by Christina Strong

Whenever a teenager starts dating, everyone worries, including you, Auntie. Dating can be an exciting time in your nieces’ and nephews’ lives, but it can also be stressful and even dangerous if not conducted properly. According to Choose Respect's “Get the Facts: Dating Abuse Statistics Sheet,” approximately one in four teenagers reports verbal, sexual, physical, or emotional abuse every year. One out of every five high school girls has been sexually or physically abused by a dating partner, and 54 percent of high school students report dating violence among their peers.
 
You may not be able to determine how to help your nieces and nephews develop good dating habits, so this list by Dr. Debi Yohn, a Counseling Psychologist, and Tina B. Tessina, Ph.D., (also known as "Dr. Romance") psychotherapist and author of The Unofficial Guide to Dating Again, may help:

1. Remind your nieces and nephews that boys and girls talk. They tell their friends everything and embellish the details. So hearing others at school talking about their date from last night should not be surprising.

2. If your teen nieces and nephews learn that you're the one they can come to?with questions and concerns, and that you won't be judgmental or angry, you'll have a much better chance to actually help them avoid problems.

3. Tell your nieces and nephews to not put anything in writing (texts, e-mails, notes, any social media) that they do not want parents, teachers, future employers, or you to see. This rule is especially crucial for things like sexting (sending provocative, explicit photos through text messages).

4. Let your nieces and nephews know it’s all right to say "no," and that there is always tomorrow.  Let them know that if the other person is a good person, they will and can wait.

5. A wise Auntie will be a good role model for her nieces and nephews when it comes to relationships and dating.

6. Be open to talking about the relationships of their friend's parents, and?other teen relationships. You can help them analyze what seems to be going?on with other couples, and draw information from that.

7. Advise them to listen to their intuition. Tell them to stop if a warning bell goes off. Go slowly and think.

8. Use current events (like a friend who gets pregnant as a teen, or a news story about teen sex statistics) to talk about safe sex practices.  Unplanned pregnancy can destroy a marriage between two well-established adults -- what it can do to shaky teen relationships is overwhelming. Point out that parenthood is not easy: it's a selfless job, and teens are not equipped.

9. Be a source of better information than movies and TV. Teens are getting?unrealistic expectations from stories in pop culture through books, movies, TV and media. Loving, stable relationships aren't exciting enough for the media or fiction, so models are few and far between.

10. Share your own experiences with them, and talk about lessons you’ve learned.

Your niece or nephew may have the idea of a fairytale romance and you want them to have that in adulthood. So help them start off dating right while they are still teenagers.


Published: December 20, 2011