Academic English 3B – Writing Portfolio – Essay 1 – Draft 2

Group members: Nguyen Truong Nam

Truong Ngoc Linh

Class: QH2015.F1.E8

A considerable number of people adopt a stance that both family and friends play

important roles in shaping personality and educating adolescents. Nevertheless, who has more

influences on teenagers is currently under consideration. The author of this essay would discuss a

number of differences between the influences of family and peers on these individuals relating to

their characters, academic achievements, and social relationships.

Despite the fact that both family and friends have a huge impact on forming the

personality of an individual, they vary in specific period of teenagers’ life. Being the first cradle

to bring up a person, family is pointed out to constantly affect his/her character. It is obvious that

children tend to imitate their parents throughout their transition from infancy to adulthood;

therefore, never is there a factor that can affect a child’s characteristic formation more than

his/her parents. Hence, continuously giving advice as well as flexibly orienting is highly

recommended for parents. Steinberg and Silverberg (1986) believed that adolescents are less

influenced by friends when they have an intimate relationship with their parents. However, it is

suggested that friends have a greater impact on people at the stage of puberty. That teenagers

spend most of their time staying with friends in this significant period of life results in strong

effects on their development. In details, Savin-Williams and Berndt (1990) found out that

adolescents who are engaged in friendships are more likely to be altruistic, display affective

perspective-talking skills, and maintain positive peer status.

 The second aspect lies within the separating influence that the two factors above exert on

teenagers’ academic achievements. Steinberg et al. (1992) found that adolescents whose friends

and parents support their academic work perform better than those who receive support from

only one, or neither. It is parents who are the source of finance for teens’ education purpose.

Each year, on average, a family should spend about 20% of their income for children’s learning.

On the other hand, friends are believed to be a source of motivation and strength for teenagers.

Only by staying with friends with the same level of education and inspiration can teenagers make

an effort in studying. At this critical life stage, it is clear that friends play a critical role in

supporting teenagers, in terms of academic achievement.

Lastly, social relationships dominated by peers represent the third facet. For instance,

authoritative parenting boosts adolescents’ ability to be less vulnerable to peers’ impact.

Specifically, despite the engagement in certain unacceptable behaviors, it is more susceptible to

peers’ influence in domains that are approved by adults (Mounts and Steinberg, 1995). Important

as the influence both family and peers have on a teenager’s decision in social relationships;

friends are still believed to play an essential role in this term. As another example, adolescents

who possess poorly cohesive families but have close and supportive friends show an equal level

of self-worth and social competence to their peers who come from highly cohesive ones (Guaze

et al., 1996). Moreover, it is proved that having close same-sex friendships in adolescence

forecasts success upon the early adulthood.

In conclusion, whether peer or family has more influences on teenagers is still a

controversial issue. Within the scope of this essay, peers are strongly emphasized to play a more

essential role in a people’s life during adolescence.