To think that kids at secondary school should be taught about relationship red flags?

[toptramp]

Of all things in my life, it was my abusive relationship that almost killed me and my career. I am scarred by it and my career is no way as good as it could have been if I had seen the warning signs and ran for my life.
Moreover I am still single as I have had problems establishing them since said abuse.
I have heard that the goverment are thinking of teaching kids about dating abuse and how to avoid it? I met my abuser at the age of 16 and there was absolutely no guidance from parents or teachers on the warning signs and noone helped me get out of it even when it was obvious that I was becoming ill and damaged by it.

It is all very well having good qualifications as I do but if you meet the wrong partner, your life can get messed up pretty quickly.

Such lessons may also target potential abusers and teach them respect in relationships.

I went to an all girls school and i think we did have quite alot of this taught. I remember having a lesson about domestic violence which did include signs but also i think more importantly discussed ways to escape etc. We also had lessons about peer pressure to have sex etc in year 12 and other lessons on basic parenting skills and budgeting for food shopping etc I thought this was the norm to be honest. I finished there in 2001 so it wasnt exactly decades ago.

violet that's a great list, and exactly the way I try to take care of my own. The worrying thing is that their Dad does the opposite, most of the time. Result is children that have varying ups and downs, with me picking up the flak. Generally I do all the caring or I know it's all going to go pearshaped. Crap, eh.

Number 9 is the hardest for me though.

discolite (love your name) but isn't that just exactly the reason why we absolutely NEED to do something about this NOW. Girls are accepting abuse as the norm. I suspect that's partly because many of their mothers have suffered some form of abuse and are passing this on to them.

As a parent support worker we had a full day of DV training, in a group we knew and trusted and vice versa. This may be the only way to address this with schoolgirls - long sessions where they have the opportunity to talk.

But by teaching the teenagers, it's educating the next generation of parents. Some of these children will be parents within the next few years. They're all on the cusp of forming relationships which will inform and educate them over the next few years - what better time to insert some thinking points which will either reinforce positive messages gained from parents or challenge negative ones.

For the adults who are already parents, it's most likely too late - their relationship views are set. Relationship views can change, but not without a lot of input and a genuine willingness to change their POV. Much easier to input, and more likely to have an effect while they are still forming these kinds of views.

slap I have had the same upbringing (without the religious aspect), and no doubt there are thousands more like us that get walked all over and spend years in turmoil until our lightbulb moment sets us free.

And this is as much about educating boys as it is about educating girls. They need to learn to empathise, yet they are left to fight their corner all the time - hardly a way to develop empathy. The government needs to remember that women were oppressed until very recently and it will take a massive push to change the psyche of men to, quite simply, be fair.

violet I love your list - I wonder if we could start a thread about how many women do each of these points as opposed to their men? A kind of survey? (laid up in bed today so need something to keep me busy!)

I like that list too :)

My mother came from a "normal" home when she married my father, who was an abusive alcoholic. She really thought that his level of drink was okay, just a bit "different" to what she saw in her own house. My grandparents were absolutely functional, caring parents but it didn't protect my mother. It's not true to say that everyone in an abusive relationship must have come from an abusive background or have such woefully poor self-esteem that they were almost lost causes from the get go. A lot of abusers are terribly charming, well-loved people within their communities and those they abuse are thrown by this.

good point rocks - a determined abuser can and will get exactly what he wants, regardless of the obstacles. Sick bastards.

But there are a lot of boys that just don't do empathy - this is something that has in the past been culturally encouraged - they have been programmed not to feel as much - it was part of the job of being a man (in the old days). This cultural more? isn't being challenged at all. And boys have the added ingredient of violent porn at their fingertips.

Now most mothers and fathers would be able to instill good sense into their sons, but many just don't. And this emotional neglect results in personality disorders which feed sadistic abuse.

My mum had terrific parents. My parents invented serial marriage before it became fashionable. My reaction to that was to marry very wisely, quite late and to provide a haven of security for the dc. For three generations in my family (can't go back further but suspect the philosophy spans back far more generations than that) no woman would have allowed herself to be abused. I believe because for three generations (in spite of different parenting styles) we have all known that when the chips were down our own would look after their own. I hope my dd feels the same, in fact I'm going to have a chat to her about it later this afternoon.

DH's side is a little different - there is more of an attitude of making your bed and lying in it.

Knowing you have support (whether you make a good or a bad choice) gives one a huge level of self empowerment I think.