Opening eyes to teen dating violence: What families should know

This piece is sponsored by Children’s Home Society.

July is Drive Out Domestic Violence Month — fueled by Vern Eide Motorcars — at Children’s Home Shelter for Family Safety. Learn how you can help spread awareness and support the Shelter’s work at the DriveOutDV web page.

How much do you know about teen dating violence?

If you’re a parent or family member of a teenager, listen up. Research shows:

• Approximately 1 in 3 teens in the U.S. is a victim of physical, sexual, emotional or verbal abuse from a dating partner.
• 1 in 4 dating teens say they are abused or harassed online or through texts by their partners.
• Every year, almost 1.5 million high school students are physically abused by their partner.
• Only 33 percent of teens who are in abusive relationships ever tell anyone while it’s happening.
• 81 percent of parents believe teen dating violence is not an issue or don’t know if it’s an issue.

While domestic violence is understood by the public, teen dating violence is just beginning to gain attention.

The term refers to “actual or threatened acts of physical, sexual, psychological and verbal harm by a partner, boyfriend, girlfriend or someone wanting a romantic relationship.”

Stalking by partners or acquaintances is also a common type of teen dating violence.

Understanding the problem

Like domestic violence, teen dating violence is not confined to any demographic.

JaeLynn Garry is the outreach advocate at Children’s Home Shelter for Family Safety. “Teen dating violence can occur among people of all races and ethnicities, educational backgrounds, income levels and in all neighborhoods and geographic areas,” she said.

“However, victims are more likely to be female. LGBTQ+ teens are also more at risk for experiencing violence.”

Teen dating violence can have devastating impacts. It puts victims at higher risk for:

• Depression, anxiety and suicide attempts.
• Substance abuse and eating disorders.
• Poor school performance and school absences.
• Pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections.
• Antisocial behavior and interpersonal conflict with peers.

“Violence during teen years also sets the stage for violence down the road,” Garry said. “For example, teens who are victims of dating violence in high school are at higher risk for victimization after high school and during college.”

Depending on their home environment, role models and expectations, teens may not even realize they are in an abusive relationship. It can be hard to know what’s healthy behavior and what isn’t. Teens who are just starting to date may not have enough experience to compare behaviors or to judge what feels right.

“When you’re younger, there are more barriers and less access to resources,” Garry said. “Isolation is a huge thing.” Just as domestic violence is often kept secret, teen dating violence can be hidden from friends and parents. Victims may be embarrassed or afraid to share the truth about what’s happening.

What it looks like

An abusive teen relationship often will seem normal in the beginning. Red-flag behaviors may take time to surface. These can include:

• Put-downs, insults, intimidation or humiliation – in front of others or privately.
• Extreme jealousy, insecurity or controlling behavior, which can be mistaken for affection.
• Isolation from friends and family.
• Unwanted sexual contact of any kind, including pressure to have sex.
• Explosive temper or unusual moodiness, threatening, bullying, manipulating or shaming.
• Constantly monitoring social media, activities or location; stalking; hacking social media accounts; or unwanted contact or gifts.
• Invasions of privacy or showing up unannounced.
• Threatening or causing physical violence, including pinching, hitting or kicking.

Much of what Garry has seen around teens involves technology. “There’s a lot of abusive text messaging and even third parties participating, like friends or family members threatening or harassing victims directly,” she said. “It’s truly awful.”

Relationship violence, including among teens, is about power. The Teen Power and Control Wheel shows how overtly violence on the outside of the wheel is reinforced by controlling behaviors, detailed on the inside of the wheel.

What you can do

Parents should remain actively involved with their children during teenage years, enforce rules and model good boundaries and healthy relationships.

• Talk to your teen about what healthy relationships look like and that violence — verbal, physical or sexual — is not acceptable in a healthy relationship.
• Know and recognize potential warning signs of teen dating abuse. Remember that teens are experiencing many emotional changes; talk to your teen if you are concerned about their behavior.
• Be supportive and nonjudgmental. It’s easy to slide into pushy or accusatory statements, which will put teens on the defensive. Ultimately, they need to make their own decisions about their relationships.
• Understand the risks and stresses teens experience. Listen to them express their feelings, and help them think through their problems.
• Discuss what teens can do if they experience or witness dating violence. Let them know they can come to you or other trusted adults if they are concerned.

