrate a special moment. Friendship is like a life asset and it can lead us to success. It all depends on our choice how we choose our friends.

The quality of friendship is essential for happiness. The benefits of healthy friendship remains long-life. In addition, having a strong friend circle also improves our self-confidence. Due to the strong relationship, we get much emotional support during our bad times. True friendship is a feeling of love & care.

Real friendship cannot be built within limited boundaries like caste or creed. It gives us a feeling that someone really needs us & we are not alone. This is true that man cannot live alone. True friends are needed in every stage of life to survive. A true friend can be an old person or a child. But it is generally believed that we make friend with people who are of the same age as ours. Same age group can give you the freedom to share anything.

The selection of a true friend is also a challenging task. We have to carefully make our friend selection. Friends might come & go. They will make you laugh & cry. Wrong selection can create various problems for you. In the modern world, many youngsters become a social nuisance. The reason behind it is wrong & bad friendships.

But if we successfully choose the right person as a friend then our life becomes easier. It doesn’t matter who you are, what type of clothes you wear. The most important thing is trust because the relation of friendship stands on the pillars of trust.

Friendship is a relation which can make or break us in every stage of life. But in other words, friendship is an asset which is really precious. Obviously, it is also not so easy to maintain friendships. It demands your time as well as efforts. Last but not the least, it is hard to find true friendship but once you succeed in this task you will have a wonderful time. In exchange for that a friend will only need your valuable time and trust.

The idea of friendship is either heartwarming or gives cold feet depending on individuals and the types of friendships. In the current world, friendships have had different definitions based on the morality and civilization of the society. Ideally, friendship is defined as the state of mutual trust between individuals or parties. Trust is an important component of friendship because it determines the reliability and longevity of the friendship. Trust is built through honest communications between the individuals and interested parties.

Once trust has been established, mutual understanding and support being to form the resulting in a friendship. This friendship can be broken through lack of trust. Trust can be breached through deceit and/ or some people, it differs with the frequencies. There are people who will break friendships after only one episode of dishonesty whereas some people give second chances and even more chances. Friendship types determine the longevity and the causes of breakups. The importance of friendship in the lives of individuals is the reason why friendships are formed in the first place.

Types of Friendships:

According to Aristotle’s Nichomachean ethics, there are three types of friendships. The friendships are based on three factors i.e. utility, pleasure and goodness. The first type of friendship is based on utility and has been described as a friendship whereby both parties gain from each other.

This type of friendship is dependent on the benefits and that is what keeps the friendship going. This type of friendships do not last long because it dissolves as soon as the benefits are outsourced or when other sources are found outside the friendship. The friendship was invented for trade purposes because when two people with opposite things that depend on each other re put together, trade is maximized.

The second type of friendship is based on pleasure. This is described as friendship in which two individuals are drawn to each other based on desires of pleasure and is characterized by passionate feelings and feelings of belonging. This type of friendship can ether last long or is short-lived depending on the presence of the attraction between the two parties.

The third type of friendship is based on goodness. In this friendship, the goodness of people draw them to each other and they usually have the same virtues. The friendship involves loving each other and expecting goodness. It takes long to develop this kind of friendship but it usually lasts longest and is actually the best kind of friendship to be in. the importance of such a friendship is the social support and love.

In conclusion, friendships are important in the lives of individuals. Trust builds and sustains friendships. The different types of friendships are important because they provide benefits and social support. Friendships provide a feeling of belonging and dependence. The durability of friendships is dependent on the basis of its formation and the intention during the formation. Friendships that last long are not based on materialistic gain, instead, they are based on pure emotion.

Friendship is an emotion of care, mutual trust, and fondness among two persons. A friend might be a work-mate, buddy, fellow student or any individual with whom we feel an attachment.

In friendship, people have a mutual exchange of sentiments and faith too. Usually, the friendship nurtures more amongst those people who belong to a similar age as they possess the same passions, interests, sentiments, and opinions. During the school days, kids who belong to the similar age group have a common dream about their future and this makes them all of them get closer in friendship.

In the same way, employees working in business organizations also make friends as they are working together for attaining the organizational objectives. It does not matter that to which age group you belong, friendship can happen at any time of your life.

Benefits of Friendship:

Sometimes friendship is essential in our life. Below are a few benefits of friendship.

1. It’s impossible to live your life alone always but friendship fills that gap quickly with the friend’s company.

2. You can easily pass the rigidities of life with the friendship as in your distress period your friends are always there to help you.

3. Friendship teaches you how to remain happy in life.

4. In case of any confusion or problem, your friendship will always benefit you with good opinions.

True and Dishonest Friendship:

True friendship is very rare in today’s times. There are so many persons who support only those people who are in power so that they can fulfil their selfish motives below the name of friendship. They stay with friends till the time their selfish requirements are achieved. Dishonest friends leave people as soon as their power gets vanished. You can find these types of self-seeking friends all around the world who are quite hurtful than enemies.

Finding a true friendship is very difficult. A true friend helps the other friend who is in need. It does not matter to him that his friend is right or wrong but he will always support his friend at the time of his difficulty.

Carefulness in the Selection of Friendship:

You must be very careful while choosing friends. You should nurture your friendship with that person who does not leave you in your bad times easily. Once you get emotionally attached to the wrong person you cannot finish your friendship so soon. True friendship continues till the time of your last breaths and does not change with the passing time.

Friendship with a bad person also affects your own thoughts and habits. Therefore, a bad person should not be chosen in any type of circumstances. We must do friendship with full attention and carefulness.

Best Qualities of Good Friendship:

Good friendship provides people an enormous love to each other.

The below are the important qualities of good friendship:

1. Good friendship is always faithful, honest, and truthful.

2. People pay attention and take note of others thoughts in good friendship.

3. Persons quickly forget and let off the mistakes of the other friend. In fact, they accept their friend in the way they are actually.

4. You are not judged on the basis of your success, money or power in it.

5. Friends do not feel shy to provide us with valuable opinions for our welfare.

6. People always share their joyful times with their good friends and also stay ready to help their friends in the time of need.

7. True friends also support others in their professional as well as personal life. They encourage their friends in the area of their interest.

Friendship is established over the sacrifice, love, faith, and concern of mutual benefit. True Friendship is a support and a blessing for everybody. All those males and females who have true and genuine friends are very lucky really.

Friendship can simply be defined as a form of mutual relationship or understanding between two people or more who interact and are attached to one another in a manner that is friendly. A friendship is a serious relationship of devotion between two or more people where people involved have a true and sincere feeling of affection, care and love towards each other devoid of any misunderstanding and without demands.

Primarily friendship happens between people that have the same sentiments, feelings and tastes. It is believed that there is no limit or criteria for friendship. All of the different creed, religion, caste, position, sex and age do not matter when it comes to friendship even though friendships can sometimes be damaged by economic disparity and other forms of differentiation. From all of these, it can be concluded that real and true friendship is very possible between people that have a uniform status and are like-minded.

A lot of friends we have in the world today only remain together in times of prosperity and absence of problems but only the faithful, sincere and true friends remain all through the troubles, times of hardships and our bad times. We only discover who our bad and good friends are in the times where we don’t have things going our way.

Most people want to be friends with people with money and we can’t really know if our friends are true when we have money and do not need their help, we only discover our true friends when we need their help in terms of money or any other form of support. A lot of friendships have been jeopardised because of money and the absence or presence of it.

Sometimes, we might face difficulty or crises in our friendships because of self-respect and ego. Friendships can be affected by us or others and we need to try to strike a balance in our friendships. For our friendship to prosper and be true, we need satisfaction, proper understanding and a trustworthy nature. As true friends, we should never exploit our friends but instead do our utmost best to motivate and support them in doing and attaining the very best things in life.

The true meaning of friendship is sometimes lost because of encounters with fake friends who have used and exploited us for their own personal benefits. People like this tend to end the friendship once they get what they want or stab their supposed friends in the back just to get what they think is best for them. Friendship is a very good thing that can help meet our need for companionship and other emotional needs.

In the world we live in today, it is extremely difficult to come across good and loyal friends and this daunting task isn’t made any easier by the lie and deceit of a lot of people in this generation. So, when one finds a very good and loyal important, it is like finding gold and one should do everything to keep friends like that.

The pursuit of true friendship Is not limited to humans, we can as well find good friends in animals; for example, it is a popular belief that dogs make the best friends. It is very important to have good friends as they help us in times and situations where we are down and facing difficulties. Our true friends always do their best to save us when we are in danger and also provide us with timely and good advice. True friends are priceless assets in our lives, they share our pains and sorrow, help provide relief to us in terrible situations and do their best to make us happy.

Friends can both be the good or the bad types. Good friends help push us on the right path in life while on the other hand, bad friends don’t care about us but only care about themselves and can lead us into the wrong path; because of this, we have to be absolutely careful when choosing our friends in this life.

Bad friends can ruin our lives completely so we have to be weary of them and do our best to avoid bag friends totally. We need friends in our life that will be there for us at every point in time and will share all of our feeling with us, both the good and bad. We need friends we can talk to anytime we are feeling lonely, friends that will make us laugh and smile anytime we are feeling sad.

What is friendship? It is the purest form of relationship between two individual with no hidden agenda. As per the dictionary, it is the mutual affection between people. But, is it just a mutual affection? Not always, as in the case of best friends, it is far beyond that. Great friends share each other’s feelings or notions which bring a feeling of prosperity and mental fulfillment.

