Nov. 25--LAYTON -- A group of Northridge High School students is hoping to influence younger peers to be highly assertive in refusing to be pressured by friends to engage in harmful or inappropriate activities.

Twelve-year-old Braxton Brent says being pressured by peers to do things he'd rather not do is a common occurrence.

His friend, Andrew Larrabee, 12, agreed, but said most of the peer pressure he has endured was while in elementary school.

"Yeah, it happens all the time," said Braxton. "Most of it is pressure to do dangerous or stupid stunts -- daredevil stuff. You say no most of the time."

Research has shown that peer pressure is one of the most powerful influences for adolescents, concluding that substance use by friends often leads adolescents to use themselves.

More recent studies by Weill Cornell Medical College, in New York City, have focused on the role of gaining skills to overcome peer pressure, which include early lifeskills training to build refusal assertiveness and sound decision-making skills, along with self-confidence and good selfmanagement.

"Students need to be encouraged to develop competence skills to resist drugs, since social and other risk factors can never be entirely eliminated," Gilbert J. Botvin, a psychology professor at Cornell and the senior author of the study, stated in a recent article detailing the findings.

For the past five years, the Ridge Educators and Leaders, better known as the REAL team, have been on that bandwagon, taking their message of pressure refusal to elementary and junior high schools.

REAL team adviser Stephanie Thompson said each of the 20 students on the team signs a contract to remain free of drugs, alcohol, tobacco, violence and sex.

Thompson and her REAL team appeared Monday at North Layton Junior High to inspire seventh-grade students to stand up against friends who push talking to and meeting strangers from the Internet, skipping school, cheating on class work, and using drugs, alcohol and tobacco. The group used skits and discussions to reinforce their message. The skits set up situations in which students were afraid that refusing pressure from peers would make them unpopular or cause them to lose a boyfriend or best friend.

"These things have happened to us, and we have turned them into skits that you can relate to," said Dana Hoffman, a senior.

Sarah Knowlton, a senior, told the seventh-graders they have the power to stand up for themselves.

"Do what you want to do, not what someone else wants you to do," she urged the students. "High school can be a lot of fun and a great experience."

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