During adolescence, young people learn how to form safe and healthy relationships with friends, parents, teachers, and romantic partners. Both boys and girls often try on different identities and roles during this time, and relationships contribute to their development. Peers, in particular, play a big role in identity formation, but relationships with caring adults – including parents, mentors or coaches – are also important for adolescent development. Often, the parent-adolescent relationship is the one relationship that informs how a young person handles other relationships. Unfortunately, teen sometimes develop unhealthy relationships, and experience or exhibit any type of violence that can put them in serious long-term health consequences. Researches have shown a strong connection between dating violence, exposure to other forms of violence, and unhealthy behaviours to a more serious abuse – in short or long term- in relationships, heavy drinking, drug use, smoking, depression, eating disorders and suicidal thoughts, as well as a number of chronic health problems.

For these reasons, we recommend parents, teachers and peers to start the conversation on what is healthy relationship to detect and prevent gender based violence. We want young people to understand how social and cultural norms can negatively determine and shape their individual identities and behaviours patterns that can give rise to gender based violence. If we act early: speaking, educating and engaging young people in the conversation about gender stereotypes, gender roles, teen dating violence relation and bullying, we are ensuring that our young people will leave school with the building blocks for a lifetime of healthy relationships.

Healthy relationships are those that are not based on power and control or not equality and respect. In the early stages of an abusive relationship – romantic, friendship or family -, you may not think the unhealthy behaviours are a big deal. However, possessiveness, insults, jealous accusations, yelling, humiliation, pulling hair, pushing or other negative, abusive behaviours, are — at their root — exertions of power and control. Remember that abuse is always a choice and you deserve to be respected. There is no excuse for abuse of any kind.