#KEEPTALKING SERIES, VIDEO 2
LifeSmart Youth Council Shares How We Learn About Relationships
For the second video in LifeSmart Youth’s Youth Advisory Council campaign for Teen Dating Violence Awareness Month (TDVAM), young people talk about how they came to know what a relationship is or is supposed to be.
Teens receive messages from many sources—the internet, books, social media, TV shows, movies, caregivers, older siblings, and friends. Unfortunately, those sources do not always exemplify healthy relationships.
To work against the normalization of unhealthy behaviors, it is important for trusted adults to step in and talk to young people directly about what healthy relationships look, sound, and feel like. If possible, modeling those components in any relationship can make a strong impact.
Week 2: Learning About Relationships
Are you having conversations with the youth in your life?
Here are some talking points to get the conversation started:
- Healthy relationships are built upon 5 key components: trust, respect, honesty, accountability, and safety. Both people in the relationship should be committed to achieving these key components.
- Abuse in relationships can take many forms. At a basic level, abuse can be physical, verbal, emotional, or sexual. As relationships evolve, so can forms of abuse—imposing financial and social restrictions on a partner, for instance.
- It is important to have clear, defined boundaries. Not only is this important in dating relationships, but this is useful for friendships as well.
- Healthy relationships can look and feel different for each person. It is important to identify what elements of a relationship are essential, tolerable, and deal-breaking.
Guiding young people to understand healthy relationships does not happen in a single conversation. We must #KeepTalking.
The hashtag #TDVAM stands for Teen Dating Violence Awareness Month, which takes places during the month of February.
Like and Share our videos in honor of #TDVAM. The videos can be found on our LifeSmart Youth Facebook page and our LifeSmart Youth YouTube page as they are released each week.
More Resources
Check out the links below, and remember to visit the LifeSmart Youth YouTube channel to see more videos!