although i'm district attorney marian ryan thank you for turning into today's edition of middlesex update we did talk a little bit about teen dating how to define a healthy relationship and how to recognize relationships that have some red flags and how to think about your own personal safety this is timely because with spring approaching it's a time when kids are very excited lots of wonderful events going on prom graduation and most of the time those are just that they're very fun exciting events but at the district attorney's office here in middlesex we often see those situations where something goes wrong whether it's experimentation with drugs or alcohol some driving that results in a tragic consequence some teen dating violence or even sexual assaults those events take something that's so much fun in turn it into a very frightening and long lasting episode so today we're going to be talking about relationships that can be beginning as early as when kids are eleven years old and dating today doesn't look the same as it did maybe ten or fifteen years ago and part of that difference makes it hard sometimes for adults to look at these relationships and see how complicated and serious they are they might dismiss them as childhood crushes might dismiss what they see as all they're not dealing well with jealousy or with a break up and fail to understand the dynamics behind that and because most kids are reluctant to talk to their parents or teachers about many of these personal situations it's important that other teens their friends know and recognize signs when they should be concerned when they should seek the help of an adult and of course if you have kids in that age it's important to figure out despite how awkward or difficult it might be what a good ways to approach the subject with them and how can you get them talking about it and you'll also hear today that in addition to getting those tips to recognizing some of the red flags my office has launched a wider program to target this issue in a piece of that is a series of five videos which we premiered last week called teen dating a generation z a guide to going out breaking up in everything in between in these videos show real teens talking to each other about some of these issues and as part of that initiative we've partnered with many many people in the community both teens from the sum of all the melrose public schools as well as shushing valley technical high school and our community partners and i'm pleased to have many of them here with me today i'm going to introduce first on my left jessica temporal the director of prevention programs beyond domestic violence one of our community domestic violence partners to her left sara king a student in valley technical high school and on sarah's left michael marconi another student at valley tech so thank you all for joining me here today thank you for having us and before we get into our topics i wonder if you tell our viewers just a towns i've been doing this work since i was in high school as well and i got involved school with the north high school when i was a sophomore and really fell in love with this work and knew this is what i wanted my life's work to be so i went on to my university where i did a lot of academics and activism related to domestic and sexual violence prevention and i majored in gender studies at the concentration and domestic violence and sexual assault prevention and from there i've worked with domestic violence organizations and sexual assault organizations and washington d c massachusetts and the san francisco bay area and was very glad to come back home and get to do this work here in massachusetts and i've been working with reach as their director of prevention programs for the past three years and go i mentioned a little bit in the beginning how teens are dating earlier and it's not just that they're dating earlier but there's also just a lot of influence whether it's t v movies music lots of things that either consciously or unconsciously are shaping both boys and girls vision of how a relationship should go to talk to us a little bit about some of those who are so developmentally the where minds work when we're teenagers is that we're really trying to form our own identit so it's a really important time when young people are stuck trying to figure out who they are outside of their and lee unit and so a lot of young people who i work with are sometimes surprised to find themselves in an abusive relationship because they look at their family structure and think you know my parents have a healthy relationship so what's wrong with me that maybe i'm going to use of relationship so a few things i think contribute to that and make maybe young people at more risk for abusive relationships one of the things that we want to pay a lot of attention to is that young people because they're not looking to their parents they're looking to the media and they're looking to their peers and the media portrays a lot of what they show as loving relationships but are really controlling and sometimes abusive relationships so it makes it harder to define what a healthy relationship is and when an unhealthy relationship is the other challenges that young people really need a lot of help understanding some of these things and a lot of schools aren't necessarily spending a lot of time in the classroom talking with young people about these issues i think a lot of schools assume mom and dad will cover that mom and dad assume the schools will cover that and so young people are looking to each other which is why peer education is so incredibly important to sort of understand some of these dynamics most young people if they don't have this education and understand abuse only as the most egregious violent experiences because that's what they hear about on the news those are the stories that make the news and are labeled as such but what we see as abuse is really about you know one person using a pattern of behavior to gain and maintain power and control over their partner and usually in the beginning of the relationship things start off great the first signs or episodes of abusive behavior