Dating Violence among Adolescents

Dating Violence among Adolescents

Dating Violence among Adolescents

Name

Institution

Introduction

Unlike violence in adult intimate partners, violence among adolescent partners who are dating is phenomenon that is understudied. Although most teenagers do not experience violence when dating, for one out of every ten teenagers have abuse as an integral part of their dating partnerships. Youth Risk Behavior Survey in 2007 reported that 10% of teenagers countrywide reported having experience abuse or physical violence from their dating partners in the previous year (Mulford, & Giordano, 2008). This is just an indicator of how violence is taking root in our teenagers. Violence in dating adolescent may take various forms the way it occurs in relationships among adults. According to Varia (2006) these forms include emotional violence, such as jealousy behaviors and controlling behaviors; physical violence characterized by punching, slapping, hitting etc; and sexual violence characterized by rape on nonconsensual sexual activity. Violence in dating teenagers has various effects on the teenagers. These effects are usually physically, emotionally and psychologically detrimental. Heterosexual females take much of the violence compared to male. On the other hand little studies or insignificant number of studies have been conducted on gay, bisexual, lesbian and transgender youths, however, research conducted on same gender relationships among adults show identical patterns as those done on the youths of heterosexual nature. As Varia (2006) notes the health implications of the violence is also costly to those on the receiving end. They include contraction of HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted infection, pregnancy, mental illness, drug abuse, and suicidal thoughts. Programs that prevent violence among dating youths can be very instrumental in helping reduce the violence and the effects associate with it. It must be understood that the violence may be a sign of other deep rooted problems that may interest counselors. The counselors may also be interested in the prevalence and the effect of the violence.

Scope

This research paper looks at literature on the trends and prevalence of violence among dating youths. It also looks at literature on the causes of this violence, its effects on the teenagers and the programs that aim at reducing the violence. It also explores the outcome of the programs.

Developmental theory

Violence among adolescents in may be a product of the teenage stage of development and may also have effects on their development at this stage. According to the developmental theory postulated by Piaget and other, teenagers fall in two development stages, early teenagers are in the concrete operational stage characterized by increase in body volume and mass, increased intelligence and ability to systematically and logically manipulate symbols in relation to actual objects. They also exhibit operational thinking and reduced egocentrism. Those in mid and late teenage fall in the formal operational stage, which is characterized by exhibition of intelligence through use of symbols connected to abstract concepts. The teenager may also exhibit geocentricism.

Literature Review

This section is a review on of literature on dating violence among youths. The section will explore trends and prevalence of violence among dating youths. It also looks at literature on the causes of this violence, its effects on the teenagers and the programs that aim at reducing the violence. It also explores the outcome of the programs.

Trends and Prevalence of violence among dating youths

Youth dating violence cuts across gender, race, and socioeconomic boundaries. Both girls and boys are victims; however girls and boys abuse each other in different ways. In most instance girls are like to yell, slap, pinch, kick scratch or threaten to cause harm on themselves. On the other hand, boy cause injury on girls more frequently and severely. Some teenagers experience violence occasionally, while others may experience more often, even daily. The prevalence of intimate partner violence is high in teenagers than in adults. A comparing of the rate of intimate partner relationship violence by Silverman et Al (2001) reveled that teenagers are at a higher risk of abuse by intimate partner than adults. According to the U.S Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice statistics (2001) girls of ages between 16-24 years are more susceptible to violence from intimate partners that any other age group. Prevalence of violence to girls in this age group is triple the national average. Silverman et Al (2001) also observes that in every five girls, at least one girl has been abused by an intimate partner . These ladies have either been abused sexually or physically by their partners. The U.S. Department of Justice (2001) also noted that 94% of those victimized by their present or former boyfriend were women of the ages between 19-16. In the last decade of the 20th century most homicide against girls of the ages between 16-19 were conducted by their intimate partners. Gay, bisexual, and lesbian youths also experience violence similar to their opposite sex counterparts (Young, 2004). Also more than a half of sex offenders commit their first offense before they attaint the age of 18 years. 58% of rape victims are normally of the age between 12 and 24 years while half of date rapes occur among teenagers. Intimate partner violence in the youths is closely linked with risk of abuse of drugs, poor weight control manners, risky sexual behaviors, suicide and pregnancy.

