Watch Friendships In Teen Years
Have you ever been faced with trying to stay positive when others around you are being negative? Negative people can be a challenge to anyone. They will bring you down and drain your energy.
A negative person can throw your best plans right out of the window.
Walk down the corridors of a high school during lessons or visit the Accra Mall on a Friday night and you'll see teenagers hanging out with their friends doing virtually nothing. Very often they are not in class or are at the mall just because their friends are there.
Friendship is an important part of everyone's life, but to a teenager like you, coping with the negative attitudes of friends and trying to shield them even when your parents ask you to disassociate yourself from such friends becomes a challenge, especially when you like your friend so much and would not want to lose their friendship.
If you have friends who affect you negatively, you need to decide whether or not you want such friends to remain in your life.
Some people are so negative that you have no other choice but to rule them out of your life. At other times too, the negativity is so mild that you can easily deal with it.
When you come face to face with friends whose negative attitudes can affect you, you do not have to compromise in any way. Do away with them as fast as you can so that they do not influence you. You can always find another friend to replace them.
To ensure your welfare, you need strong will power against negative people and make your parents your most trusted friends.
When they advise you against certain issues, you have to listen to them because they know best. They know best because they have been through the teenage stage before and, very often, have experienced what you are going through.
You have to understand that it is almost impossible to change the negative attitude of a friend, especially when it has to do with smoking, alcoholism, stealing, truancy etc.
These are social vices and professionals are needed to counsel those who engage in them.
Can you count the number of times that you have sworn to put a stop to some negative attitudes? How many times haven’t you resolved on countless nights of December 31 to stop a bad habit that you are still fighting to quit?
So you see, it is not easy to stop some of the things you do. And it is even more difficult when you decide to assist a friend all by yourself.
Friendship is a two-way affair. Friends do things for each other and listen to each other. If your friend is not willing to listen to you, you should know that he is not a good friend. Once you know a friend is aware of his/her bad deeds and is not doing anything about it, you have to think about your welfare and gradually distance yourself from him/her.
Tell him/her realistically about his or her negative attitude. For example, if you notice that he's making you copy his or her lifestyle and you feel uncomfortable, discuss this with him or her when the two of you are alone.
He needs help to understand how his actions might affect other people.
Write up : Adeline Koramoah