Fitting In
In high school fitting in can be tough. What if some children decided they would rather fly under the radar instead of trying to join a group? Being in the “in” crowd at school has its ups and downs. On one hand you are considered “popular” by your peers, however, you may feel obligated to help others who need friends. Acceptance plays a large role in the lives of daily high schoolers and can help “loners” feel more welcome. Say you have never had many friends, and you have never belonged to a social group of any kind. Would you admit it? Or would you say that you like to be on your own? There are people who will answer yes to both questions; however, the real question is who is telling the truth?
Some teenagers say they do not want to belong to a social group, but in reality they do not have one. This happens frequently in adolescent lives. Some teenagers are in denial about not “fitting in” or not being what they consider “popular”. It appears that teenagers with few friends automatically pretend like that is how they want it to be. High school is a tough enough time with growing up, that the last thing anyone wants to admit is that they do not have any friends. They do not want to embarrass themselves. Personally I have seen many kids who claim to be the most comfortable and happy when they are alone. In reality it seems they do not have many friends, so they build themselves up to be someone who does not care what others think. As it says in Lord of the Flies, “The mask was a thing on it's own, behind which Jack hid, liberated from shame and self-consciousness,” (Golding). The children who lie about not wanting to be noticed or not wanting friends are hiding behind the same mask. They make it as a form of protect...
... middle of paper ...
...y are judged by others so terribly that they feel as though there is not a sliver of acceptance left for anyone. This can be changed, students who have a lot of friends need to help those who do not. All they have to do is be accepting. If some “loner” child is accepted at school, it may give them the confidence to go out and make their own friends.
Fitting in is difficult, but is it not what we all want? We want to be accepted, even if we try to pretend that flying under the radar seems to be more safe. The “in” crowd at school can have responsibilities so that others feel welcomed. A mean girl can tear down your self esteem, but she is not so horrible that someone could never make friends because of her. In the end we all want friends, no matter what class in society or what social status they hold in high school. The main idea is to belong somewhere, to fit in.
Imagine. You are a student once again and you are struggling to feel like you fit in. Everyone in your class seems to be smarter, faster, and better than you. You feel like you do not belong and are a loser. Now switch gears.
In many high schools, there is an unspoken social order amongst peer groups; teenagers are either included in the popular group or the unpopular group. These social standings are determined by the popular group whether they will accept certain people based on shared interests and values but mainly on appearance. For example, some groups may isolate a student who does not have clothing considered attractive enough. Teenagers belonging to the popular clique label individuals as outcasts who do not fit the clique’s standards of a perfect appearance. This repression can cause a build up of anger if an outcast seeks to be accepted into that popular group.
Conformity means a change in one’s behavior due to the real or imagined influence of other people. As a teenager, the pressure to conform to the societal “norm” plays a major role in shaping one’s character. Whether this means doing what social groups want or expect you to do or changing who you are to fit in. During class, we watched films such as Mean Girls, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, and The Breakfast Club which demonstrate how the pressure to conform into society can change who you are. In the movies we have seen, conformity was most common during high school.
I am a Japanese-American, growing up I never felt like I belonged in either one. I never felt that I was fully Japanese because I did not have all of the same beliefs and traditions as other Japanese people. Nor did I feel fully American because I fully do not believe in all of the American beliefs. I saw myself relating more to the Japanese culture because it taught me to be more respectful to my elders and other people in the community. Growing up I had to assimilate to the prevailing culture because people were bantering me because I had unusual views than they did. It was hard for me growing up; I was trying to identify myself as either a Japanese boy or an American boy while I was at school and at home. At school I had to be this normal American boy, while at home, I had to be a Japanese boy. I felt like two different people. This also tied into me having an awkward relationship with other kids my age especially the girls. I would ask my parents if it was okay for me to date, their response was “as long they are some sort of Asian, then it is okay.” Today my parents do not believe in that saying, they just want to see me in high spirits, but as I was growing up it was hard for me to find a girl that I liked that fit my family standards I always found myself fond of another race other than my own and my parents were not too thrilled with the choices I made when it came to girls when I was an adolescent.
Adolescent years are a time period in a human beings life where we search for a place that we are most comfortable. It is a time where we try to find friends with similar interests and those who will easily accept us for who we are. Once we are accepted by those friends, we tend to do more things with hopes of getting approval from “the group.” Trying to fit in during adolescence is a significant factor for self-motivation because it determines the level of being accepted and popularity amongst our peers. Through our year of adolescence we experiment and try to discover oneself as a person, but we also find what our strongest traits are that are used in order to be accepted, or to feel more popular. Popularity is defined as a state of being liked or accepted by a group of people (cite). As the group of people gets larger, so does that person’s popularity. For some people, popularity may come easy due to their charisma or looks, but there are those children who feel lonely due to their lack of popularity.
