February is National Teen Dating Violence Awareness Month, so it’s a great time to talk to the youth in your life about healthy relationships and dating abuse. Adolescence is a time for exploring romantic feelings, but because teens have so little experience, they don’t really know what behaviors are acceptable or unacceptable in a dating relationship. Unfortunately, almost a third of adolescents in the U.S. become victims of physical, sexual, emotional or verbal abuse from a dating partner.
Teen dating abuse profoundly impacts the victim’s health, opportunity, and wellbeing over their entire lifetime. Victims of teen dating abuse are more likely to engage in unhealthy behaviors, experience symptoms of depression and anxiety, and are at higher risk for victimization into their adulthood. As a result, it’s imperative that parents talk to their teens about healthy relationships!
In today’s blog, we will discuss 3 key points: ways to overcome common misconceptions about teen relationships in your discussions, healthy relationship skills, and unhealthy relationship warning signs.
Overcome Common Misconceptions about Teen Relationships
As you discuss relationships with your teens, it’s important that you avoid some common assumptions or misconceptions that our culture tends to have about romance in adolescence. Be sure to overcome these pitfalls:
My Child Knows When Dating Becomes Abusive. When teens hear “dating abuse,” they may think the term is limited to severe violence, such as rape or beatings. It’s up to the adults in their lives to let them know that dating abuse includes a wide range of behaviors, including:
- Physical violence is when a person tries to hurt a partner by pushing, hitting, kicking, choking, grabbing, or using another type of physical force.
- Sexual violence is trying to force or manipulate a partner to take part in a sex act and/or sexual touching when the partner does not consent or is unable to consent. It also includes non-physical sexual behaviors like posting or sharing sexual pictures of a partner without their consent or sexting someone without their consent.
- Psychological aggression is the use of verbal and non-verbal communication (in-person or online) with the intent to exert control over a partner or harm a partner mentally or emotionally.
- Stalking is a pattern of repeated, unwanted attention and contact by a current or former partner that causes fear or a safety concern for an individual or someone close to the victim.
My Child Would Never Become an Abuser. We often assume our primary goal in relationship discussions is to prevent our child from becoming a victim of abuse. While this is very important, it is equally important to prevent our child from becoming an abuser. When teens enter dating relationships, they can act very differently than they would normally because the experience is so emotionally intense and new. In fact, just because a teen is shy and sensitive does not mean that they can’t become an abuser. When we discuss the warning signs of unhealthy relationships, we need to point out that they should never act these ways with someone they are dating. Explain that excessive jealousy, tracking whereabouts, manipulation, or put-downs are never justified in any relationships, and you expect them to act respectfully in their relationships.
My Child Would Never Become a Victim. Don’t ever assume that your teen won’t be abused or become an abuser because of their personality. Just because a teen is shy and sensitive does not mean that they can’t become an abuser, and just because a teen is independent and smart does not mean that they can’t become a victim. It is very important for adults to have these discussions regularly with teens so that they are very clear about what behaviors are acceptable or unacceptable in their relationships.
My Child Knows What a Good Relationship Is. Teens receive mixed messages about how to behave in relationships from the media and from the peers and adults in their lives. Unfortunately, many times those messages suggest that abusive control in a relationship is acceptable. Teens often think some behaviors, like jealousy and tracking whereabouts, is romantic, and that other behaviors, like name-calling or put-downs, are a “normal” part of a relationship. That’s why it’s vital that parents explain what a healthy relationship looks like and what types of behaviors are red flags.
Healthy Relationship Skills
Throughout a child’s life, adults should talk about and model healthy relationship skills, which are:
- Respect: showing consideration for each other’s feelings, individuality, boundaries, and well-being.
- Honesty: communicating and acting in clear, upfront, truthful ways.
- Support: celebrating each other’s accomplishments and successes and encouraging each other’s interests or goals.
- Communication: sharing your thoughts and also creating a safe environment for your partner to share their thoughts with you.
- Equality: having equal say in the relationship, without fear of negative consequences.
- Anger Management: dealing with uncomfortable emotions in positive, non-violent ways. Learn more in our previous blog, Anger Management for Teens.
- Compromise: turning conflict into “win-win” situations in which each partner gets some of what he or she wants.
- Assertiveness: asking for what one wants clearly and respectfully, without threats, intimidation, or physical force. Learn more in our previous blog, 5 Ways Parents Can Teach Assertiveness to Teens.
Unhealthy Relationship Warning Signs
Most young people realize that certain behaviors from a friend or partner make them feel bad or angry, but they may not know when the behavior has become unhealthy. Dating abuse is really a pattern of behaviors used to exert power and control over a dating partner.
Let teens know that the warning signs of dating abuse creep up slowly. No one starts out dating someone they think is likely to become an abuser. The warning signs seem like minor conflicts at first, but they will grow into problems if not checked. Giving examples of what the behaviors may look like in real life will help young people identify them in their own situations.
Teens should know the most common early warning signs of dating abuse: displaying jealousy, requesting passwords to their partner’s devices or accounts, and insisting on spending every free moment together.
Adults should teach youth that a dating partner should NOT:
- be resentful of their accomplishments,
- make them feel guilty for how they spend their time,
- try to isolate them from their family or other friends,
- be condescending of their opinions,
- gaslight their feelings,
- say insults, name-calling, or put downs – in social media, in front of friends, or in private,
- threaten them with violence or sharing private information,
- monitor their whereabouts and actions,
- pressure them to do things they don’t want to do,
- make fun of them for things they like or want to do,
- be unsupportive of their choices,
- push, slap, grab, or physically hurt them in any way,
- be excessively jealous, or
- make them feel stupid for a decision they made.
Final Thoughts…
Dating is a really exciting and important part of growing up. Our role is to prepare youth for this experience with as much information as possible. Through conversations and role modeling, teens should know their family’s values, how to be assertive, the characteristics of healthy relationships, signs of dating abuse, and your dating rules. Remind teens that, in healthy dating relationships, both partners should know each other’s wants, goals, and limits, and each person should be able to communicate their needs honestly without fearing their partner’s response.