1 in 5 teens will be in an abusive dating relationship in US

Dating-violence class teaches ‘expect respect’
Saturday, May 2, 2009 3:05 AM
By Jeffrey Sheban
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

Speaker Velma Farris got pregnant as a high-school senior and spent 15 years in an abusive relationship.

Jeffrey Shebandispatch

Speaker Velma Farris got pregnant as a high-school senior and spent 15 years in an abusive relationship.
As guest speakers go, Velma Farris doesn’t mince words.

“My story starts in high school, having sex with my boyfriend and getting pregnant as a senior,” the 43-year-old Newark resident told students yesterday at Licking Heights High School.

That bad hand led to the worst decision of her life — marrying a young man who would go on to physically and mentally abuse her and their two children for nearly 15 years.

Despite being regularly punched, slapped, kicked and slammed into walls, Farris didn’t seek help or leave the relationship sooner because she didn’t know any different, she told two freshmen health classes. As a child and teenager, she said, she’d seen her father physically abuse her mother.

“I had to learn what a healthy relationship was. So I want other people to have the chance to get out of domestic violence that I didn’t have.”

Licking Heights, located in Pataskala and drawing students from western Licking and eastern Franklin counties, is one of the few schools in central Ohio with a mandatory teen-dating violence-prevention program.

“Expect Respect” was developed in 2005 by Tricia Hufford, director of Newark’s Center for New Beginnings domestic-violence shelter, and Kelly E. Roberts, a mental-health therapist in Newark.

The weeklong program could serve as a template for other schools. Taught to freshmen and funded through grants, it helps students identify and change abusive behavior, highlights positive role models and provides information for getting help.

“This is definitely a message kids need to hear. They may never have heard it or seen it before,” said Attorney General Richard Cordray, who backs legislation (House Bill 19) to make such programs mandatory in Ohio schools.

Nationally, one in five teenagers will be involved in an abusive dating relationship, Hufford said.

A survey taken by 300 students in three Licking County high schools found that half had been on the giving or receiving end of emotional abuse in a dating relationship. Ten percent said they’d experienced physical abuse while dating; another 10 percent cited dating-related sexual abuse.

“I think it’s an overlooked problem by kids our age. They think it’s a joke,” said freshman Blake Springhetti.

Classmate Zach Dunbrack said Farris and other presenters have made an impression.

“It has opened a lot of people’s eyes that it’s out there and it could happen to you.”

Student Brittany Stone said the program has compelled her to rethink her relationships.

“It’s good to teach kids when they’re young,” she said, “because it will help them remember in the future.”

Ohio appears to be lagging other states in efforts to protect teenagers from abusive relationships.

In March, a report on state laws by Break the Cycle, a teen violence-prevention organization, gave A grades to only five states. Twelve earned D’s; and 11, including Ohio, failed.

Failure was automatic for states where judges can’t issue protection and restraining orders against juveniles.

Conversely, the report commended New Hampshire as the only state where the law allows any minor to go to court by themselves to request a protection order.

Similar legislation (House Bill 10) is pending in the Ohio House of Representatives.

Cordray said that educating young people about abusive relationships will pay lifelong dividends.

“Many kids have poor role models, and this is when their relationships first begin to be formed,” he said. “If we can reach them in school, that will give them confidence to intervene at home.

“This is how we change the culture in the future.”

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I ask parents to:

Ask yourself “What constitutes a good role model for relationships for my children?”
Ask yourself “Am I a good role model for relationships for my children?” if not “What is missing that would make me a good role model?” and “What would take me from good to great?”
Here are a few questions to ask your child about a healthy relationship

Start out by being open to hearing what your child thinks. LISTEN to what they have to say, be curious without needing to address what they are saying, let them talk. Value their opinions and let them know you value them. You are simply wanting to understand where your child is coming from with respect to these questions. You do not want to change their opinion.

1. What is a healthy relationship to you?
2. What is an unhealthy relationship to you?
3. Who do you think is a good role model for you?
4. What is it about them that appeals to you?
5. Who do you think is an unhealthy role model for you? What is it that makes them unhealthy?
6. What is great about your relationship with your girl/boyfriend?
7. What is not so great about your relationship with your girl/boyfriend?
8. What could you do to shift that?
9. What is great about your parents’ relationship?
10. What is not so great about it?
11. What do you need that you are not getting from your parents (other than material things)?
12. What is love to you?
13. What do you think verbal abuse is? How about physical? How about emotional?
14. How do you feel about verbal, physical, or emotional abuse in a relationship? (If they don’t know, this question will open up good conversation)

Talk to your children – I am finding that children at age 9 or 10 are very astute and we as parents can learn a great deal from them. Draw the wisdom of your child out in them and learn from them!