Causes of intimate partner abuse in youths

There are various factors that contribute to intimate partner violence among young people. An examination of 1,600 juvenile sexual offenders in the state of California indicated that about 33% of the offenders perceived sex the best way to demonstrate love and care to their partners; 23.5% felt that sex is the best way of feeling powerful and exercising power and control over their partners; 9.4% use sex as the method for dissipating anger; while 8.4% used sex as a means of punishment (California Coalition Against Sexual Assault, 2002). Some victims and abusers blame the violence on the victims dating behavior such as provocation by the girls, communication problems, provocation the personality type of the victim, influence by the peers, and the girl’s desire for affection. A large percentage of teenager in high school (67% of males and 77% of females) endorse some level of sexual compulsion from intimate partners such as unwanted hugging, kissing, sexual intercourse or genital contact. Violence by male on their female partners is most fueled by peer influence especially in educational institutions. In this regard, intimate partner violence can be perceived as a product of negative societal and psychological ideologies, influence of drugs, provocation and peer influence.

Effects of intimate partner violence on youths

Intimate partner violence has numerous effects on the partners, especially the victims. Females in relationships that are abusive have a higher risk of get infect by sexually transmitted infections and HIV/AIDS (Mulford & Giordano, 2008). They are also at risk of getting unwanted pregnancies since the power dynamics in such partnerships deny them the ability to negotiate for the use of condoms or other contraceptives. They are intimidated by the violence and are often forced to engage in unsafe sex. The depression resulting from intimate partner violence lead to a feeling of hopelessness and sadness, and victims have an increased inclination to take part in risk sexual activities due to reduced concern about self.

Disclosure

Most victims of intimate partner violence among the youth do not report the incidences or seek assistance. The longer the victim has been dating with the abuser the lesser he/she is likely to report an abuse. Victims are more likely to report abuse if it occurs within the first five dates. Many teenagers continue hanging in abusive relationships due to various reasons. These reasons include self-blame, love for their partners, fear of their partners, loyalty, religious and social stigma, embarrassment, denial, privacy and lack of understanding (Varia, 2006). In a survey among high school students, 86% of students stated that they would confide cases of abuse on their close friends while only a small percentage 7% stated that they would look for assistance from the police if confronted by violence from their partners (Silverman, 2001). A large number of youths prefer seeking help from their peers rather than get help from a counselor, teacher, a caring adult or parent. Also a large number of teenagers prefer keep the incidences to themselves. Silence and seeking ineffective avenues of help present a great dilemma to counselor and adults interested in reducing and preventing intimate partner violence among teenagers.

Prevention programs

Despite numerous cases of intimate partner violence among the youths going unreported, there are numerous efforts geared towards eliminating this kind of violence. However, such programs are few as compared to those catering for intimate partner violence among the adults. Knowledge of the efficiency of the programs targeting the youths also limited since only a few programs have undergone evaluation (Hickman, 2004). Most of the prevention programs are school-base and aim at influencing attitudes and enhancing the knowledge held by the student about intimate partner violence and its consequences. The programs hope to influence behavior through knowledge and attitude change. Limited evaluations make it almost impossible to determine the effect of the prevention programs. However, the few evaluations indicate an improvement in post program knowledge, but there varying effects on the participants’ attitudes. According to Hickman (2004) long term programs show more positive results on the participants’ attitudes than short term programs. Also, girls report more positive change in attitude than boys. Program that targeted the participant self esteem, proper communication, assistance seeking and other personal strengths also proved to be effective at shaping attitudes. Other approaches such as reducing victim acceptance of violence and male use of violence and conflict resolution approaches have not receive mush evaluation and most information about their outcome is mere speculation. Programs delivered through the community settings proved to be effective than those delivered through school settings. It is, however, difficult to determine whether both the changes realized through the programs targeting boys, girls or mixed groups, delivered in school setting or community social setting were permanent and would persist through adulthood or not.

Relevance to Adolescent Development

The information present is various pieces of literate have varied relevance to teenage development. Teenagers are at a transition stage from childhood to adulthood and any negative attitudes picked or exhibited during this stage can as well be brought along into adulthood. Such adults may tolerate abusive relationships or be abusive in their feature relationships. As stated earlier, a large percentage of people who committed sexual offenses, abused their spouses or conducted any other violent deeds had done so once or consistently during their teenage. On the other hand, the victims of such violence and abuse can carry along the desperation, helplessness and sadness that they experienced during their teenage to their adulthood consequently affecting their future relationships. This is a clear indication that what happen to the youths during this transition stage of growth is very influential to their future behaviors. In this regard, tolerating violence or accepting it should be discourage. Also perpetrators of violence should be discouraged either through counseling or through punishment. Prevention programs should be encouraged to shape the thoughts and knowledge of the teenager. The youth should be enabled to seek help from appropriate avenues whenever they experience violence from their intimate partners. Youth should be made aware of the consequence of keeping quiet when their friends are abused or abuse their partners. As brothers keepers youths should look out for each other to avoid consequences such as sexually transmitted infections and HIV/AIDS, despair, unwanted pregnancies and even homicides.