A friend is a person whom one can know deeply, as and trust for eternity. Rather than having some likeness in the idea of two people associated with the friendship, they have some extraordinary qualities yet they want to be with each other without changing their uniqueness. By and large, friends spur each other without censuring, however at times great friends scrutinize do affect you in a positive manner.

Importance of Friendship:

It is very important to have a friend in life. Each friend is vital and their significance in known to us when certain circumstances emerge which must be supported by our friends. One can never feel lonely in this world on the off chance that he or she is embraced by true friends. Then again, depression wins in the lives of the individuals who don’t have friends regardless of billions of individuals present on the planet. Friends are particularly vital amid times of emergency and hardships. On the off chance that you wind up experiencing a hard time, having a friend to help you through can make the change simpler.

Having friends you can depend on can help your confidence. Then again, an absence of friends can make you feel lonely and without help, which makes you powerless for different issues, for example, sadness and drug abuse. Having no less than one individual you can depend on will formulate your confidence.

Choosing Your Friends Wisely:

Not all friends can instill the positivity in your life. There can be negative effects as well. It is very important to choose your friends with utmost wisdom. Picking the right friend is somewhat troublesome task however it is extremely important. In the event that for instance a couple of our dear friends are engaged with negative behaviour patterns, for example, smoking, drinking and taking drugs, at some point or another we will be attracted to their bad habits as well. This is the reason behind why it is appropriate to settle on an appropriate decision with regards to making friends.

Genuine friendship is truly a gift delighted in by a couple. The individuals who have it ought to express gratitude toward God for having genuine pearls in their lives and the individuals who don’t have a couple of good friends ought to always take a stab at better approaches to anchor great friends. No organization is superior to having a friend close by in the midst of need. You will stay cheerful in your one-room flat on the off chance that you are surrounded by your friends; then again, you can’t discover satisfaction even in your estate in the event that you are far away from others.

Types of Friends:

There is variety everywhere, so why not in friends. We can see different types of friends during our journey of life. For instance, your best friend at school is someone with whom you just get along the most. That friend, especially in the case of girls, may just get annoyed even if you talk to another of your friend more than her. Such is the childish nature of such friendships that at times it is difficult for others to identify whether you are best friends or competitors.

Then there is another category of your siblings. No matter how much you deny, but your siblings or your elder brother and sisters are those friends of yours who stay on with you for your entire life. You have a different set of friendship with them as you find yourself fighting with them most of the times. However, in times of need, you shall see that they are first ones standing behind you, supporting you.

There is another category of friends called professional friends. You come across such friends only when you grow up and choose a profession for yourself. These friends are usually from the same organisation and prove to be helpful during your settling years. Some of them tend to stay on with you even when you change companies.

Friendship Examples from History:

History has always taught us a lot. Examples of true friendship are not far behind. We have some famous example from history which makes us realise the true value of friendship. The topmost of them are the Krishna and Sudama friendship. We all must have read or heard as to how after becoming a king when Krishna met Sudama, his childhood friend, he treated him with honour even though Sudama was a poor person. It teaches us the friendship need not be between equals. It has to be between likeminded people. Next example is of Karna and Duryodhana, again from the Mahabharat era.

Despite knowing the fact that the Pandavas were his brothers, Karna went on to fight alongside Duryodhan as he is his best friend and even laid down his life for him. What more example of true friendship can one find? Again from the same era, Krishna and Arjun are also referred to as the best of the friends. Bhagavad Gita is an example of how a true friend can guide you towards positivity in life and make you follow the path of Dharma. Similarly, there are numerous examples from history which teach us the values of true friendship and the need to nourish such for own good.

Whether you accept or deny it, a friend plays an important role in your life. In fact, it is very important to have a friend. However, at the same time, it is extremely important to choose the friends wisely as they are the ones who can build you or destroy you. Nonetheless, a friend’s company is something which one enjoys all through life and friends should be treated as the best treasure a man can have.

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What to Do When You Have Bad Friends

• July 12, 2019
• School & Friends , Teens

Written by Evolve's Behavioral Health Content Team :

Share this blog about what to do when you have bad friends..

Sometimes, our friends are the best parts of our lives. They give us emotional support, spread cheer, and/or help us become better. Whenever we’re around them, you feel happier and a better version of yourself.

On the other hand, certain friends are simply bad for you. They can be difficult to be around. They might engage in risky or criminal behavior. Your mom doesn’t like them. They’re exclusive, excluding, and toxic. If you’ve seen Mean Girls , the Plastics are a perfect example of the kind of clique we’re talking about.

But what are you supposed to do if these are the types of friends you have?

Spend More Time with Good Friends

First, you can try to increase the time you spend with friends who are good for you.

As Oprah once said: “Lots of people want to ride with you in the limo, but what you want is someone who will take the bus with you when the limo breaks down.” Good friends stick with you through thick and thin. They raise you up instead of putting you down. They protect you from harm and care about you. Good friends don’t each other get into dangerous, life-threatening situations.

If you aren’t ready to let go of a bad friend yet, it may be worthwhile simply to try and spend more time with the good friends you already have. Even if you don’t consider yourselves super close, you can always put in the effort to get to know them better.

At the same time, you may want to reconsider how much time you spend with the other kinds of friends—the ones who ditch you when the limo breaks down. Even if these friends are the life of the party, the popular kids at school, or the ones everyone wants to be close with, these kinds of friends can sometimes bring more stress into your life.

The Effect Bad Friends Can Have on You

Toxic friends , negative friends, codependent friends, friends who are a bad influence—they all fall into the same category. Research has shown that relationships that are more conflict-ridden than peaceful lead to an increase in depression and lower self-esteem.

Plus, if you have friends who engage in risky behavior , like drinking, using drugs, or skipping school, research has shown that you’re likely to be pressured to participate too.

In a study titled “If Your Friends Jumped Off of a Bridge, Would You Do It Too? Delinquent Peers and Susceptibility to Peer Influence” (Miller, 2009), the author writes that “association with delinquent peer groups is one of the most salient predictors of delinquent behavior.” She writes that teens who are highly susceptible to peer pressure have an even greater risk of getting into trouble with their friends.

It may be hard to cut off ties with such people, even if you know they’re bad for you. And you may not be ready for that step—at the moment. However, if you see that you’re developing emotional/mental health issues because of these peers, or you’re falling into substance abuse or risky behaviors along with them…you may be better off without these people.

Why is this so?

Certain people can hamper you from moving forward in your life. Even worse, they can cause you harm—both physically and emotionally.

Cutting Ties with Bad Friends

Let’s elaborate with an example from the world of teen mental health treatment. When a teen is ready for discharge from a mental health or drug rehab center, they sit down with their therapist a few days before they leave. After a lengthy discussion of friends who are toxic and friends who are supportive, they go through the teen’s phone together to delete contacts of people who could be detrimental to the teen’s recovery or trigger relapse. They do this because no matter how strong an adolescent is in their recovery, one bad friend can bring them back down to zero. On the other hand, good friends can impact you just as strongly. Research has shown that just adding one sober friend to your network can decrease your chances of relapsing by 25%!

At an adolescent mental health or drug rehab center, teens also learn how to find better friends. In Dialectical Behavior Therapy, there is an entire module devoted to Interpersonal Effectiveness. This skills-set focuses on making and managing healthy friendships (and relationships in general).

For example, DBT teaches you how to stick to your values. You don’t have to sell yourself or your values short, just to fit in with the crowd. If all your friends are doing something you don’t feel comfortable with—whether that’s playing a mean prank on your teacher, bullying a weaker kid at school, or even drugs—you can say no. You don’t have to over-apologize for your behavior or make up excuses/exaggerate. If these are true friends, they will accept you for your values and how you are now. DBT teaches you to maintain your self-respect.

You Don’t Need to Be Popular

There are many benefits of having friends. These include better self-esteem, lower rates of depression and anxiety, improved cognition, more empathy, better ability to cope with stress, stronger emotion regulation, and better mental health overall.

But you don’t have to be a social butterfly, or be friends with everyone at school, to attain these benefits of friendship. In fact, if you only have one or two close friends, you’re good.  In one famous study , researchers followed 169 teens for ten years. They found that teens who had a few close, intense friendships at age 15 or 16 had lower levels of anxiety and depression at age 25 than their peers who tried to be friends with lots of people in their milieu…or, to use the exact wording the researchers used: “simply seeking to become a desirable companion within the peer group at large.”

That’s good news for teens who don’t consider themselves to be popular, or are worried about fitting in with the in-crowd.

Friends Don’t Always Last Forever

There are different types of friends. You can have situational friends, utility friends, childhood friends, acquaintances that are not-yet-friends, etc.

Not all of these friends last forever, nor is it a bad thing if they don’t. At every stage of your life, you may have a different social circle. While you may be feeling lonely in high school because you haven’t found your niche, you may be a social butterfly in college among other peers who understand you better.

Or vice versa.

While friends are important, both socially and for your mental health, the type of friend matters. While a good friend can impact you positively, a bad friend can hurt you.

So choose your friends wisely.

Our Behavioral Health Content Team

We are an expert team of behavioral health professionals who are united in our commitment to adolescent recovery and well-being.

