“I know I can walk into a classroom and see someone who has been affected,” said Kayla Knavel, Hope Unlimited’s children services specialist.
She’s talking about teen dating violence, and the statistics bear her out. One in three U.S. teens will experience physical, sexual or emotional abuse from someone they’re in a relationship with before becoming adults, according to the National Domestic Violence Hotline.
What’s harder to fathom, and perhaps even more unsettling, is that only 9% of teens in abusive relationships report the abuse.
February is Teen Dating Violence Awareness Month, a national effort to raise awareness and provide resources. So Knavel and Jon Miller, community engagement advocate for Hope Unlimited, are doing their best to get the word out. In the next several weeks, Knavel will lead discussions at Iola Middle School and plans to also visit Iola High School, Chanute High School, and the middle and high schools in Yates Center. All in an effort to help teens stop dating abuse before it starts.
TODAY’S digital world presents new challenges for teens, noted Miller. “There’s no separation between what happens online and in real life,” he said. “The internet is so integrated today into how we think and act. It’s part of how we live, as just an expansion of our everyday lives. And unfortunately that makes it so much easier to cause damage.”
Miller points to the solicitation of nude photos, blackmail, artificial intelligence and deepfakes, or manipulated images and video, as part of a digital landscape today’s teens have to navigate.
Miller also sees conflicting expectations as part of the problem. “Girls grow up learning about relationships from Disney princesses. Boys today, and this is a serious problem, but they mostly learn about sex and relationships through pornography. And so you often have two people walking into their first relationship with wildly different ideas on how it should work.”
Apart from physical and sexual violence, dating violence can also include psychological aggression, where the abuser inflicts mental and emotional damage, and stalking.
Knavel urges parents to talk with their children so they don’t deal with such difficult issues alone.
“Parents should start conversations early, before their teen starts dating,” recommended Knavel. “Teens need to learn how to set boundaries, and they need to know what a healthy relationship looks like. More than anything, they need to know their parents provide a safe place, somewhere they can go to talk without judgement or fear.”
She smiles as she says, “Parents may need to text their kids saying how much they care.” But Knavel has a serious point: Meet kids where they are. Because as much as teens pretend to ignore everything adults say, Knavel knows parents still have a huge influence on what teens learn to value and believe.
One easy way to do this is to dissect movies and TV shows together. “It can be fun to look at what’s happening on the screen and ask, ‘Is that realistic?’ or ‘Do you think that actually happens’” Doing so can give kids a chance to share their perspectives — without actually talking about themselves.
More than anything, parents should build trust and show they’re there to help, not judge. “Nobody asks for dating violence,” said Knavel. “Nobody asks for something terrible to happen to them. The last thing a teen needs is to then be punished for something they didn’t ask for.”
AS THE children services specialist for Hope Unlimited, Knavel works with young people under the age of 18. In schools, she speaks with 7th through 12th grade students. She tries to keep things dynamic in the classroom, centering most of her messages around games and activities.
“Anytime there’s a guest speaker, kids want to goof off. But I’ve been surprised at how receptive students are. I try to use their language,” she said. “When I see someone who struggles to identify dating violence, or maybe doesn’t see it that way, I’ll navigate it in a private setting,” said Knavel. “I don’t want to cause any shame or humiliation.”
But Knavel knows progress doesn’t happen with the flip of a switch, or because of a single visit. “We just have to keep showing up, keep letting them know we’re here for them. It takes time. The number of kids we work with at Hope Unlimited are high,” said Knavel. “And that’s unfortunate.”