are often very subtle and don't look like what we see on the news and they're often about one person trying to renegotiate the boundaries of their relationship and why young people are also maybe part potentially more vulnerable to that is that as young people you have adults telling you what to do all the time you have your parents setting boundaries for you your teachers setting boundaries for you so when a partner does it doesn't necessarily stand out in the same way it might to an adult that this is problematic or concerning behavior i often give the example if the partner says you know you need to always response and i text messages or if i call you most young people their parents say very similar things so it doesn't necessarily bring out as a warning sign as it might to some of us who've had more relationships and i guess i would say as one other aspect of vulnerability to this issue is that for many young people it's your first relationship so you don't necessarily have a lot else to compare it to and the first relationship is a very powerful one and a very exciting time  and so sometimes i think because of concerns around the pressure to be in a relationship and show how happy you are via social media the pressure that other friends might be putting on that those folks there can be an extra pressure to make things work even if things start to feel like something's sort of off the fact that to see them every day all there's concerns about reputation if people are friends with both people and i would say lastly one thing i think is a little bit different that i know you and i have talked about before is that many young people are in very bad relationships so it may not be you know we're going steady as it was in the past but it might be more we're friends or you know a thing which is a popular term and learning we're hooking up and so what we see at reach is really being you know helpful to moving towards healthier relationships and away from unhealthy relationships is really being able to communicate your boundaries but when the relationship itself is on boundary and it feels really hard and uncomfortable to then figure out how do i then set boundaries within the relationship if i'm not even really sure what this relationship is going to show a quick clip from one of our teen dating videos that shows how important it is to be having these conversations i first noticed bad relationships probably around seventh or eighth grade really when most kids start dating and at that age you don't really know what to expect like yeah you go to health class and they're like oh this is about a relationship but they don't go in depth with it because they feel like you're too young to understand really i feel like you're never too young to learn about relationships because sarah looking at said cliff it's clear why it's important to have these conversations in knowing that many young people are not going to be anxious to talk to their parents or other grown ups about these things and also knowing that many kids will say that they don't feel like they have the tools to talk to a friend about an unhealthy relationship what are some of the things that you've learned good ways to be doing that if somebody confides in you that they have concerns about innovation well the first thing is to make sure that they know that you're there for them a lot of people do feel uncomfortable with the topic of abusive relationships expression because some friends might say i told you so that person wasn't good for you and of course that wouldn't make them feel the best and the same with parents parents might say i never liked that kid and they might not absolutely agree in your decision they might go to drastic measures and the last thing that child wants is for that other person to get in trouble because of what they did they care about that person and at the end of the day they want to make the relationship work expression if it's their first one kids always find peer pressure in trying to make relationships work out and making sure that other kid doesn't get in trouble expression if you feel for something for them their relationship and their reputation could be tampered with if they do come to someone and depending on how big the abuse is physical or emotional it really could have a they could tamper with them in the future and it could reside in them for a long time so it might go if there are parents or other interested grownups watching the show today and they want to talk to their kids or nieces or nephews about relationships what is some tips you would give them about what's a good way to approach that i know that there is really hard for parents because of the whole social media thing in how they're not always in touch with their kids and what they're doing because they're constantly on their cell phones and they can't see what's really going on but i think a good way to do it is to just preface them before they're really like they sort of dating sit them down have a nice conversation with them and pull from past experiences but i don't i wouldn't say force upon them anything that they're uncomfortable with or anything that they might not want to hear about but i think definitely it's a conversation that is needed to be had between the parents and the children just so that they know what question i mean i think one of the things that's hard is that every relationship is different whether it's healthy unhealthy or abusive and so sometimes the signs you know i think sometimes we look for the very obvious signs that someone will seem upset or have physical from injuries and again it's often not maybe as obvious as that so i always encourage the folks that care about that person be it of friends or the family to really think about the fact that you know that person really while so paying attention to changes in that person one of the biggest indicators is isolation but sometimes that's hard for friends to necessarily recognize as a warning sign sometimes it's because it's just exciting to spend time with your partner and especially if it's one of your first relationships trying to figure out how to balance a dating