We know that peer pressure is very common amongst adolescents. Kids get pressured to do things that maybe they’re not comfortable with all of the time. And a lot of kids will give into that peer pressure. But when parents give advice to kids about what to do in these situations, they’ll often tell them to do things, like just say, “No.” Which isn’t always necessarily the most effective strategy to just say no. Kids will often continue to pressure you. So what we teach our kids to do in response to peer pressure is to begin by saying no, something like, “No. No, thank you.” Something like that. If the person continues to pressure them, you want to give some kind of an excuse for why you’re not doing what they want you to do. So let’s say they’re offering you a beer and you’re not comfortable with that. You could say something like… you could make an excuse or give a reason like, “It gives me a headache.” Or you could offer some kind of a personal consequence, “You know, I’ve got to get up early in the morning.” You could say something that has to do with your own personal statement about yourself like, “I don’t really drink.” Or you could play the support role even and say, “You’re not going to drive.” But you give some kind of an excuse and just one excuse is usually fine. From there if they continue to peer pressure you, you want to use what we call ‘the broken record’ technique, which is kind of going back to that, “No, thank you. I’m good.” “No, really, I’m good.” Kind of over and over. If they continue to peer pressure you from there, you can try stalling, saying, “You know, maybe later.” You could try changing the subject, that can be effective sometimes. But if they continue to peer pressure you after all of these attempts, then what you can do is to do this thing we call reversing the peer pressure. And that’s where you actually ask them something like, “Why do you care so much if I have a beer?” And usually the response is, “Well, I don’t.” And then, of course, you can change the subject from there. But if they continue to peer pressure you at that point, you might need to give them a cold shoulder. You might need to remove yourself from that situation. So the bottom line is that there is a lot more that we can do in terms of helping our kids to handle peer pressure. It’s not just about saying no. There’s many different things that they can do to handle these rather difficult situations.