It isn’t wrong getting a boy friend. Relationships are part of any human being. But a boyfriend for a sexual relationship is not right. At  S.4, you are still young and you have a lot at stake including the boy in question. So if you can have a boyfriend without sex (Abstinence) in your relationship, it is all healthy. Being your husband depends on how you handle each other but at this stage, it’s hard to maintain that relationship until marriage especially if sex is introduced too early (don’t forget the consequences). Focus on your books than boys!

Negative peer pressure from friends is being forced into doing something by your friends against your will.
Refusing negative peer pressure from friends is a technique that everyone can pick up. The degree of difficulty will depend on where you are, the situation you might find yourself in and what your friends are pressurizing you to do. There is no clear cut way of resisting peer pressure but here are a few suggestions.

1.   Examine your situation. Listen for phrases that spell trouble-
   “Everybody is doing it. What is stopping you?”
    “You should try everything at least once. Experience is the best teacher”
    “Don’t be a coward. There is really no big deal”
    “Laws and rules are there to be bent”
   Whatever the situation, if it makes you feel uneasy or seems risky, tell your friends so and give them your reasons. If that fails, walk away.
2. Always weigh out the consequences- Will it affect your health? Will you be breaking the school rule or the law? What will happen to you if you are caught? How will it affect your schooling and future life? Are you ready for the consequences? What are your instincts or sixth sense telling you?
   Never do something bad or which will have negative consequences on you simply for the sake of pleasing your friends.
   Ask for help from a trusted adult. A lot of adults will have been confronted by the same dilemmas you are facing now. Teachers, religious leaders, counselors and family friends are all ready to help you.
   When you have made your decision, stick to it. You will have proved you are in control of your own life and true friends will also respect you for your decisions.
3. With a little imagination, you can refuse without saying the word “NO” and without losing your friends. Suggest something you all enjoy doing as alternative e.g. music, dance, drama, sports, religious activities etc.
4. Use your parents or guardians as an excuse.
   “My father will be very cross with me and may even refuse to pay my school fees if he found I did such a thing”

If all else fails, just walk away. May be your friends are not good friends.

The phrase “Peer Pressure” comes from two words; peer and pressure.

A peer is someone in your own age group or social group like a classmate or schoolmate.

Pressure is the feeling that you are being pushed towards making a certain choice –good or bad.

Peer pressure is the feeling that someone in your own age group or social group is pushing you to change your attitude, values or behavior to conform to group norms –good or bad.
Peer pressure can also refer to the influence exerted by a peer group in encouraging a person to change his or her attitudes, values or behavior in order to conform to the group norms- good or bad. A boy may be challenged by the group to prove his manhood by having a girlfriend and having sex with her. A group of girls may make fun of the way another girl is dressed, pressuring members of the group to dress only in one acceptable style. A group of ambitious, academically hardworking students may influence an academically lazy student in the group to read harder to improve on the grades.

The pressure to conform (to do what others are doing or going along with the crowd) may be difficult to resist because it is part of human nature for people to want to be accepted and liked by their peers. Also when people are unaware of what to do in a social situation, they naturally look to others for clues about what is acceptable and not acceptable.

Young people especially, find it difficult to resist peer pressure because they need to belong and be accepted by their peers and because young people are more willing to behave negatively towards those who are not members of their peer group or those members who don’t conform to the group norms. As a result, peer pressure can influence the choices young people make – contributing to poor decisions or reinforcing good decisions.

Peer pressure is not always bad. There is good peer pressure and bad peer pressure. Good peer pressure is called positive peer pressure and bad peer pressure is called negative peer pressure.

Negative peer pressure is when your peers influence you to do something maybe you don’t really want to do or is not in your best interest or may be bad to your health or whose consequencies you are not ready for e.g. drinking  alcohol, taking drugs, smoking, engaging in sex activities, escaping from schools etc. Negative peer pressure can get you in trouble with your parents, with the school or even with the law. At school, negative peer pressure may lead to lower school attendance, drop in grades or even school dropout.

Positive peer pressure is when your peers influence you to do good things such as getting involved in school activities or doing things to help you reach your goals. Sometimes you need positive peer pressure when you don’t have quite the courage to do something and your peers give you the extra push or self-esteem to follow through with it. This type of peer pressure can lead you to great things like new found talents, good grades, positive attitude, higher self-esteem and self-confidence. At school, positive peer influence may your improve grades, improve your confidence and make you try out more things or getting more involved in school activities.

Lust is a strong sexual desire or a strong sexual attraction towards someone usually based on physical appearance and looks. It is lust if even before you know someone’s name, you are already fantasizing about what it would be like having sex with the person. Lust is when you like and value part of the person like the body and you are not concerned about the other persons’ emotions or mind.
Partners in a lustful relationship come close only to have fun and place their needs and wants ahead of those of their partners and don’t have any commitment plans in their minds. A relationship based on lust can only last as long as the two people are physically close and find each other sexually attractive. Once that physical desire ends, the interest in the person may also end and looks for another person.

Love is an emotion for another person and is not selfish. Love is when you care about someone more than you care about yourself and you put that person’s needs and wants before yours. Love is when you like and respect the whole person (body, heart, mind, emotions). Love is given freely without any expectation of receiving anything in return. In love you share joy and sorrow and you are always there for each other’s needs. Love does not need sex to survive or even thrive. Even if the person you love tells you sex will have to wait, you don’t care. Love is based on complete trust and mutual understanding and people in love have commitment plans in mind.

As a person, you will have relationships with a lot of people including your parents, friends and classmates. These relationships are not necessarily intimate relationships.
A healthy relationship is based on respect and trust for one another.

It’s when:

• You have fun together.
• You both feel like you can be yourself.
• You are not forced to do anything against your will for the sake of pleasing your partner or just to conform to what your partner wants.
• You both can have different opinions and interests.
• You listen to each other.
• None of you is forced into sex just as a way of proving love or paying back for gifts.
• You trust each other.
• You can compromise, say sorry and take arguments out.
• You don’t have to spend all your free time together- you can spend some time on your own or with your own friends and family.
• You both are accepted for what you are.
• Your  both respect each others feelings, physical and emotional boundaries.

Masturbation is when one stimulates one’s genital organs for sexual pleasure. Most people masturbate until they have an orgasm.
Masturbation is one of the safer sex practices as it does not lead to transmission of STIs including HIV.
The problem with masturbation is addiction. People who get addicted to masturbation may find problems adjusting to having sexual relationship with the opposite sex. People addicted to masturbation lose touch with feelings or emotions towards the opposite sex and are likely to develop homosexual feelings.
A number of religions are against masturbation.