Alyson Orcena, LMFT

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Are Your Friends a Bad Influence On You?

Maybe you need some new friends this year..

Posted January 1, 2013

Remember when Mom became unhinged after you befriended that rebel kid, the one who smoked and sassed back to her parents?

Well, friends who are bad influences is not just an adolescent cliche. Your grown-up friends can lead you astray. Here are two key questions to ask yourself if you suspect you are still running with the wrong crowd:

1. Do you feel energized and full of good ideas after being with your friends? If a friend doesn't support your identity --meaning she doesn't quite see you for the "real you" or for who you are striving to become--then the two of you aren't connecting in an authentic way. She might be deflating your confidence as a result and leaving you feeling unsettled rather than recharged.

2. Are you your "best self" with your friends--your kindest and healthiest? Or do you find that your worst impulses run wild in their company? For instance, friends who drink too much, eat junk food constantly, talk negatively about other people in excess, or overemphasize wealth and status will have you engaging in the same behaviors or adopting the same mindsets over time. We all do these kinds of things, but friends who fight such tendencies will nurture your better angels.

If answering these questions convinces you that your friends are indeed a bad influence, should you dump them? Unless they're really bad, probably not--such a dramatic act might harm your mental health even more than they are harming it. What you can do is shift how you spend your time. Get together less frequently with them, and work on finding new friends who really "get" who you are and what you value.

Oh--and remember how you were the one who taught that supposedly rebellious kid to smoke in the first place? Don't forget that you still have the power to be bad influence on others, and behave accordingly! Be a better friend in 2013.

See the book Friendfluence

Carlinflora.com

Carlin Flora is a journalist in New York City. She was a member of PT's staff from 2004-2011, most recently as Features Editor.

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What Have Your Friends Taught You About Life?

How do you think your interests and personality might be different without your friends’ influence?

By Shannon Doyne

Think about a close friend or a small group of friends. How are you alike? How are you different? What interests or opinions do you share?

Do you think this friend or group of friends has ever influenced you to do something you otherwise wouldn’t, whether that’s trying a new activity, changing an opinion you held, or just helping you think differently about something? How?

In the Opinion essay “ What Is It About Friendships That Is So Powerful ?” David Brooks writes about a “ giant new study ” on the “transformational power of friendship” in general but specifically in reducing poverty.

Why is friendship so powerful? Mr. Brooks writes:

… your friends are not just by your side; they get inside you. If you want to help people change, help them change their friendships. We already know from the work by Yale’s Nicholas Christakis and others that behavior change happens in friend networks . If people in your friend network quit smoking, then you’re more likely to quit smoking. If your friend gains weight, you are more likely to gain weight. Heck, if one of your friend’s friends — who lives far away and whom you have never met — gains weight, then you’re more likely to gain weight, too. Our friends shape what we see as normal. If our friends decide that being 15 pounds heavier is normal and acceptable, then we’ll probably regard being 15 pounds heavier as normal, too. This is the key point. Your friends strongly influence how you perceive reality. First, they strongly influence how you see yourself. It’s very hard to measure your own worth, your own competence, unless people you admire and respect see you as worthy, see you as competent. Plus, if your friends say, “We’re all smart, talented people,” you’ll begin to see yourself that way, too. Second, your friends shape how you see the world. A few decades ago, a theorist named James J. Gibson pioneered the theory of “affordances.” The basic idea is that what you see in a situation is shaped by what you are capable of doing in a situation. Dennis Proffitt of the University of Virginia has demonstrated this theory in a bunch of ways: People who are less physically fit perceive hills to be steeper than people who are fit, because they find it harder to walk up them. People carrying heavy backpacks perceive steeper hills than people without them. The phenomenon works socioeconomically, too. Kids who grew up with college-educated parents walk onto the Princeton campus and see a different campus than kids who have never been around a college at all. Without even thinking about it, more-affluent kids might communicate to their less-affluent friends ways of seeing that make such places look less alien, less imposing, more accessible. Third, our friends alter our desires. Desire is notoriously mimetic. We want what other people want and tell us is worth wanting. If you grow up around friends who naturally aspire to be doctors and accountants and engineers, you are probably going to aspire to such things, too. Entering into a friendship can be a life-altering act, and entering into a friendship with someone different from yourself can be life-transforming.

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• Friendship Problems

How to Stay Away from Friends Who Are Bad Influences

Last Updated: August 6, 2024 Approved

This article was co-authored by Katie Styzek . Katie Styzek is a Professional School Counselor for Chicago Public Schools. Katie earned a BS in Elementary Education with a Concentration in Mathematics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She served as a middle school mathematics, science, and social studies teacher for three years prior to becoming a counselor. She holds a Master of Education (M.Ed.) in School Counseling from DePaul University and an MA in Educational Leadership from Northeastern Illinois University. Katie holds an Illinois School Counselor Endorsement License (Type 73 Service Personnel), an Illinois Principal License (formerly Type 75), and an Illinois Elementary Education Teaching License (Type 03, K – 9). She is also Nationally Board Certified in School Counseling from the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. There are 10 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. wikiHow marks an article as reader-approved once it receives enough positive feedback. In this case, 100% of readers who voted found the article helpful, earning it our reader-approved status. This article has been viewed 202,394 times.

It can be difficult to stay away from friends who are a bad influence on you. Take time to notice which friends pressure you, are disrespectful, or try to manipulate you. These friends who are a bad influence are likely stressing you out and not treating you like a true friend should. If you can get help from others, set healthy boundaries, and make priorities for good friendships, you’ll be better able to manage or stay away from friends who try to influence you. Just remember your values and needs, and that sometimes bad friendships have to end.

Recognizing Bad Friendships

• Boss you around
• Are disrespectful or mean to others
• Are destructive of property or violent
• Try to manipulate you
• Make you feel bad about your eating habits or body
• Belittle your ideas or opinions

• Stressed out
• Unsupported
• Guilty for things you’ve done with the friend

• Depending on what your friend has been doing, your parents may want to talk to their parents. They may also want you to spend less time with those friends or spend time with them in safer ways, like at home. [5] X Research source

• You can say, “I know you’re a good person and I know you’ve been having a hard time since your parents divorced. But I don’t want to be around your smoking and drinking at school. I feel unsafe when you do that and I’m worried about you.”

• Limit the time you spend with that friend
• Express your feelings and needs honestly
• Leave situations where your friend offends you or puts you in danger
• Don’t force them to change, that’s up to them

• You can say, “I really care about you, but our friendship isn’t working for me. It doesn’t seem our interests are the same and I don’t feel good about myself in this friendship.”

wikiHow Quiz: Is My Friend Toxic?

How often does your friend flake on plans.

Constantly! They almost always cancel at the last minute.

Frequently. I might as well flip a coin to see if they show up.

Occasionally. They usually have a good excuse, though.

Never. If they give me their word, I know they’ll be there.

Moving on From Bad Friendships

• Defriend or unfollow them on social media
• Avoid talking about them with your mutual friends
• Avoid answering any texts or phone calls from them
• Avoid sitting next to them in class or at other events

• Cry and let yourself be sad
• Write a goodbye letter, but keep it for yourself

• Build you up
• Genuinely care about how you are
• Don’t focus only on themselves

• It might be uncomfortable or scary at first, just like asking someone out on a date. You can say, “Hi, I noticed your t-shirt. Do you like that band, too? I heard they’re coming out with a new album this weekend. Do you want to go check it out at the record store with me sometime?”

Helping Your Kids with Bad Friendships

• Seek out positives. You can ask, “What do you like about your friend?” or “What do you get from this friendship?”
• Let them know they have choices. You can say, “You don’t have to spend time with those friends. You don’t have to be treated this way.”

• You can say, “I’m sure your friend is a good person, and I don’t know everything they’re going through, but I don’t like that your friend stole beer from our refrigerator. I don’t want you to think it’s okay to do that, here or at someone else’s home. He isn’t allowed to come back over until he apologizes to me.” [16] X Research source

• If you have a child 12 or under, you can plan visits to relatives, schedule doctors’ appointments, or schedule time with other friends instead of allowing them time with bad influences. When they do spend time with the bad friend, make sure it’s at your house or that you’re nearby and can listen in on interactions. [17] X Research source
• If you have a teenager, you can limit the nights they’re allowed to go out and make sure you know what their plans are when they do go out. Let them know their activities with friends have to be approved by you first, and enforce consequences if you find out they did something other than what they first told you. [18] X Research source

Expert Q&A

You Might Also Like

• ↑ https://kidshealth.org/en/kids/peer-pressure.html
• ↑ http://www.cbsnews.com/news/how-to-handle-toxic-friends/
• ↑ Katie Styzek. Professional School Counselor. Expert Interview. 25 November 2020.
• ↑ http://www.cbsnews.com/news/how-to-spot-and-end-a-toxic-friendship/
• ↑ https://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/29/fashion/its-not-me-its-you-how-to-end-a-friendship.html?_r=0
• ↑ http://www.teenvogue.com/story/how-to-deal-with-bad-friends
• ↑ http://www.schoolatoz.nsw.edu.au/wellbeing/behaviour/when-your-teens-new-best-friend-is-a-bad-influence
• ↑ http://articles.latimes.com/2011/apr/11/health/la-he-the-md-teens-friends-20110411
• ↑ https://www.empoweringparents.com/article/does-your-child-have-toxic-friends-6-ways-to-deal-with-the-wrong-crowd/
• ↑ http://www.goodhousekeeping.com/life/parenting/tips/a19185/toxic-friendships/

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The science of why friendships keep us healthy

American culture prioritizes romance, but psychological science is exploring the human need for platonic relationships and the specific ways in which they bolster well-being

Vol. 54 No. 4 Print version: page 42

• Health and Behavior

American culture places a high premium on romantic love. In fact, relationship woes—or the lack thereof—are among the top reasons people seek therapy. And while romance can be a meaningful part of life, the benefits of friendships should not be overlooked. Psychological research suggests that stable, healthy friendships are crucial for our well-being and longevity.

