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Dating Violence/Abuse Information for the
Parents of Teens
“Not my daughter!” “He seemed like such a nice boy.” “But
he comes from a nice family!” Some people mistakenly think that
domestic abuse is just a problem in the adult world. Sad fact is
1 in 8 teenage girls will be victims of abuse from someone other than a
family member before they graduate from high school. Even sadder
is the number of girls that fall victim to abuse from members of their
own family. Factor in domestic violence, date rape and abuse
and/or rape of family members put the numbers more at 1 in 4!
Past estimates of physical and
sexual dating violence among high school students typically range from
10% to 25%, and estimates for college students range from 20 to 30%. (1)
To help you get your mind around this number and make the statistics
real, just imagine yourself at the mall on a Saturday afternoon.
You are sitting there sipping a mocha latté watching the people
go by. It takes 15 minutes for you to finish the
latté. During this quarter hour you see 100 teenage girls
go by. One fourth of them, that’s 25 girls, will experience some
type of violence or abuse before their 20th birthday.
You may ask: How can this be? There are two main
reasons for this. Lack of education and fear. The startling
fact is that most girls have never been taught about what forms abuse
may take. Programs are in place in many schools that teach young
children about ‘stranger danger’ or inappropriate touching. Rape
Crisis centers are beginning to reach out to the middle and high
schools with ‘No! Means NO!’ Programs that endeavor to
address the topic of date rape. Unfortunately very few schools
have programs that address dating violence.
So we have generation after generation of young women who are not
educated on the types and forms of abusive relationships. And
most of the victims live with the silence and fear because they may
have be threatened against telling. They mistakenly think it is
their fault, they think it has never happened to anyone else and sadly,
they may think that is the way relationships are supposed to be.
In the April 2003 report by the National Institute of Justice on Youth
Victimization
86% of sexual assaults against minors went unreported.
74% of adolescents who experienced sexual assault reported that someone
they knew well committed the assault.
27.5% of girls and 34.4% of boys that had been sexually assaulted
demonstrated substance abuse or dependence at some point during their
lifetime. Among non abused teens the rates were 5.4% and 9%
(non-victims: 9% of the girls and 5.4% of the boys)
30.5% of adolescents who experienced sexual assault reported that it
occurred at their home.
15.4% of adolescents who experienced sexual assault reported that it
occurred at their school.
(1) Wekerle, C. & Wolfe, D. A.
(1999). Dating
violence in mid-adolescence: Theory, significance, and emerging
prevention initiatives. Clinical Psychology Review, 19(4), 435-456.
Note: This article is not
comprehensive. Your particular situation may be
somewhat different. If you feel your child is being abused, seek
professional counseling. Nothing on this list should be considered
a substitute for counseling.
If you feel you are
in an abusive relationship, get help now!
You can take the
first step by calling the National Domestic Violence
Hotline at 1-800-799-SAFE (7233) (TDD 1-800-787-3224) or go to http://www.ndvh.org
.
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2002-2004-gentle^spirit-All Rights Reserved except BDSM symbol ©
1995 by
Quagmyr@aol.com
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