Stories of abuse plague our news daily, demonstrating that abuse ignores demographics, educational background and class. While many groups and organizations, like Madeline’s House, try to fight the battle of abuse by providing services to victims and educating the public in preventative measures, these organizations cannot win the battle alone.

Society needs to change the messages given to our youth in regards to relationships. For generations, these messages portrayed to young people have been messages that unintentionally promote unhealthy relationships.

Imagine that an elementary school-aged child comes to you and says that a boy pushed her on the playground. For many of us, the feedback we received was that he pushed you because he likes you. Fast forward to adolescence, a teenager is discussing that his/her significant other gets really jealous and does not want him/her to talk to other people at school. Often, the responding advice is that the significant other “cares” or “doesn’t want to lose you.” If these two examples are the only messages that individual receives about relationships, as a society, we have taught them that if someone loves you they push you, hit you, and control you.

We need to open the dialogue about what is healthy. We can start by telling our youth that if someone really cares about them, they would not push them or control them, but would encourage and support them.

For more information on how to have this conversation with the youth in your life, call the office of Madeline’s House at 1-434-292-1077.