When her boyfriend promised to buy her a house if she dropped out of high school, the young woman agreed to leave school behind. She got her GED instead, with plans to go to college later.
Unfortunately, the house never materialized. But her boyfriend did give her other things she hadn’t expected — verbal, physical and emotional abuse as he tried to control her life and isolate her from friends and family. Her dream of college was delayed too.
That’s just one example of teen dating violence seen by Brittany Snyder, a licensed mental health counselor at FSA Counseling Center in Terre Haute. The victim was referred to FSA Counseling to deal with the trauma she experienced from the relationship.
Snyder, along with other advocates and counselors focusing on survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault, report that many teens in the Wabash Valley are among the 11 percent of Hoosier high school students who experience dating violence. The teens may not recognize the bad behavior for what it is, so that is where education and awareness come in.
One sophomore at a Terre Haute high school said she frequently sees verbal abuse between couples at her school.
“The thing I mostly find is not physical abuse, but more verbal abuse in a constant manner,” said Sarah Rozmin about problematic relationships she has witnessed. “I’ve heard very vulgar language in the hallways.”
Rozmin has helped organize an upcoming seminar on preventing sexual assault on college campuses as part of her Gold Award project for Girl Scouts, in cooperation with the Council on Domestic Abuse. Through her project research and her own observation, she has learned that many unhealthy relationship issues stem from teens’ experiences in unhealthy home environments.
The young people may not know how to set and maintain appropriate boundaries, and they may not know anyone who can share healthy advice when the teens have questions about dating or relationships.
Rozmin serves on the CODA Youth Council, which has been meeting at 6 p.m. the first Thursdays and third Wednesdays of each month at the Vigo County Public Library to organize events and educate teens about the hazards of dating violence, bullying harassment and other bad behavior that young people may encounter, but not know how to handle.
Rebecca Moore, education specialist for CODA, said she wants young people to know that information and help is available from people who care about healthy relationships for teens.
“When I go to schools for a program, I frequently have young adults who want to speak to me because after they hear the presentation, they realize the situation they are in is not normal,” Moore said. “They want to talk, and nobody should have to face this alone.”
But the fact is that many teens who experience dating violence are more likely to be involved in other risky behaviors.
Moore is able to work in schools due to a bill passed by the state Legislature in 2011 called Heather’s Law. It requires all Indiana schools to implement dating violence education programs for grades 6-12.
The bill is named after Heather Norris, a college student who was killed by her high school boyfriend in 2007. She is just one of the estimated millions of students across the nation to experience physical abuse from a dating partner. According to the CDC, 1.5 million high school students a year nationwide are victims of dating violence.
A report on adolescent dating violence in Indiana, conducted by the Northeast Indiana Area Health Education Center and the Office of Institutional Diversity at Ball State University, shows 11.3 percent of high school students say they have experiencing dating violence. The highest rates of victimization were observed in Hispanic women (14.1 percent), white men (12.8 percent) and black women (11.4 percent).
Hoosier high school seniors had the highest rate — 14.9 percent — of dating violence. That is higher than the national average of 10.3 percent of high school students who report dating violence.
The Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System is a biannual national school-based survey conducted by state organizations and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to assess risk behaviors in youth.
The Ball State report also showed that students who were victims of dating violence were more likely to carry a weapon to school, fight in school, experience depression, consider or attempt suicide, and engage in binge drinking, use drugs and report a sexually transmitted disease.
CODA’s Moore said that no child is too young to hear messages about setting boundaries. For preschoolers, she presents a “good touch/bad touch” message. For school-age children, the message is appropriate to the audience. Most younger children learn about how to stop bullying and how to be safe on the internet. The message about teen dating and respectful relationships has been spreading, as the Indiana Coalition Against Domestic Violence spreads its “No More” campaign about domestic violence and sexual assault.
The CODA Youth Council dovetails on that effort. Rozmin and other Terre Haute teens already have written their first newsletter with messages to their peers about what dating violence can look like, and how to help a friend. The youth council is open to new members in all of the west-central Indiana counties served by CODA, Moore said.
Missy Burton, clinical supervisor for child and adolescent services at Hamilton Center, said she finds that teen dating problems usually start with subtle actions — a touch, chastisements, embarrassing moments — before they evolve in to verbal, emotional and physical abuse.
“I always tell girls to watch how a young man treats his mother, his sister, and his best friend’s girlfriend,” Burton said. “Then you will get an idea of how he will treat you.”
Talking to middle school-age girls seems to be most effective in heading off future dating and domestic violence issues, she said, because those girls are seeking relationship advice as their bodies and social lives change quickly.
“If we can educate them in middle school, then we’ve got tomorrow’s high-schoolers,” Burton said. “And if we have them in high school, that’s the future married women and young mothers in relationships.”
For too many children, FSA’s Snyder said, if they grow up in a home where they witness violence, whether it’s physical or verbal violence, they may not know that such behavior is unhealthy. Young people also feel pressure from their peers to be in a relationship, so they may not understand boundaries or how to reject unhealthy behavior.
Since young brains are still developing into their late teens and early 20s, it is not unusual for young adults to lack forward thinking that shows a more violent future in store if they stay in unhealthy relationships, Snyder said. Even in college students who she has counseled, they will know that something is not right in their relationship, but they won’t know how to change their situation.
Taking a personal assessment of a relationship can be an eye-opener for young people in relationships, Snyder said. Indicators of a healthy relationship are whether each person enjoys spending time separately with their own friends, if they trust each other, respect each others opinions even when they are different, resolve conflicts without cursing or name-calling or threats, encourage each other’s interests, never feel pressured to have sex, and have close friends and family relationships.
A big warning sign that she often sees, Snyder said, involves social media and demanding to know passwords in order to check a partner’s text messages, phone calls or online posts.
Other unhealthy behavior includes extreme jealousy and accusations of infidelity, name-calling and humiliating a person, threatening suicide unless the other person complies with something, telling a person how to dress, and the obvious signs of hitting, grabbing, pushing, poking or other physical aggression.