People who have friends and close confidants are more satisfied with their lives and less likely to suffer from depression ( Choi, K. W., et al., The American Journal of Psychiatry , Vol. 177, No. 10, 2020 ). They’re also less likely to die from all causes, including heart problems and a range of chronic diseases ( Holt-Lunstad, J., et al., PLOS Medicine , Vol. 7, No. 7, 2010 ; Steptoe, A., et al., PNAS , Vol. 110, No. 15, 2013 ).

“On the other hand, when people are low in social connection—because of isolation, loneliness, or poor-quality relationships—they face an increased risk of premature death,” said Julianne Holt-Lunstad, PhD, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Brigham Young University who studies how relationships affect the body and brain.

Fortunately, research also suggests that friendships can be made and maintained at any age, relationships with friends can strengthen or stand in for romantic relationships, and even minimal social interactions can be powerful.

[ Related: Conversations are powerful. Here are ways to embrace the awkward and deepen relationships ]

“Friendship is something we really need to understand. There’s been this preoccupation with romantic relationships, but many of our close relationships are with friends,” said Thalia Wheatley, PhD, a professor in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Dartmouth College who studies social connectivity. “So how do they impact our health?”

How friendship changes the body and brain

Psychological research from around the world shows that having social connections is one of the most reliable predictors of a long, healthy, and satisfying life.

A review of 38 studies found that adult friendships, especially high-quality ones that provide social support and companionship, significantly predict well-being and can protect against mental health issues such as depression and anxiety—and those benefits persist across the life span ( Pezirkianidis, C., et al., Frontiers in Psychology , Vol. 14, 2023 ; Blieszner, R., et al., Innovation in Aging , Vol. 3, No. 1, 2019 ). People with no friends or poor-quality friendships are twice as likely to die prematurely, according to Holt-Lunstad’s meta-analysis of more than 308,000 people—a risk factor even greater than the effects of smoking 20 cigarettes per day ( PLOS Medicine , Vol. 7, No. 7, 2010 ).

“In the face of life’s challenges, having a close friend to turn to seems to be a buffer or protective factor against some of the negative outcomes we might otherwise see,” said Catherine Bagwell, PhD, a professor of psychology at Davidson College in North Carolina.

Friendships protect us in part by changing the way we respond to stress. Blood pressure reactivity is lower when people talk to a supportive friend rather than a friend whom they feel ambivalent about ( Holt-Lunstad, J., et al., Annals of Behavioral Medicine , Vol. 33, No. 3, 2007 ). Participants who have a friend by their side while completing a tough task have less heart rate reactivity than those working alone ( Kamarck, T. W., et al., Psychosomatic Medicine , Vol. 52, No. 1, 1990 ). In one study, people even judged a hill to be less steep when they were accompanied by a friend ( Schnall, S., et al., Journal of Experimental Social Psychology , Vol. 44, No. 5, 2008 ).

Scientists studying friendship have even found similar brain activity among friends in regions responsible for a range of functions, including motivation, reward, identity, and sensory processing ( Güroğlu, B., Child Development Perspectives , Vol. 16, No. 2, 2022 ). When Wheatley and her colleagues collected fMRI data on people in a social network, closer friends had more similar brain activity when watching a series of video clips ( Nature Communications , Vol. 9, 2018 ). In another study, currently under review, she and her colleagues can even begin to predict whether first-year MBA students at Dartmouth will later become friends based solely on their neural patterns.

“The big surprise here is that the similarities are all over the brain, including regions that control how we direct our attention, how we think about things, and even what we’re looking at,” Wheatley said.

The risks of social isolation

On the other side of the coin, research has shown that loneliness—among people who lack quality friendships, romantic partnerships, or other relationships—increases our risk for heart attack, stroke, and premature death, according to a longitudinal study of nearly 480,000 U.K. residents ( Hakulinen, C., et al., Heart , Vol. 104, No. 18, 2018 ). A meta-analysis by Holt-Lunstad estimates that loneliness increases the risk of early death as much as 26% ( Perspectives on Psychological Science , Vol. 10, No. 2, 2015 ).

Those findings have prompted leading health organizations, including the American Heart Association and the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM), to warn the public against the dangers of isolation, particularly for older adults ( Cené, C. W., et al., Journal of the American Heart Association , Vol. 11, No. 16, 2022 ; Social Isolation and Loneliness in Older Adults: Opportunities for the Health Care System , NASEM, 2020).

Despite the risks, Americans are getting lonelier. In 2021, 12% of U.S. adults said they did not have any close friends, up from 3% in 1990 ( “The State of American Friendship: Change, Challenges, and Loss,” Survey Center on American Life, 2021 ). That decline began well before the Covid -19 pandemic, with companionship and social engagement among friends, family, and others decreasing steadily over the past two decades ( Kannan, V. D., & Veazie, P. J., SSM – Population Health , Vol. 21, 2023 ).

Social disconnection, which is rising across age groups, appears to have worsened after 2012, when smartphones and social media became virtually ubiquitous. An international study of high school students found that between 2012 and 2018, school loneliness increased in 36 of 37 countries ( Twenge, J. M., et al., Journal of Adolescence , Vol. 93, No. 1, 2021 ).

“There were significant downward trends in social contact even before the pandemic,” Holt-Lunstad said. “What’s remarkable about that is that ‘getting back to normal’ is not going to be enough—because it wasn’t looking good before.”

The Covid -19 pandemic likely exacerbated an existing trend toward social isolation—and it also provided a natural way for scientists to measure the effects of that shift. Bagwell and psychologist Karen Kochel, PhD, of the University of Richmond, found that college students with less social support from their friends during the first year of the pandemic also had more problems with anxiety, depression, and academic adjustment ( Emerging Adulthood , Vol. 10, No. 5, 2022 ).

“For these students, their relationships with their friends and peers were quite significant in predicting how they were doing, both academically and in terms of their emotional adjustment,” Bagwell said.

[ Related: Making new friends and keeping existing ones is hard. Here’s some science-backed tips to help ]

The strength of “weak” ties

Having a close friend or confidant is undeniably good for us, but psychologists have found that interactions with acquaintances—and even strangers—can also give our mental health a boost. A casual relationship with the operator of a hot dog stand in Toronto helped Gillian Sandstrom, PhD, feel grounded and connected while pursuing her master’s degree. The relationship also inspired Sandstrom, now a senior lecturer in psychology at the University of Sussex, to start studying “weak” social ties.

These connections with acquaintances—a work friend you bump into once a week, the pet store employee who remembers your cat—can be surprisingly sustaining. Sandstrom’s research has found that people who have more weak-tie interactions are happier than those who have fewer and that people tend to be happier on days when they have more than their average number of weak-tie interactions ( Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin , Vol. 40, No. 7, 2014 ). She also encourages talking to strangers and has shown that repeated practice can make doing so easier and more enjoyable ( Journal of Experimental Social Psychology , Vol. 102, 2022 ).

“These minimal social interactions give us something important that we missed during the pandemic: novelty,” Sandstrom said. “We learn surprising things when we have unplanned encounters and conversations with people,” a benefit that people tend to underestimate ( Atir, S., et al., PNAS , Vol. 119, No. 34, 2022 ).

People often avoid conversations with strangers, assuming they will be awkward or shallow, but research suggests those worries may be overblown. Psychologist Nicholas Epley, PhD, of the University of Chicago, and his colleagues have found that conversations with strangers tend to be less awkward, more enjoyable, and more connecting than people expect. To their own surprise, people also tend to prefer having deep conversations with strangers over shallow ones ( Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , Vol. 122, No. 3, 2022 ).

Sandstrom has some advice for connecting with strangers: Tap into your curiosity. Ask someone what they’re reading, for example, or why they’re wearing airplane earrings. Another tip: Comment on the shared situation. While standing in the checkout line at a mini-mart, Sandstrom once connected with a fellow customer over the store’s unusual mishmash of Halloween and Christmas decorations.

“You’re in the same place at the same time as the other person, so there’s always something in common,” she said.

Lovers and friends

We tend to see friendship and romance as separate entities, but the two may have more in common than we realize. Psychological research points to qualities such as chemistry, intimacy, and warmth as key building blocks of close, stable friendships ( Ledbetter, A. M., et al., Personal Relationships , Vol. 14, No. 2, 2007 ; Campbell, K., et al., The Social Science Journal , Vol. 52, No. 2, 2015 ).

Regular interactions with acquaintances—the local coffee barista, for example—make people happier.

