blackhatwannabe
“What makes a person keep peyos behind the ear?”
Family minhag, its more a chassidish thing so I guess it depends where your family originates.
Does he keep from the temple of the head or just close to the ear?
The proper thing would be to do the whole area that is halachically peyos, but since that looks very briskerish many dont do that. So really those strings behind their ears are meaningless.