Is this a quote from some wiseguy? By accident I clicked on a YouTube video where a guy captivated a middle school audience with a 5-min talk about picking friends and listening to mothers. Quite moving. ( [url=<a href=“https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Li7vpzLA9uw%5Dhere%5B/url”>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Li7vpzLA9uw]here[/url] )
Isn’t it why we pick where to live, where to send our kids to K-12 schools and colleges, to some extent? I have an impression that posters here put great emphasis on ROI in economic terms. Future isn’t only about money.
There are studies out there about a person being sum of five people he spends most time with. I assume that includes the radio show host i daily listens to.
Yes, many people avoid interaction with people of other races / ethnicities (e.g. self segregation in neighborhoods, churches, sororities / fraternities, etc.), and make choices that influence their kids to behave similarly (e.g. choosing neighborhoods, schools, activities, churches, colleges, etc.), even at significant economic and noneconomic cost to both themselves and others.
Peer group is everything. Always has been. And it starts at a young age.
When kids are really little, the parents can quickly put a kibosh on friends.
But that gets a LOT harder once they get into middle school. The easiest way is to transfer schools. And many parents do.
Kids don’t always see how their “friends” are hurting their chances for a fuller life. This guy reminds the kids that the parents they don’t want to listen to really do have their best interests at heart.
It’s not about money. It’s about finding like minded people who raise you up rather than bring you down.
“Yes, many people avoid interaction with people of other races / ethnicities (e.g. self segregation in neighborhoods, churches, sororities / fraternities, etc.), and make choices that influence their kids”
Or maybe many parents want to avoid interaction of their students with people who are involved in drugs and violence. Try to avoid schools with low performance.
And many people choose to live in ethnically and racially diverse communities with lots of smart kids who are going places because they want the same for their kids.
The “Show me your friends” quote is another iteration of the old sayings “Lie down with dogs, get up with fleas” or “You are known by the company you keep”.
This is no surprise to me; when my daughter was growing up she was definitely a partial reflection of the friends she surrounded herself with. This carried through middle to high school and into college. Luckily, her friend circle is an excellent group of young, well-mannered ladies and they know how to have good-fun!
Another version my mom used to say - Hard to soar with eagles if you’re running around with turkeys. I surrounded my child by kids who were like minded as far a valuing education. They came from all SES, races, religions, and living situations. I spent years counseling inmates and this was a recurring theme. You will never better yourself if you keep hanging with the wrong folk.
Our S16 was sort of an exception to this in high school. His friends were all motivated and worked hard in school, while he didn’t put forth much effort in classes that didn’t interest him. His friends (and to extent my wife as well) didn’t get his lack of effort.
Hmm, I go more with “Show me your parents and I’ll show you your future,” at least until age 18. I think my children have been much more influenced by their family environment and their genetics than by the kids they happened to be friends with in K-12. And the kids that had the best effect on them were the ones that they picked because of who they already were as people (again, mainly a result of family environment and genetics).
I grew up in a small town. My kids grew up in a small town but not as small as my hometown. Beauty of a small town is you interact with everyone - kids who grew up in big houses with parents who were doctors, lawyers, etc. Kids who grew up in trailer parks. Some kids were super bright and studious, some struggled, or didn’t try, or were class clowns, or later on stoners. It was so small, there wasn’t a whole lot of room for segregation, staying with “your kind” or the “good kids”. I think I benefitted from that by getting to know all types of people.
I think the most important thing to instill in children at a young age is a strong sense of confidence and self-worth. That, along with the values you impart, will enable them to interact with people from many walks of life without following along in thoughts or actions like a lemming or a sheep.
I agree, and that may be because I was taught being humble growing up. Fortunately my middle schooler acts like full of confidence.
The reason the title quote caught my eye is some of my local public school kids are going private and I wonder loundly if they have better peer influence there. If @rosered55 is right, peer influence may be of little significance, to some kids.
Friends in high schools: boyfriend of all 4 years (plus some college)- high school dropout and into drugs last I heard, best friend then- got her GRE in her early 20s, everyone else was pretty much bottom of the class. I was very much the outlier.
Classmates in small, Catholic K-8: I am one of only about 3 that finished my college degree. More than that had kids before leaving high school.
My parents didn’t go to college and my sister made it through a few failed semesters before quitting.
Currently I’m getting my PhD.
Really, lots of us do “better” than our surroundings growing up. And many of us do “worse.” Though it does seem to be getting exponentially more difficult for lower-income kids to do better financially than their parents as the wealth gap keeps growing. But I don’t think that has anything to do with who you hung out with as a 15 year old.
@romanigypsyeyes , you might be doing “better” than your parents have done financially, but from what you’ve said about them and yourself, it sounds like you inherited or learned (or some combination) your compassion and kindness from them. I guess those are the kinds of qualities I think about more than financial outcomes (although having a satisfying job at which one can be self-supporting is great, too).
I think one of the advantages to having a motivated peer group is that certain things become the group norm. Your friends understand when you say you need to study instead of going out and everyone’s talking about applying to college. It builds certain assumptions. I went to a high school where every student attended college and it was just what one did. It would have been hard to go against the flow. Some of that was due to teachers and parents but a lot was from the other students. That’s not to say it’s not possible to do what romanigypsyeyes did, just that it probably takes more effort to buck the trend of your peer group than to follow it.
Just yesterday I was talking with a relative about how well her daughter is doing in her career and she said she gave a lot of credit to the fact that when the daughter was in college she was dating a man whose parents were pushing him to apply for internships and other resume builders and seeing him fill out applications made her think she should be doing those things as well. As a result she graduated with a serious resume.