“When we view behaviors that create intimacy—being vulnerable, buying gifts, taking someone out on a date—as only appropriate for a romantic relationship, we end up limiting the potential of our friendships,” said psychologist Marisa G. Franco, PhD, an assistant clinical professor at the University of Maryland and author of Platonic , a book about making and keeping friends. “Many of us could really benefit from blurring the lines between the two.”

Conversely, romantic relationships may be more fulfilling if they look more like friendships. An analysis of nearly 8,000 respondents to the British Household Panel Survey showed that life satisfaction was about twice as high among people who said their spouse was also their best friend ( “How’s Life at Home? New Evidence on Marriage and the Set Point for Happiness,” NBER Working Paper No. 20794, 2014 ).

Research also suggests a symbiosis between romantic and platonic relationships, Franco said, suggesting that one can benefit the other. For example, marital conflict can trigger unhealthy changes in cortisol levels, but that harm is buffered when spouses feel they have adequate social support outside the marriage ( Keneski, E., et al., Social Psychological and Personality Science , Vol. 9, No. 8, 2017 ). Other research indicates that women who have social support are more resilient to stress that occurs within a marriage ( Abbas, J., et al., Journal of Affective Disorders , Vol. 244, 2019 ).

There’s also reason to believe that skills developed in friendships can be carried forward into healthier romantic relationships, particularly among teens and young adults.

“Friendships are the first relationships in life that we get to freely choose,” said Melanie Dirks, PhD, a professor of psychology at McGill University in Montreal who studies peer relationships in children, adolescents, and young adults. “Because of that, they present a really important opportunity to learn how to navigate challenging interpersonal situations before we enter relationships as adults.”

For example, self-disclosure between friends—sharing thoughts and feelings—helps young adults build empathy for others, practice seeking and providing social support, and even solidify their identities, said Rebecca Schwartz-Mette, PhD, an associate professor of clinical psychology and director of the Peer Relations Lab at the University of Maine who studies friendship in children, adolescents, and young adults.

Many young adults in the United States are juggling life transitions, stress, and developmental challenges—and friends are typically their main sources of social support, which makes them critical for psychologists to study and understand, said Dirks.

She has studied the types of challenges that tend to arise in young adult friendships, finding that they undergo strain for one of three reasons: needs are in conflict (for example: there’s one spot on a sports team that both friends want); a transgression occurs (for example: one friend reveals private information about the other); or friends have trouble exchanging support (for example: one has a problem with alcohol use, but the other doesn’t know how to help) ( Journal of Research on Adolescence , Vol. 31, No. 2, 2021 ).

In childhood and adolescence, high-quality friendships can protect kids from mental health issues—such as anxiety and depression—that might otherwise result from social challenges, including being bullied ( Bayer, J. K., et al., Child and Adolescent Mental Health , Vol. 23, No. 4, 2018 ). But there are also conditions where mental health struggles can harm friendships. Schwartz-Mette and her colleagues have found that between friends, excessive self-disclosure about life’s challenges (known as “corumination”) can trigger distancing within a friendship or even lead to the social contagion of depression, self-injury, and suicidality ( Developmental Psychology , Vol. 50, No. 9, 2014 ; Journal of Clinical Child & Adolescent Psychology , Vol. 47, No. 6, 2018 ).

“Our goal in isolating these different friendship trajectories is to inform interventions for people who are distressed—so that they can keep their relationships and have that crucial social support but not overtax or overstress their relationship partners,” Schwartz-Mette said.

Supporting healthy friendships

Given the clear benefits of friendship, psychologists say we should promote platonic social connection across society—including in school, at work, in public spaces (such as on public transportation), and through entertainment.

“After having to reduce social contact during the pandemic, we’ve realized how it impacts basically every sector of society,” said Holt-Lunstad. “That suggests that each of these sectors can potentially play a role in solutions.”

Researchers still have a lot to learn about how and why social connection supports health and well-being. The National Institutes of Health and other organizations are distributing funding for studies on “dyadic processes”—or interactions between two people—including exciting new efforts to collect fMRI data on friends while they communicate.

“What we know is that if we don’t interact regularly, things go really bad remarkably fast. But what is the magic in these interactions that’s keeping us healthy and sane?” Wheatley asked. “More and more researchers are saying there’s this huge part of human behavior we know very little about. Let’s change that.”

Further resources

The role of friendships in well-being Fehr, B., & Harasmychuk, C. In Maddux, J. E. (Ed.), Subjective Well-Being and Life Satisfaction, Routledge , 2017

Beyond the isolated brain: The promise and challenge of interacting minds Wheatley, T., et al., Neuron , 2019

Adult friendship and wellbeing: A systematic review with practical implications Pezirkianidis, C., et al., Frontiers in Psychology , 2023

What prevents people from making friends: A taxonomy of reasons Apostolou, M., & Keramari, D., Personality and Individual Differences , 2020

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Importance of Friends in our Life for Students and Children

500+ words essay importance of friends in our life.

When we are born, we get associated with our family by blood relation. However, there is a relation, which we choose ourselves. That relation is a friend.  Friends make our life beautiful.  The adventure of life becomes beautiful when good friends surround us. We all belong to a family, where we have our parents, grandparents, siblings, cousins, etc. We get immense love, care, attention and guidance from our family. However, our entire life does not revolve around our family members only. We all have our own purpose in life. Some members of our family go to school, some go to college, and our parents go to work. We all have a life outside our family. No journey of life seems interesting when traveled alone. We tend to make friends outside our family boundaries as that makes all life activities enjoyable.

Friends are Essential in Every Sphere of Life

We connect very quickly with people with whom our interests match. Infants are playful by nature. They always look for the company with whom the can play and explore their curious nature. Hence, when they meet any other infant of their age they connect easily over their common interest of playing.

In school, we make friends over our common interests. For example, students who like playing sports like cricket connect quickly and they become friends. Friends meet and discuss their common interests and nurture their interests together. Friends in school help each other in understanding the class activities, and homework. They often exchange notes and reference materials among themselves.

During our college life, we get independence in taking many decisions on our own. Also, many live in a hostel and are hence away from their family. Studying together, staying together, nurturing interest together, adjusting to conflicts with each other, helping each other all these makes the bond of friendship stronger.

A friend highlights mistakes and guides us in many ways. They also motivate us to realize our full potential. Also, we can easily discuss and share such issues and thoughts with our friends which we cannot share with our parents.

In our professional life also, friends also help us handle failure positively and multiply our joy of success. During midlife, we have huge responsibilities for family, job, etc. Discussing professional and personal stress with our friends makes us feel relaxed. They are our mental support and when we are in crisis, a good friend joins hand and helps in solving the problem.

Because of the nuclear family structure of the current society in old age, people mostly stay alone. Friends hang out and travel together to explore various places and enjoy several hobbies together. Friends thus eliminate boredom and loneliness from life. They add color to life. They become big support for any help needed.

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Famous Friendship stories

In history, we get examples of many friendship stories, which shows the importance of friend in life. From the stories of Lord Krishna and Arjun, Ram and Sugreev, Lord Krishna and Sudama, Duryodhan and Karn it shows that friends have always been a person who helps and supports us. They help us come out of distress and grow in life.

Friendship is not only between two people. We become friends with animals around us. Hence, we tend to keep pets. Pets eliminate boredom and stress from our life. Spending time with pets give us immense joy.

Animals also become friends among themselves. They also help and support each other in the process of survival and existence. The biggest example of the need of friend among animals is there in the story Lion and the Mouse where they both help each other come out of difficult situations.

In our lifetime we choose our own friends. The journey of life becomes memorable because of friends. Friendship is a lovely relation without which life seems dull. It is the relationship with our friends that teaches us to share, love, care and most importantly helps us to fight odds and be successful. Having true friends acts as a boon. Friends increase the sense of belongingness and generate a feel-good factor. We all thrive and look for at least one that friend who at times criticizes and appreciates too. Emotional and psychological attachments are important and can only be experienced with friends.

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A teen’s friends are a powerful influence

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My parents had it pretty easy with me when I was a teenager. I was a bit of a nerd. I earned straight A’s in school, ran for student government and spent much of my free time watching reruns of “Little House on the Prairie.” And they had little to complain about when it came to my friends — most of them were as straight as I was. My mom and dad considered them a positive influence.

Many parents aren’t nearly this lucky. Their teens run with kids who prefer partying to homework or fistfights to team sports. It’s only natural for these parents to worry about the way their children are being influenced. And it’s only logical for them to wonder: Should I allow my child to spend time with these kids at all?

“It’s a tricky issue,” says Mitch Prinstein, director of clinical psychology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and editor of the Journal of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology. “It’s a fair and appropriate question for parents to be asking themselves.”

The influence that friends exert over one another as teenagers is clearly powerful and, far too often, undesirable. Unhealthy behaviors can be almost contagious among kids this age. Teens whose friends smoke, drink or use drugs, for example, are more likely to indulge in these behaviors themselves. Aggressive, illegal or self-injurious behaviors also have a tendency to cluster among friend groups, as do concerns about body image and eating.

A study published in February in the Journal of Early Adolescence showed that friendships can also make the difference between good and bad grades at school. Researchers at the University of Oregon surveyed more than 1,200 middle school students and asked them to identify their three best friends. They found that students whose friends were prone to misbehave didn’t do as well in school as kids whose friends were socially active in positive ways, such as participating in sports at school or completing their homework on time.