Implications for Counselors

Counselors on the other hand must understand that they are dealing with a great problem with perpetrators, victims, and onlookers who like the perpetrators and the victims never disclose what takes place. This can pass for youth syndicate! Counselors must take into account of the statistic of the abuse activates in order to access as many victims and perpetrators as possible. It is not only victims that need counseling; perpetrators too need counseling to help them to desist from repeating their violence activities. For the victims it is important that the counselors deal with the effect of the violence while for the perpetrators the counselors must deal with the cause of the violent behaviors. As noted above, girls are the form the largest category of youths who suffer violence at the hand of their intimate partners. In most cases most of the girls accept the violence as a natural male behavior. Counselors should deal with this acceptance and other factors such as fear, royalty, and self-blame that affects the ability of the victims to stand against the violence. Counselors should seek to bolster the confidence, perception of self worth by the victims (Pipher, 2005). This way the counselors can empower the victim to stand against the violence.

In addressing the perpetrators the counselors have an even more difficult task of addressing deep rooted believes or attitudes that encourage violence. Perception of sex as the best way of expressing love to ones partner is the greatest violence encouraging attitude that counselors have to deal with. They also have to address other notions about sex such as expression of power and dominance, handling hunger, and punishment. The counselor must address communication issues among the youths whenever they get an opportunity to talk to them (Edgette, 2006). With proper communication skill and confidence, the would-be victims will be able to talk their way out of violence or seek help when it occurs and perpetrators will be able to communicate and express themselves instead of using violence to get their way. Perpetrators should also be made to appreciate the desires of their partner and not force their will on them. Counselors should also address the youths who keep quiet when they have information about their friend who are being violated and friends violating their partners. This group of youth is very instrumental in shaping the future of victims and that of perpetrators. They should have the courage to report violent incidents when they occur.

Summary

In sum, incidents of intimate partner violence in youths are becoming numerous. The incidents are a product of many factors both from the victims and the perpetrators. Perpetrator are violent their partners dues to attitudes that are based fallacies. On the other hand these ideologies, alongside fear, self-blame alongside a myriad of psychological reasons and fallacies encourage victims to tolerate the violence and even encourage it. The violence has numerous negative implications on the development on the adolescents such as psychological problem, physical injury and infection by STIs and HIV/AIDS. The available literature on findings on intimate partner violence among the youths and the available preventive program present and informational resource that is valuable to counselors. The preventive strategies have positive outcome. However, I believe that with knowledge about these strategies, counselor can combine several approaches and crate on powerful strategy to address victims, perpetrators, and witnesses.

References

California Coalition Against Sexual Assault (CALCASA) (2002). 2002 Report: Research on Rape and Violence. Retrieved from http://www.uasasonoma.org/teensite/statistics.htm#Child/Teen%20Vicitmization

Edgette, J. S. (2006). Adolescent therapy that really works: Helping kids who never asked for help in the first place. New York: W.W. Norton

Hickman, L. J. (2004). Dating Violence Among Adolescents: Prevalence, Gender Distribution, And Prevention Program Effectiveness. Trauma, Violence, & Abuse, Vol. 5, No. 2, 123-142

Mulford, C. & Giordano, P. C. (2008). Teen Dating Violence: A Closer Look at Adolescent Romantic Relationships. National Institute Journal of Justice No.261. Retrieved from http://www.nij.gov/journals/261/teen-dating-violence.htm

Pipher, M (2005). Reviving Ophelia: Saving the selves of adolescent girls. Ingram Book Company

Silverman, J. G. et Al, (2001). Dating Violence Against Adolescent Girls and Associated Substance Use, Unhealthy Weight Control, Sexual Risk Behavior, Pregnancy, and Suicidality.” Journal of the American Medical Association, Vol. 286, 572, 576-577.

U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics. (2001). Special Report: Intimate Partner Violence and Age of Victim, 1993-99

Varia, S. (2006). Dating and Violence among dating youths. Retrieved from http://www.advocatesforyouth.org/datingviolence

Young, M. L. (2004) Prevalence of Partner Violence in Same-Sex Romantic and Sexual Relationships in a National Sample of Adolescents. Journal of Adolescent Health, Vol. 35, Issue 2, Pages 124-131

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