Voice: Heather Cramer-Waterman, Caro
You may be saying to yourself: What is youth dating violence? This cannot be happening to my child. I certainly was when my 12-year-old approached me, distraught over the emotional/verbal abuse she was exposed to between her best friend and her friend’s boyfriend.
Dating violence is a pattern of behavior where one person uses physical, sexual, emotional or verbal abuse to control his/her dating partner. Youth dating violence occurs more than you might think: One in three adolescent girls in the United States is a victim of physical, emotional or verbal abuse from a dating partner, which far exceeds victimization rates for other types of violence for youth. And one in 10 high school students reports being intentionally hit, slapped or physically hurt by a boyfriend/girlfriend.
In a 2008 study on dating violence, nearly 50 percent of 11- to 14-year-olds reported being in dating relationships, 69 percent of all teens who had sex by age 14 reported one or more types of abuse in their relationship, and 49 percent of all 11- to 12-year-olds claimed to be unaware of the warning signs of an unhealthy/abusive relationship.
These numbers are frightening, but certainly preventable. Our youth are in need of education on dating violence and healthy relationships.
You can help protect our youth by contacting your local legislators and urging them to propose a bill that requires each school district to develop a policy on dating violence, develop/adopt a dating violence curriculum for grades 6-12 and train school staff on dating violence.