This month we asked teens the following question. Please share our Teen-View questions with your teen.

As a teenager what are some of the pressures you deal with from classmates, friends, etc, and how do you deal with them? Are there things that you would prefer to discuss with your parents but you feel you can’t?

Some pressures teens may face are from friends who tell you that its cool to date, or do drugs, and that we should try them, but we have to be the bigger person and say NO I’m not doing that. A lot of girls think that boys really like them but they don’t. They are just trying to get one thing.

14 years old

There are lots of pressures that I deal with everyday, especially because I am in high school and I am surrounded by older people. One of the pressures is to skip school. Lots of people ask me everyday. I deal with it by thinking what is right, and how much I am going to have to do just to make up a lost 2 hours. One of the major pressures without a doubt is sex. Everyone talks about it. There are like 20 people pregnant and 10 that already have babies already. I deal with this by thinking of how much I would have to do just to have the baby or have sex. I think about the consequences from school, from people, my parents, and family. Lastly, I think about how my like would be affected. I wouldn’t be able to go out when I want, spend my money where I want or even just sleep all day. There is nothing that I talk about with my mom, because if I don’t talk about something with her, she will.

14 years old

Being pressured to have sex, and not to use condoms. I deal with them by ignoring them and I do prefer to discuss this with my parents because it’s something that they need to know, and you don’t want to do it without them knowing.

14 year old

Some of the pressures I deal with is when boys try to talk to me they always want something else too. I just try to act like I don’t mind even though I really don’t want to.

14 years old