When Dating Becomes
Dangerous
Helping teens avoid abusive relationships.
by Judith Kahan
PARENTGUIDE News February 2006
If your teenager came home with a black eye
or a broken arm, you would do everything you
could to separate your child from the person
who inflicted those injuries. But physical violence
is just one form of relationship abuse, and
not the most prevalent form. In the United States,
one in five teenage girls experiences physical
or sexual abuse while dating, while one in three
experiences emotional abuse. Emotional abuse
is harder to see— it leaves no physical
scars— so it’s essential that parents
and teens learn the warning signs.
Teens are inexperienced at forming relationships,
and they are loath to admit that their relationships
are going badly. They love love. Many consider
factors of emotional abuse, such as blaming,
intimidation, isolation, coercion and threats,
as “just part of being in a relationship.”
In New York City, where the Center Against Domestic
Violence is based, one study of 500 teens found
that as many as 23 percent had been intimidated,
threatened, hit or slapped by their partner
and 25 percent reported emotional abuse, being
verbally abused through insults, humiliation
and embarrassment. Yet only 14 percent of these
teens described themselves as being in abusive
relationships.
If it’s hard for teens to recognize emotionally
abusive relationships, it’s even harder
for the teens’ parents. All we can do
is note the changes in the child’s attitudes
and behavior and try to figure out if the emotional
shifts are typical of adolescence, or signs
of relationship abuse.
In its early stages, emotional abuse often
manifests itself in behavior that young people,
and often even adults, may read as signs of
love. Your daughter might say, “Joey
always waits for me after school to make sure
I get home safely.” You and your daughter
need to figure out if Joey is doing this because
he has concerns about her safety or because
he’s trying to monitor who she talks
to and what she does. The latter are classic
signs of abuse, but signs that might be easily
missed by a young person flattered that someone
wants to pay so much attention to her.
Emotional abuse is not limited to girl victims.
Girls, too, can be the abusers. Has your son
dropped out of extracurricular activities?
Does he have to check with his girlfriend
before he makes plans with others? Do you
hear him making excuses about why he can’t
see his old friends? Abusers like to keep
their victims close and isolate them from
friends and family who might interfere with
the abuser taking total control.
Has your cheerful and outgoing teen become
withdrawn after beginning a relationship?
Has your teen changed the way he or she dresses?
Emotional abusers use criticism as a weapon
to keep the victim dependent on them. They
instill the idea, “You’re so unattractive/stupid/useless
that you’re lucky to have me.”
The ugliest criticism can be read as affection
by a teen with shaky self-esteem: “He
(or she) is only trying to help me be a better
person.”
While relationship abuse may start out as
occasional outbursts, over time it can become
more frequent, more serious and more frightening.
The abuse may stop for days, weeks or even
months, and everything may seem all right,
but the abusive behavior always resumes and
often escalates.
Arm yourself and your teens with the facts
about abusive relationships, and you can help
them avoid this life threatening and all-too-common
problem.
If your teenaged son or daughter is in an
abusive relationship, teach your child that:
•the abuser will not change.
•the abuse will get worse— and
more dangerous.
•he or she is not in control of the
abuser or the abuse.
•it is possible to have a healthy, abuse-free
relationship with someone else.
Below are a few questions from a quiz the
Center Against Domestic Violence uses in workshops
with teens. Go through the questions yourself.
See how sensitive you are to the subtle signs
of abuse. Then have your teens take the quiz,
and engage them in conversation about these
situations. You’ll find the answer key
at the end of the article. Talk through the
answers. Discuss what kind of response might
not be abusive in any given situation. If
you need some extra help to get the discussion
moving in the right direction, log on to www.centeragainstdv.org/isitabuseif.html.
1. Susan finds an unfamiliar telephone number
on her boyfriend’s cell phone and calls
to see whose it is.
•Abusive •Not Abusive •Unsure
2. Kristen tells her boyfriend Leon, in front
of their friends, that Leon would look better
if he lost a few pounds.
• Abusive •Not Abusive •Unsure
3. Lucy continues to wear short skirts, even
though her partner asked her not to.
•Abusive •Not Abusive •Unsure
4. Andre and his girlfriend Sara are kissing
and getting close to having sex. Sara says
to stop; she’s not ready. Andre says
she’s teasing him and it’s not
fair.
•Abusive •Not Abusive •Unsure
5. Rona tells her boyfriend she will break
up with him if he doesn’t give her an
expensive present for her birthday.
•Abusive •Not Abusive •Unsure
6. Fred waits outside the school building
for his girlfriend every day after school.
•Abusive •Not Abusive •Unsure
Judith Kahan is chief executive officer
of the Center Against Domestic Violence, a
Brooklyn-based nonprofit organization that
in 1976 opened the first battered women’s
shelter in New York State. The Center still
runs that shelter, along with two others and
a host of school and community-based education
and awareness programs.
