How Parents Can Help Their Kids Choose Friends Wisely

In the wake of the rampage in Littleton, Colo., many parents are feeling particularly fretful about whether their adolescents are--in the currently popular nonjudgmental vernacular--”making good choices” about friends.

Will the kids gravitate toward the academically earnest students? Look for popularity with the football-and-cheerleader set? Seek attention as Marilyn Mansonites? Blend into the unnoticeables?

Several researchers say that although parents may feel that their control over their teenagers’ selection of companions is waning, they actually can influence these choices.

The key: Start early, long before the teen years loom.

“There are three important things for parents to think about,” says Laurence Steinberg, professor of psychology at Temple University in Philadelphia and co-author of “Beyond the Classroom” (Simon & Schuster, 1996), based on research of more than 15,000 teenagers in California and Wisconsin.

“One is choosing an environment for your child where there simply is the availability for positive peer groups, so that there’s at least a chance that your child is going to hook up with [them],” Steinberg says.

“Second is being vocal at an early age about who your kid hangs around with. I don’t think parents should keep their mouths shut. Of course, it gets harder and harder as they get older. But lay the groundwork.

“And the third is having a good and close relationship with your child at home. It will give your child the confidence and self-reliance to stand up to peer pressure. What you do at home does have some spill-over as to what your child does within a peer group.

“I think it is more indirect than parents realize. But by shaping your child’s personality and interests and values at a relatively early age--say, the elementary school years--you are going to affect the peer group they choose.

“If you get your kids interested in sports, for instance, your chances are 50-50 that he will be inclined to hang around with athletes. If you get them involved in [academics], then your child is more likely to end up in an academically oriented crowd. It’s through values and personality traits that parents have influence over peer groups.

“If you’re interested in who your kid is going to hang around with through adolescence, have a close relationship with your child long before that. It is in adolescence that you’re gonna see the payoff.”