Even though it’s easy for parents to blame their children’s bad behavior on peers and assume that other kids coerce them into doing things like drinking, smoking, stealing or cheating, poor decision-making among teens isn’t all about pressure . Kids actively want to emulate their peers. During adolescence, they are looking for ways to separate from their families and begin to define themselves as individuals. To that end, they turn to friends for guidance and direction. They tend to mimic their peers’ behaviors and adopt the same attitudes. Conforming to social norms helps them redefine themselves while earning them acceptance and approval. Fitting in simply feels good.

Parents, discouraged by the changes they see in their children, naturally try to intervene. They may encourage their kids to spend less time with friends they perceive as troublemakers or forbid these friendships entirely. But interfering in a teenager’s life too much, particularly with friendships, can make matters worse. “Meddling with children’s relationships has a high potential for backfiring,” Prinstein says. “It can actually fuel rebellion.”

There are things parents can do, however, to temper the influence that teenagers have on one another. “Helping your child develop a sense of identity and feel secure in that identity is probably the best antidote,” Prinstein says. That’s not easy. Adolescents can no longer be told what to believe or how to behave. They have to be allowed to develop their own sense of what’s important.

Teens require a certain amount of independence. But that doesn’t mean they should have free rein. Adolescents aren’t exactly known for their good decision-making, and parents need to impose some boundaries. When rules are broken and friends are involved, there need to be consequences — reasonable ones. Rather than trying to break up a friendship, parents might want to “ground” a teen’s social life, allowing the child to see friends at home under watchful parental eyes but not to go out with them.

The good news is that adolescence doesn’t last forever. Kids are most susceptible to their peers’ influence during middle school, around the age of 13 or 14. By high school, there’s already a dramatic shift in the way their brains are working, and the sway that other kids hold over them isn’t nearly as strong.

I have two teenage daughters, and both have wonderful friends. The girls they choose to spend time with are hard-working and bright, and I can count on them to make good choices most of the time. It’s my 9-year-old son I worry most about at this point. Though with him, I’m not sure what I’m most afraid of: The influence his friends will have over him or the naughty behavior he’ll model for his pals.

Ulene is a board-certified specialist in preventive medicine in Los Angeles. The M.D. appears once a month.

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Understanding The Influence Of Friends In Adolescence

Adolescent friendships can be powerful influences. Your teen’s behavior and mental health could be impacted by those in their peer group. It may be important to note that adolescent friendships are often fleeting. Most fade within a year or two as teens quickly shift interests, activities, and friend groups. In addition, similarity can lead to stronger, healthier teenage friendships. When your child is friends with someone very different from them, you may expect increased conflicts in their connection. Learning the emotional skills to identify their own and others’ feelings, understanding how they influence mood and behavior, and communicating their needs and emotions to friends, family, and romantic partners may be crucial to adolescent child development. As a parent, you may wish to consult with a licensed therapist to learn how to best support your child through adolescence and beyond.

How much influence do an adolescent’s friends have?

Teenagers may be driven by an overwhelming desire to fit in and be accepted. As their friend groups change and evolve, your adolescent will likely adopt numerous ways of talking, behaving, and thinking from their peer group—with varying results. 

Trying to force your child to be (or not be) friends with a particular child or otherwise exerting your parental power over their social connections can backfire. Instead, consider fostering a healthy sense of identity, teaching them about functional, positive relationships, and then trusting them to make good choices. Positive, supportive teenage friendships can predict adult mental health. 

Social changes your child may experience during adolescence

As children transition from middle school to high school, they may experience many physical, mental, emotional, and social changes that influence how they think, act, and feel.

Expanding social circle and emulating friends

Beginning in middle school, you can expect your child's focus and priority to start shifting away from the family and toward friends and social connections. As their social circle grows and they spend more time with their friends away from home, you can expect their moods and behaviors to fluctuate. 

You might also see echoes of their friends in their language, attitude, and behavior. Teenagers may begin looking to their friends and peers for guidance, inspiration, and support. They may also gravitate toward people with similar interests.

Overwhelming drive for acceptance

Adolescents are usually still discovering their values and who they want to be. Sometimes, they may have ill-advised ideas about what their peer group may see as acceptable or desirable behavior. As a result, they may choose to do something out of character to fit in with their friends. 

Spending less time with family

During adolescence, you can expect your child to show more interest in social contact with people outside the family, expanding their mental, emotional, and social horizons. Teenagers might seek ways to understand and define themselves as separate from their families.

Making and outgrowing friendships

Lifelong friendships may be considered a rare and precious gift. Through adolescence, you can expect your child’s friend groups and peers to shift many times. A study conducted by Florida Atlantic University determined that just “ one percent of friendships that began in the seventh grade continued to the 12th grade .”

Additional Adolescent Social Changes

You may observe other social changes in your teen, including: 

• Developing stronger and more complex relationships
• Forming connections with mentors, such as teachers and coaches
• Experimenting to discover their style
• Being influenced by culture, media, and friends
• Demonstrating interest in romantic partners

Understanding how friends can influence your teenager

Parenting adolescents can be easier when you understand the reasons for their behavior, including when their friends influence them. While you may want to believe your child couldn’t be the one to instigate trouble, it might be important to keep in mind that their mistakes may not always be the result of peer pressure. Sometimes, teenagers simply make bad choices. 

Adopting Negative Habits

Your child may absorb some of their friends’ habits. If they get close to someone who likes to argue or solve problems with violence, you may notice your child demonstrating aggressive behavior as well. If their friends are permitted to curse and act disrespectfully, your child may begin doing the same.

Participating in risky behaviors

Your child may emulate risky behaviors they’re exposed to through their teenage friendships. This could include smoking cigarettes, drinking alcohol, experimenting with recreational drugs, or engaging in sexual activity, for example. 

Influencing them toward good or bad grades at school

A teenager’s friends can influence how much effort they put forth and how well they perform in school. If several of their friends routinely skip homework and make no effort to get good grades, your child’s behavior may reflect that. 

Teen friendships can be a positive influence, too

Not all teenage friendships may be negative. These adolescent relationships can also have benefits, such as encouraging mental health and self-confidence and supporting emotional growth and development. If your teen’s friends have a positive outlook, supportive attitude, or a desire to help others, you can expect your child to absorb some of that, too. 

Building up their confidence and self-esteem

As your teenager builds stronger, more complex friendships, you can expect their close friends to become a significant source of emotional support. Good friends can help teens develop their confidence and self-esteem, celebrate their triumphs, and offer support through challenging times. 

Developing individual, social, and cultural views

While your teenager may be an individual with their own mind, their friends can often influence how they think. For example, an adolescent with passionate friends active in social justice, politics, or volunteer work may want to get more involved. 

How can you support your child’s adolescent friendships?

Consider these tips to support healthy relationships and communication:

• Teach them to stick to their convictions and that good friends will let them say no. 
• Help them choose their friends wisely. Friendships based on shared interests and values tend to be more likely to succeed.
• Emphasize the need for reciprocal care and attention in healthy teenage friendships. Teach them how to be a good friend. 
• Encourage your child to embrace the possibilities of varied friendships and experiences.
• Teach them that honesty and communication are often at the heart of healthy friendships.
• Model compromise, communication, and conflict resolution for your child from an early age, so that working together and talking through problems can become instinctive behaviors. 
• Build up your adolescent’s confidence, encouraging them to be themselves. This may make it less likely they’ll be manipulated by others. 

Benefits of online therapy

Parenting doesn’t typically come with a convenient guide to help you navigate the challenging situations your child will likely face as they grow. Still, parents may benefit from speaking with a licensed therapist online through a virtual therapy platform like BetterHelp . Therapy can equip you with valuable parenting, communication, and conflict resolution skills to create a healthy, functional family dynamic. Busy parents may find the convenience of online therapy appealing. With this form of internet-based therapy, you can attend sessions day or night from the comfort of your home. 

Effectiveness of online therapy

Therapists may use cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) to help patients explore the connection between their thoughts and feelings. They can then identify and reshape harmful habits into healthier, more productive patterns. Online and in-person therapy generally produce the same client outcomes , making both valid choices for those seeking professional help.

• Growing Pains: Exploring The Social Changes In Adolescence Medically reviewed by Julie Dodson , MA, LCSW
• Shifting Expectations: Healthy Ways To Expand The Role Of Parents During Adolescence Medically reviewed by Nikki Ciletti , M.Ed, LPC
• Adolescence
• Relationships and Relations

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What To Do If Your Child’s Friends Are A Bad Influence

Jenny Zhang

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As children grow, they begin to form friendships that play a significant role in shaping their personalities, values, and behaviors. While friendships are an important part of childhood development, some friends may have a negative impact on your child, influencing them to engage in risky or inappropriate behavior. Whether it’s peer pressure, exposure to bad habits, or attitudes that conflict with your family’s values, it can be deeply concerning for parents when they feel their child’s friends are a bad influence.

Addressing the issue without alienating your child or damaging your relationship can be tricky. You want to protect them, but you also need to respect their growing independence. This guide will provide practical strategies for navigating this situation, maintaining open communication, and helping your child make better choices without overstepping boundaries.

1. Recognize the Signs of Negative Influence

Before taking action, it’s important to accurately assess whether your child’s friends are truly a negative influence. Children are influenced by many factors, and it’s crucial not to jump to conclusions. Some behaviors may be typical of growing independence, while others may be signs of unhealthy friendships.

