2461: What’s a Parent To Do?: Raising Teens to Having Healthy Relationships by Dr. Timothy Loving of Luvze

[00:00:00] This is Optimal Relationships Daily, What's a Parent To Do? Raising Teens to Having Healthy Relationships by Dr. Timothy Loving of Loves.com One of the more alarming trends in the adolescent and young adult dating world over the past few decades is the increase in reports of dating violence. Specifically, more than 50% of adolescents with dating experience report some past dating violence, whether as perpetrator or victim.

[00:00:29] Moreover, today's adolescent dating violence, which often results from conflicts that get out of hand, generally shows no gender bias. Both young women and young men are equally likely to perpetrate and be victims. When it comes to public health issues, the prevalence of teen dating violence is a pretty big deal, which is why the Center for Disease Control has an entire section of their website dedicated to educating people about healthy teen relationships, and researchers are giving considerable attention to the issue.

[00:00:59] Of the work coming out on the topic, one recent study caught my attention. As a parent of young children, I naturally wonder whether there's anything I can do to minimize the likelihood that my kids will find themselves on the receiving or perpetrating end of violence when they start exploring the complex world that is romantic relationships. Like a lot of parents, my natural inclination would be to remind my future adolescent daters about the risks that come with romantic involvement, like heartbreak being used, etc.,

[00:01:27] and perhaps, even subtly, discourage them from jumping into anything too soon. Although I would like to think I'll have an open mind about these things, I'm realistic and know my dad role will very often trump my researcher role. Alas, it turns out that I may have to once again rethink my future approach. The researchers tested whether a parent's negativity about their kids' dating, like discouraging dating, increases the negativity between the adolescent and parent,

[00:01:56] like fighting about the suitability of a boyfriend or girlfriend. They argued that this negativity would then spill over into the dating relationship, like more conflict and less trust, and in turn, increase the likelihood that the kids become involved in a violent relationship. The general thinking goes as follows. Parent discourages dating and or tries to interfere with kids' dating choices. Kids and parent disagree about dating.

[00:02:22] Child develops more negative interactions with and becomes less trusting of dating partners. More dating violence. To test most of this logic, not all of it, more on that later, the researchers analyzed data from 625 adolescent and young adults who participated in a large-scale study of adolescents in Toledo, Ohio, beginning around age 15 through age 18. The study measures included 1. Parents dating negativity.

[00:02:51] How often parents demonstrated negative ideas about dating, including interfering with their kids' romantic endeavors, e.g., I have forbidden my child to date someone. Encouraging caution, e.g., told my child to wait until she or he is older before getting involved with someone. And promoting mistrust, e.g., boys are only after one thing. 2. Parent-child conflict about dating. How often adolescents report disagreeing with their parents about dating.

[00:03:21] 3. Adolescent gender mistrust. The extent to which adolescents report not trusting others in a romantic context, e.g., guys will say anything to get a girl, and girls will often use a guy to make another guy jealous. 4. And number 4. Intimate partner violence. The extent to which adolescents report common forms of violence, including hitting, shoving, and throwing something at a person, as a perpetrator or victim.

[00:03:48] 40% of the sample experienced at least some violence during the study, and reports of violence were greater when parents reported more dating negativity. Additionally, parent-child conflict about dating and adolescent gender mistrust was also associated with reports of violence. More conflict and mistrust led to more violence.

[00:04:09] Interestingly, the strength of the link between parental dating negativity and adolescent dating violence was reduced after accounting for parent-child conflict about dating and adolescent gender mistrust. This latter finding suggests that at least part of the reason parents' dating negativity increases the likelihood of dating violence is because parents' negativity creates more conflict with their children and causes them to trust others less.

[00:04:37] In other words, when parents tell their kids to not trust others, the kids may actually listen to their parents. Imagine that. Not trusting others is generally not a good way to approach relationships as a lack of trust increases opportunities for conflict. Although the researchers had a measure of intimate partner violence, they didn't have a direct measure of negative interactions in adolescents' dating relationships.

[00:05:03] However, previous research already clearly establishes that negative interactions are a strong predictor of violence. Thus, these results don't necessarily prove the chain of events mentioned on their own, but they do provide some solid evidence that something to that effect is happening. Or, as the study authors put it,

[00:05:22] It is somewhat ironic that such indications that parents are actively engaged in their child's romantic lives, i.e., they take a stand by offering strong cautions to delay dating or expressing misgivings about romantic partner choices, not only appear to be ineffective but are tied to greater risk. This whole parenting thing is hard. You just listened to the post titled, What's a parent to do?

[00:05:51] Raising teens to having healthy relationships By Dr. Timothy Loving of loves.com Gotta love research. Big thanks to Dr. Tim from loves for this report. And I think it's important for parents to recognize that, while this is a particularly intense example of how biased and forced parenting can cause damage, that there is a myriad of other bad consequences that can result because of it. How would this apply to other areas of parenting?

[00:06:19] What if a parent talks too negatively of a teacher? The child may very well opt to be more disengaged and disruptive in class. What if a parent talks down about the parent of one of the child's friends? The child may try to sway their friend to act out and rebel against their parents. Of course, these single causes will not always directly result in these effects. But, as the relationship research shows, the likelihood is absolutely spiked.

[00:06:46] So use this as a reminder to keep a cautious yet open mind and encourage your children to do the same. And that will bring us to the end, folks. A lot to think about for the parents out there, I'd imagine. Thank you for sticking with me today and be sure to come back tomorrow where I will have more parenting content for you and where your optimal life awaits.