The three warning signs of negative peer pressure are:

1. Your child is heavily dependent on approval by others, including you. He may consult friends on small decisions and worries obsessively about what peers will think of what he bought, said, or did.
2. Your child won't take responsibility for his actions when in trouble and blames his peers instead.
3. Your child is secretive about friendships and won't bring friends home.

What Can Parent's Do?

1.  Look at unmet needs and underlying feelings of your child. Look beyond his behavior. Does he need more attention, self-confidence, encouragement, and understanding? You can give it!
2. Keep connected to your child. Spend time with him. Give him unconditional love. He won't want to do things to jeopardize his relationship with you.
3. Treat your child with dignity and respect. Respect his space and belongings. Avoid criticism, judgments, and put-downs. Treat your child with politeness and kindness and he will come to expect it from his peers too.
4. Help your child maintain healthy self esteem. Help him develop his talents and abilities to give him confidence. Every child excels at something. Encourage him rather than praise him, to avoid over reliance on approval from others. Focus on the effort, not the results of his activities.
5. Pick your issues carefully. Give your child small harmless rebellions. Teach your child to follow his instincts (the feeling in his tummy). Allow your child to say ‘No’ if he and you feel it's appropriate. For example: sharing toys, accepting rides, participating at an event. Teach your child to be politely assertive with peers, siblings, other adults and you. Remember that other adults do not always have your child's best interests at heart.
6. Keep communication lines open. Listen, listen and listen some more. Be non-judgmental and acknowledge feelings behind your child's words and actions. Seek to understand why your child wants the negative peer relationship. eg: When a friend is a negative influence, ask "Tell me how Jim is valuable to you? What do you get out of being with Jim? What risks might there be hanging out with Jim? What are your plans to deal with the risk? What role do you want me to play in helping you deal with the risks?"
7. Increase your child's decision-making. Starting about age nine, limit rules to ones that are necessary for safety and get your child's input on them. They need autonomy and control over their lives as much as adults, even though they are lacking in experience. Children need practice in making good choices and decisions. They learn best by experiencing the consequences of those choices, when the results are not yet so serious, and they have you around to guide them. Ask "What did you learn about this? What can you do instead next time?"
8. When your child seeks out his alter-personality in a friend that's a negative influence, help your child find those unrealized parts of himself, and help him develop them the best he can, so the need to seek them out in others is lessened. For example, get him into supervised rock climbing if he likes to hang around a peer that thrives on danger in destructive ways.

 As parents we have to remember that ‘we can't adjust the wind, but we can adjust the sails’. Our children will inevitably meet up with negative influences. While we can't control how much or what type these influences are, we can control the quality of our parent-child relationship. Which will in turn greatly influence the type of people they are and the type of people they choose as friends. We still have the most influence over our children and we can teach them how to seek and maintain healthy peer relationships.