Is "Le poids de l'entourage" a French idiom or expression?

Question

I was reading a French text and saw this sentence:

Le poids de l'entourage est parfois difficile à gérer dans l'éducation de ces enfants

but I have a feeling that the translation is very odd, so I wonder if "Le poids de l'entourage" has some different meaning.

Answer 1

Not really. In this case, "poids" just means "influence" (or more explicitly "interference/pressure"). It's the exact same metaphor when you say in English that something "weights on" you (in nglish you might also talk about the burden of something).