Garry suggests that school counselors, teachers or resource officers also may notice red flags; parents should feel free to check with other adults to safeguard their children.

Teens also can protect themselves by developing a safety plan; Children’s Home Shelter for Family Safety can help.

A teen’s perspective

By Elsa Friesen

Throughout my years as a student, healthy teenage relationships were barely talked about in the classroom, and warning signs of abuse were rarely discussed. Our yearly middle school health class was mostly focused on nutrition with a couple of awkward classes about abstinence. When we did talk about relationship violence, it was in the form of a scripted video meant to scare us by covering child pornography, alcohol-blurred consent issues and rape. What we learned? Don’t take naked pictures, don’t have sex when you’re drunk, don’t get pregnant, and don’t spend time with dangerous people.

To my friends and me, these seemed like easy rules to follow. We weren’t sending nudes, we weren’t sexually active, and we weren’t spending time with people we thought were unsafe. But the truth is teen dating violence doesn’t look like the video we were shown in seventh grade. It can exist unnoticed even in the healthiest-looking relationships.

I didn’t think I knew anyone who struggled with feeling unsafe in their relationship at my age. That was until one of my friends told me her story.

My friend started dating a guy her senior year. She was crazy about him, and I thought she was right to be. He was smart, attractive, went to church, played sports and loved spending time with his little siblings. He was constantly telling her how beautiful she was, and he always wanted to be with her. It seemed perfect.

Soon, he started to worry if she didn’t text back right away. Then, he started to get jealous when she got together with her friends. He messaged her obsessively about how much he missed her and how sad he was when they weren’t together. She thought this behavior was a little annoying at times, but she didn’t think much of it until after an evening spent at his house.

His little sister was being disruptive and bothering them while they were trying to watch a show. My friend was used to spending time with little kids and understood that this was typical behavior for a child in elementary school; she wasn’t that bothered. Her boyfriend tried telling his little sister to leave them alone a few times until, without warning, he started screaming at her to leave. My friend told me she felt scared. How could someone so kind become so aggressive that quickly? What else could he be capable of?

Soon after this incident, my friend broke things off with him over the phone because she didn’t feel safe enough to do it in person. She was afraid he would lash out at her too. When she looked back at some of his early behavior, she started relabeling things. What she wrote off as jealousy or being clingy was more manipulative and controlling than she thought.

I’m thankful she was able to talk to me about it, and I know she shared with her parents too. Knowing that we agreed with her concerns about these behaviors was reassuring, and she could trust her instincts to do something about it. However, not all young people talk to their friends and family about their relationships. They’re left to question if behaviors are normal all while their partner’s tendencies slowly escalate and become more severe or violent.

There were people in my friend’s life who tried to tell her to give him a second chance because he was “just a boy.” Toxic behavior cannot be written off as justifiable just because of someone’s age. Teens shouldn’t feel trapped into accepting unhealthy behavior thinking their partner might grow out of it. It’s not safe, and it opens a door to future adult-partner violence.

We need to teach teenagers that abuse and violence in relationships doesn’t always start with something physical. It can start in small acts of seeking control, anger outbursts when things don’t go their way or subtle emotional manipulation. If we don’t start talking about the early beginnings of abuse, we risk missing it entirely. Adults, teachers and parents need to encourage the teens in their lives to recognize this behavior and trust that their intuitions could be lifesaving.

Elsa Friesen is a 20-year-old student at Augustana University.

Learn more

Garry presents information on teen dating violence and other domestic violence-related topics to groups in the community. She can be reached at [email protected].

Parents, family members and teens can check out these resources for additional information:

• Domestic Shelters.org: Teaching teens about dating violence
• Break the Cycle: breakthecycle.org/learn-about-dating-violence
• Respond Inc.: respondinc.org/teen-dating-violence
• Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia: violence.chop.edu/dating-violence
• Love Is Respect: loveisrespect.org