Signs to Watch For:

• Sudden Changes in Behavior: If your child suddenly becomes more defiant, secretive, or starts exhibiting behaviors that go against your household values, it could be a result of peer influence.
• Drop in Academic Performance: A noticeable decline in school performance, loss of interest in homework, or skipping classes could indicate that your child is being influenced by friends who don’t value education.
• Adopting Bad Habits: If your child starts picking up harmful habits like smoking, vaping, swearing, or aggressive behavior after spending time with certain friends, it may be a direct result of peer pressure.
• Excessive Peer Dependence: If your child becomes excessively dependent on their friends’ opinions and approval, to the point where they no longer make decisions for themselves, it can indicate a problematic dynamic.
• Distancing from Family: If your child starts withdrawing from family activities, acting secretive about their whereabouts, or displaying disrespect toward family members, it may be a sign of negative influence from their social circle.

What to Do:

Before reacting, take the time to observe your child’s behavior and interactions with their friends. Pay attention to any patterns of behavior that seem inconsistent with their usual character. It’s important to avoid jumping to conclusions based on isolated incidents or normal teenage behavior. When you feel confident that your child’s friends are having a negative impact, it’s time to take action.

2. Keep the Lines of Communication Open

Open and honest communication is one of the most effective ways to address the issue of negative peer influence. The goal is to talk to your child about their friendships without accusing them or their friends, which could cause them to become defensive or withdraw from the conversation.

How to Talk to Your Child:

• Ask Open-Ended Questions: Instead of confronting your child with statements like, “I don’t like your friends,” ask open-ended questions that encourage them to share their thoughts and feelings. For example, “How do you feel when you hang out with [friend’s name]? What kinds of things do you do together?”
• Listen Without Judgment: Give your child a chance to explain their perspective without interrupting or criticizing. If your child feels heard and respected, they are more likely to open up about their relationships.
• Express Your Concerns Calmly: If you have specific concerns about their friends, express them in a calm and non-accusatory way. Avoid saying things like, “Your friends are bad,” as this can make your child feel attacked. Instead, focus on the behavior you’ve noticed, such as, “I’ve noticed you’ve been acting differently after spending time with [friend’s name]. Can we talk about what’s been going on?”
• Discuss Values and Boundaries: Use this opportunity to discuss your family’s values and why certain behaviors are concerning to you. Frame the conversation in terms of your love and concern for their well-being rather than criticism of their friends.

The key to successful communication is to remain calm and non-confrontational. Approach the conversation with curiosity rather than accusations, and focus on encouraging your child to think critically about their friendships. Help them understand the importance of surrounding themselves with positive influences, but avoid trying to control their choices outright.

3. Teach Critical Thinking and Decision-Making Skills

Rather than simply telling your child which friends they should or shouldn’t have, focus on empowering them to make good decisions on their own. Teaching your child critical thinking skills will help them evaluate their friendships and make better choices about who they spend their time with.

Strategies to Build Critical Thinking:

• Discuss Peer Pressure: Have an open conversation about peer pressure and how it can lead to poor decisions. Help your child recognize situations where they might feel pressured to do something they’re uncomfortable with and teach them how to say no assertively.
• Encourage Independent Thinking: Encourage your child to think for themselves and not simply follow the crowd. Ask them questions like, “How do you feel about the way your friends act?” or “Do you feel pressured to do things you don’t want to do?” This will help them assess their friendships on their own terms.
• Role-Playing Scenarios: Practice potential peer pressure situations with your child through role-playing. For example, if they feel pressured to skip school or engage in risky behavior, help them come up with responses they can use in those situations, such as, “No thanks, I’m not into that.”

By teaching your child to think critically about their friendships and decision-making, you are equipping them with tools they can use in the future. Instead of feeling like they need to hide their friendships from you, they’ll be able to assess whether their friends are positively or negatively impacting their lives. This approach encourages independence while still allowing you to guide them.

4. Monitor Without Micromanaging

While it’s important to keep an eye on your child’s friendships, it’s equally important to avoid micromanaging their social life. Teenagers, in particular, value their independence, and if they feel like their parents are too controlling, they may become secretive or rebellious.

How to Monitor Effectively:

• Set Clear Boundaries: Establish clear rules about curfews, screen time, and where your child is allowed to go. Explain that these rules are in place to keep them safe, not to control their life.
• Know Who Their Friends Are: Make an effort to meet your child’s friends and, if possible, their parents. This gives you a better sense of the kind of people your child is spending time with and creates an opportunity for communication if issues arise.
• Encourage Group Activities: Encourage your child to spend time with their friends in settings where you can be present or nearby. For example, you could host a movie night, invite friends over for dinner, or take them to an activity. This allows you to observe their interactions without directly interfering.
• Trust Your Child, But Verify: While you should trust your child, it’s also important to verify their activities. Keep track of where they’re going, who they’re with, and what they’re doing. You don’t need to constantly hover, but it’s reasonable to check in and make sure your child is following the rules.

The goal is to strike a balance between monitoring your child’s friendships and giving them enough space to make their own decisions. Too much control can push your child further into the influence of bad friends, while too little supervision can leave them vulnerable. Open communication and reasonable boundaries help you maintain oversight without smothering their independence.

5. Encourage Positive Friendships and Activities

One of the best ways to counteract negative peer influence is by encouraging your child to build positive friendships and engage in constructive activities. When your child has a strong support network of friends who share healthy values, they are less likely to be swayed by bad influences.

How to Encourage Positive Friendships:

• Promote Extracurricular Activities: Encourage your child to join clubs, sports teams, or other extracurricular activities where they can meet new friends who share their interests. Positive group activities can provide a sense of belonging and purpose, which reduces the likelihood of turning to bad influences.
• Facilitate Opportunities for New Friendships: Arrange playdates, group outings, or family events where your child can meet new peers who share your family’s values. This can help expand their social circle and introduce them to new, positive influences.
• Model Positive Relationships: Demonstrate the importance of healthy friendships by modeling positive relationships in your own life. Let your child see how you choose friends who uplift and support you, and talk to them about what makes a good friend.

Help your child recognize what makes a friendship positive. Encourage friendships with peers who respect their boundaries, share similar values, and engage in activities that are productive and positive. You can’t choose your child’s friends, but you can create an environment where they are exposed to healthier, more positive friendships.

6. Set Consequences for Harmful Behavior

If your child begins to engage in dangerous or harmful behavior as a result of negative peer influence, it’s important to set clear and consistent consequences. While you want to avoid alienating them, you must also set firm boundaries to protect their safety and well-being.

How to Handle Consequences:

• Clearly Define the Consequences: Be upfront about what behaviors are unacceptable and the consequences for engaging in those behaviors. For example, if skipping school or breaking curfew becomes an issue, make it clear that there will be specific consequences, such as loss of privileges (phone, social media, or extracurricular activities).
• Follow Through Consistently: If your child breaks the rules or engages in harmful behavior, follow through with the consequences you’ve set. Consistency is key to helping them understand that their actions have real repercussions.
• Use Discipline as a Teaching Tool: Rather than simply punishing your child, use discipline as an opportunity to teach them. Discuss why their actions are harmful and what they can do differently in the future. This helps reinforce the lessons you’re trying to teach while still holding them accountable.

Discipline should always be firm but fair. It’s important that your child understands that the consequences are not meant to punish them, but to guide them toward making better decisions. Be consistent in enforcing rules, and always provide a pathway for your child to rebuild trust after making mistakes.

7. Seek Professional Help if Necessary

If your child’s behavior is seriously impacted by negative peer influence and you feel unable to manage the situation on your own, it may be time to seek professional help. Behavioral therapists, counselors, and family therapists can help your child develop healthier coping mechanisms and work through peer pressure issues.

When to Seek Help:

• Severe Behavioral Changes: If your child’s behavior changes dramatically, such as engaging in dangerous activities, using drugs or alcohol, or consistently defying rules, a professional can help get to the root of the issue.
• Mental Health Concerns: If your child is showing signs of anxiety, depression, or emotional distress related to their friendships or peer pressure, a therapist can provide support and help them navigate these challenges.

Consult with a therapist or counselor who specializes in working with children or teenagers. Therapy can provide a neutral space where your child feels safe to talk about their experiences and receive guidance. Family therapy may also be beneficial if communication between you and your child has broken down.

Dealing with a situation where your child’s friends are a bad influence can be difficult, but with patience, open communication, and clear boundaries, you can guide your child toward healthier friendships. It’s important to approach the situation with understanding and support, rather than control and criticism. By teaching your child to think critically about their relationships, offering positive alternatives, and maintaining a strong connection with them, you can help them navigate peer pressure and make better decisions.

Jenny holds a Master's degree in psychiatry from the University of Illinois and Bachelors's degree from the University of Texas in nutritional sciences. She works as a dietician for Austin Oaks Hospital in Austin, Texas. Jenney writes content on nutrition and mental health for the Scientific Origin.

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6 Benefits of Friendship and Why It's So Important to Stay Close

Invest in your besties

Verywell / Joshua Seong

• Physical Health
• Healthy Behaviors
• Emotional Support
• Confidence Building
• Stress Reduction

Friends Help You Cultivate Community

Frequently asked questions.