Ultimately, you should think what you should do. The more people that are non conformist are the people who are happy and successful. So when you fit in high school by following the cool kids the kids who are usually called weird are gonna
Movies often don’t grasp this concept of teenagers struggling to fit in with their own group of friends. Denby states “lost in the eternal swoon of late adolescence, they’re (teenagers) thinking about their identity, their friends, and their clothes” (426). The most important thing too many teenagers in high school are fitting in. They idolize the idea of having a group of friends who are well known around school that other looks up too. The movie Never Been Kissed shows how teenagers often try to hard to gain and maintain friends. The main character who is a newspaper reporter goes back to school pretending to be a high school student. She tries to befriend a group of good looking rich kids and tries her best to impress them and she embarrasses herself in the process. The movie shows of allot of the average teenagers basic
Identification with a peer group is a critical part of growing up because even though there is a mix between valuable and invaluable points, no one wants to be left with nobody to help them figure out how they fit in the world and get pass tough times. Peer pressure can have positive impacts and not so good but the postive are too valuable to overpass, leaning us over to conclude that classifying with a circle of close friends are a key factor when going into the real
When life becomes overwhelming during adolescence, a child’s first response is to withdraw from the confinement of what is considered socially correct. Individuality then replaces the desire to meet social expectations, and thus the spiral into social non-conformity begins. During the course of Susanna’s high school career, she is different from the other kids. Susanna:
“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.” stated Ralph Waldo Emerson. Mr Emerson is claimed that most people in a society solely purpose is to fit in. The human race decides what it wants, what it needs, and what it uses. We all want to “fit in” because we are all afraid of getting judged, and be the weird one of the group. We all focus on the fact how people are different and not the same When I was in Middle school, conformity was everywhere with an exception of a couple people. But then when I came to High school I've seen about 75% conformity and 25% individuality this show when people get older they get the more individual people get. Because when they grow up they finally realize that
As preteens and teens push for increasing independence from their parents, they tend to turn to their peers for guidance, acceptance, and security. For those who are low in self-esteem and confidence, their safety lies in fitting in and having a place to belong. Most people find a group in which they connect with in a healthy way while others make their way in cliques that give them security but at the price of their own values and individuality. The movie Mean Girls portrays how high school female social cliques operate and the effect they can have on girls. I will argue how if one doesn’t have a strong sense of self-identity, the opinions of others will become their identity.
Being an outcast comes with various struggles. An example of someone who feels like an outcast is someone who suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder. Post-traumatic stress disorder is a mental disorder that includes “anxiety, nightmares, irritability, and feelings of isolation and withdrawal” (Mental Health Awareness & PTSD 1). Those who struggle from post-traumatic stress disorder have experienced a traumatic life event and the repercussions of that are difficult to cope with. Through this, many post-traumatic stress disorder victims that are untreated “tragically… end up taking their own lives (Mental Health Awareness & PTSD 2). Another group of people who feel isolated are teenagers. During modern times, cyber bullies have been more common. At the first occurrences of cyber bullying, parents and teachers were not concerned with it. Now, they have learned not to take cyber bullying lightly because it causes depression and has even led some teenagers to take their own lives. This bullying has created “an internalized enemy that leads to self destructive thought processes and beh...
Some students are introverted and find it difficult to interact in new environments; other students, may have had past experiences that cause social anxiety. For me, coming to college at 33 years old was intimidating. Most students have a general concern for being accepted by their classmates. In college, students are surrounded by classmates of different ages, with different ethnicities, races, social classes, religious beliefs, backgrounds and interests. If we are only around those exactly like us then we miss out on so much in life. There are common similarities amongst those that we might not normally be able to have the
I think that for many teenagers a problem that many high schoolers face is not being able to fit in. transitioning to high school is difficult and everyone is trying to find some friends they can feel comfortable with. For me, transitioning to high school was difficult, but I think the biggest challenge I faced was trying to fit in. I did not want to be popular or anything, I just wanted to be comfortable. sacrifice
High school it was, surrounded by people who are different in many ways but also confused with who they really are. A group of people who tended to be at the same stage in life according to Erickson’s psychosocial development. For me it was a bit challenging in regards to the fact that I felt alone being who I was. Everyone was caught up in a different lifestyle, so there existed many groups with peers who shared similar interest and having fun being who they rare. On the other hand, others trying to fit in. Being for the fact that they are different, perhaps they knew who they were but did not have peers who shared such similarities. I was among that group who was reserved, I became an introvert and felt lost so my ego pushed me to try and fit in.