In an age where many of us feel lonelier and more disconnected than ever—despite being chronically online—it's never been more important to invest extra energy into our friendships. Platonic relationships are sometimes overlooked in our quest for romantic ones but friendship is just as important to our psychological wellbeing.

Friendships can enrich your life in countless ways. Good friends teach you about yourself and challenge you to be better. They encourage you to keep going when times get tough and celebrate your successes with you. They help you build community

But friends do a lot more than give you a shoulder to cry on; they also have a positive impact on your health. Some research even says friendships are as important to your well-being as eating right and exercising. Here's why:

Friends Are Good for Your Physical Health

It turns out that healthy relationships actually contribute to good physical health. Having a close circle of friends can decrease your risk of health problems like diabetes, heart attack, and stroke.

Having strong social ties can also decrease feelings of loneliness, which evidence shows can take a toll on your longevity. According to a 2010 review, people with strong relationships have half the risk of premature death from all causes.  

Social isolation and loneliness are linked to a variety of health issues such as high blood pressure, substance abuse, heart disease, and even cancer.

Friends Encourage Healthy Behaviors

One possible explanation for those health benefits is that friendships can help you make lifestyle changes that can have a direct impact on your well-being. For example, your friends can help you set and maintain goals to eat better and exercise more.   They can also watch out for you and give a heads-up when any unhealthy behaviors (like drinking too much ) get out of hand.

Additionally, people are more motivated and likely to stick to a weight loss or exercise program when they do it with a buddy. It's much easier to get out and stay active when you have a friend by your side.

That friend may also suggest activities that you would not have considered on your own—thus, pushing you outside your comfort zone to challenge your anxiety.

Friends Provide Emotional Support

If you find yourself going through a hard time, having a friend to help you through can make the transition easier.

Research also shows that happiness is contagious among friends. One study of high school students found that those who were depressed were twice as likely to recover if they had happy friends. Likewise, kids were half as likely to develop depression if their friends had a "healthy mood."

Friends Help Build Your Confidence

Everyone has self-doubts and insecurities every now and then. But having friends who support you plays a big role in building your self-esteem . When people around you provide validation, it impacts your ability to love and appreciate yourself.

Supportive friends can help you feel more confident by offering praise and reassurance when you're feeling unsure. They'll shine a light on just how amazing you are and how much you have to offer others.

Friends Help You Beat Stress

Everyone goes through stressful events. If you know you have people you can count on, you may be less likely to even perceive a tough time as stressful. 

Spending time with friends can also help reduce stress . According to Harvard Medical School, "social connections help relieve levels of stress, which can harm the heart's arteries, gut function, insulin regulation, and the immune system."

Friends can also help you cope with stressful situations. According to one small study, when children hang out with their friends during a stressful situation, they produce less cortisol, a hormone released when the body is under stress.

As the song goes: “We all need somebody to lean on.”

A lack of friends can leave you feeling lonely and without support, which makes you vulnerable to other problems such as depression and substance abuse.

While we might all be pretty good at building online communities, our in person ones are seriously lacking. When we invest the energy in our friendships, and then encourage our friends to be friends with each other it fosters a sense of community.

A healthy community can help us feel more at home in our towns and cities When we're out and about and we see people we know—at the grocery store, at a local cafe, etc—it lets us know that we are part of something bigger and that we belong.

Friends Push You To Be Your Best

Ever heard some version of the phrase, "you are the average of the people you spend your time with"? The people we're friends with have the power to influence our own values and character. When you prioritize friendships with people who are generous with their time, help others, or are ambitious or family-oriented, you are more likely to develop those values yourself.

Great friends have the power to mold you into the best version of yourself. They see you and love you for who you truly are. They encourage you and push you to do better and be the person you want to be—your "ideal self."

There are many different components of friendship. If someone is loyal to you, honest with you, shares many of your interests, and is there for you when you need them, you would likely consider them a friend.

Many of the benefits of friends could be considered evolutionary—having a group of friends can create feelings of safety and social inclusion. Caring for others, and having others that care for you in turn, can help foster a collective purpose and feelings of self-worth.

Yang YC, Boen C, Gerken K, Li T, Schorpp K, Harris KM. Social relationships and physiological determinants of longevity across the human life span . Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A . 2016;113(3):578-583. doi:10.1073/pnas.1511085112

Holt-Lunstad J, Smith TB, Layton JB. Social relationships and mortality risk: A meta-analytic review . PLoS Med . 2010;7(7):e1000316. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1000316

Holt-Lunstad J, Smith TB, Baker M, Harris T, Stephenson D. Loneliness and social isolation as risk factors for mortality: A meta-analytic review . Perspect Psychol Sci . 2015;10(2):227-237. doi:10.1177/1745691614568352

Craddock E, vanDellen MR, Novak SA, Ranby KW. Influence in relationships: A meta-analysis on health-related social control . Basic Appl Soc Psych . 2015;37(2):118-130. doi:10.1080/01973533.2015.1011271

Hill EM, Griffiths FE, House T. Spreading of healthy mood in adolescent social networks .  Proc Biol Sci . 2015;282(1813):20151180. doi:10.1098/rspb.2015.1180

Harvard Medical School. The health benefits of strong relationships .

Adams RE, Santo JB, Bukowski WM. The presence of a best friend buffers the effects of negative experiences . Dev Psychol . 2011;47(6):1786-1791. doi:10.1037/a0025401

Shadur J, Hussong A. Friendship intimacy, close friend drug use, and self-medication in adolescence . J Soc Pers Relat . 2014;31(8):997-1018. doi:10.1177/0265407513516889

Houle J, Meunier S, Coulombe S, et al. Peer positive social control and men's health-promoting behaviors . Am J Mens Health . 2017;11(5):1569-1579. doi:10.1177/1557988317711605

By Arlin Cuncic, MA Arlin Cuncic, MA, is the author of The Anxiety Workbook and founder of the website About Social Anxiety. She has a Master's degree in clinical psychology.

For Businesses

For students & teachers, how friends influence behavior: friendships and school performance.

EVERFI Content Team

When you think back to your time in school, what do you remember most? Is it the homework and tests, or is it the relationships you built with others? If you’re like most people, it’s the latter. But, how do those friends influence behavior?  Recent studies have concluded that friendships are more important than you might think. In many cases, they’re even among the biggest indicators of success in school. Of course, that could be a problem for the students who don’t make friends easily, which is why they need your help. After all, as teachers, we have a great opportunity to help students improve their peer relationships in school. Here’s why that’s important and how to get started.

The Impact of Peer Relationships

Childhood friendships are more important than you might think. First, they help children develop the social skills they’ll need to succeed in life. Those skills include the following:

• Cooperation
• Problem solving
• Communication

As most adults have learned, those skills are important both at school and in the workforce. Peer relationships can also help children learn to control their emotions and respond to others appropriately. Better grades are also among the perks of friendships, as several studies have shown that socially active students often  have better academic outcomes at school.

How Teachers Can Nurture Friendships Among Students

Now that we know how important peer relationships are in the classroom, it makes sense to spend time encouraging students to make friends. Granted, most of our schedules are stretched to the limit, leaving us little time to focus on encouraging friendships. But luckily, some of the most effective methods are quick, easy, and fit in well with most classroom plans. Here are some examples:

Help Kids Introduce Themselves Early On

The first week of school is the perfect time to plan activities that help kids introduce themselves to their peers. One of the  most popular options involves a worksheet with a different box for each detail. To play the game, students have to find a peer with that detail. For example, if the box says “has a sister,” students mingle with classmates until they find someone who has a sister, and then they can write that person’s name in the box. This can get kids talking early in the year.

Use Small Groups During the School Year

Another way to get students talking is to set up group activities whenever possible. Shy students are more likely to talk in small groups than in larger groups, so you might have some success when you ask them to complete social activities, like  sharing stories based on questions you ask. And of course, just having students work on in-class projects and worksheets in small groups can nudge them to be more social and even make friends

Show Students Their Value

You can also encourage peer relationships by making it clear you enjoy being around your students, showing they have social value. For instance, if you have a student who doesn’t have any friends, you can show the other students that he or she is interesting or kind. You can do this by  talking to and laughing with the student in front of the class, which will not only boost the student’s self esteem but also drive others to try to get to know him or her.

Help Students Show Off Their Strengths

Another way to spotlight a student’s value as a friend is to allow opportunities for him or her to show everyone some unique skills. For example, if you know a student is great at baking, ask him or her to bring in baked goods that complement a lesson plan, such as when you’re teaching the class about a particular country that values certain foods. Or maybe a student knows a lot about weather systems, in which case you can offer extra credit if he or she makes a presentation to the class when you’re teaching about weather.  This tactic is especially helpful with older students whose value as a friend might have been overlooked by others.

Encourage Students to Get Involved

By encouraging students to participate in extracurricular activities, you can play a role in helping them strengthen their relationships with peers.  Joining clubs can help students find others with similar interests, which often leads to more friends. And if you have a few students whose interests are not represented by clubs yet, suggest that they start one. If possible, let them know you can sponsor it, or at least cheer them on as they start planning the new club.

As teachers, we have the influence necessary to not only educate our students but also to help them create and retain friendships that will both influence behavior and benefit them for life. Following these tips can help you make a difference in your classroom when it comes to supporting peer relationships among your students.

Want to prepare students for career and life success, but short on time?

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