partner and friends is hard and so sometimes what we see is that the other friends will just get annoyed at that person and feel like you're not really being a good friend to us you're not coming around anymore and so sometimes that can contribute to the isolation because their friends may say you know we don't want to be friends with you if you're not going to be spending time with us so again we really encourage you know friends and family to really try to make sure that person knows that the line of communication is always there that you're always there to listen and they're always there to support them even though it can sometimes be hard to be friends with someone and abusive relationship so that isolation component i definitely encourage folks to pay attention to you and then other changes that you know someone may notice for and sense if they seem anxious about their partner getting upset with them over something for instance not responding to a text message right away when i teach in the classroom sometimes you know we'll see you know we always ask people put their phones away and if someone seems very anxious about what will happen if they can't respond to their partner that's always something i want to check with that person about sarah jessica mentioned sexting and responding to messages we know that technology is one of those factors that's really changed well lation ships can you tell us about some of the changes that come with that that you what your friends have talked about or have felt in relationships yes so obviously relationships now are nothing like they were before we have everything of the above and those are huge contributing factors on what happens in relationships so for example with twitter if you don't tweet when you're with your partner or you don't instagram when you're with your partner make a snap story to them be abusive partner that could be offensive they want people to know wherever you are when you are and again with your partner you want they want to make sure where you are all the time and that goes with texting they want to make sure so me a picture where you are i want to know what friends you're with i don't like that friend and to some people that's just them caring and wondering where you are but it gets to a point where it's it's not ok and you need to have your space and you need to be able to have time with your friends those are all very big contributing factors on what happens in a relationship and most relationships do start with social media liking pictures from a while ago and retrieving something that's maybe not important to you is a huge thing now and what is the direct messaging on any social media site you can do it on snap chat instagram and twitter so it's it's a text message within the app so it's not as invasive as maybe getting a text message from somebody you don't know but getting a direct message is a text message is all their social media sites is to check direct messaging because that's how a lot of relationships start out nowadays messaging all of these are direct warning signs of an abusive relationship they might just seem like they're just caring and just wondering where you are but there are the can be stocking at a certain point to some people having your password is very very invasive but to their partner it's just to keep them safe and that's where the french would step in and definitely share their opinion in another piece of that technology which you agree is this sex tape sharing yet actually inappropriate pictures and we know that probably about one four of young people in relationships are saying they've engaged in that kind of behavior and perhaps the more concerning in there is that well over half about sixty one percent of those people who done it said they felt very pressured to do walked into my room the school called she'd seen the  other things i had to do but the reason why i am part of this club and a huge reason of why i was part of everything coming up to that film is because of how strongly i believe in this and how much i've seen it doesn't just happen  children it happens more often but adults might be blinded by it and they might not see it as well close to quite a few people who have been in such relationships and knowing of what it can do to a person and how a person changes is a huge  joined this group and what about you michael we have a lot of mutual friends so the same thing with her we have a few close friends where we'd have to watch them go through these relationships and you know it's hard to see like one of your close friends and such pain all the time and you try your very best to do what you can but there's they're not always going to respond to what you're saying they might be too deep in the relationship they might have be mixing their feelings with love and just being kept in that relationship they just don't know what to do they don't know who to turn to and the all the all the abusive partner wants to do is isolate them and with students and other young people in their families to connect them with resources you know can you tell us a little bit about that absolutely so so i'm the director of our prevention programs and we are a staff of three we have a youth education specialist who works with about fourteen to fifteen high schools and our service area and we do as much as we can to support other schools that are interested in doing this work as well and that really varies we tailor it to each school community because each school community is different  partnering with wonderful team programs like the want to attack with others we're doing in classroom work or it might be doing some work to support parents and faculty but we really believe that this conversation needs to be continuous and says this needs to start early and it needs to happen often so our approach is really holistic to support everybody in the end person's life to know about this issue to know how to talk to someone and to know what to do to support them because not every young person is going to call our hotline hope though we absolutely courage them to but they may talk to a friend they may talk to a parent they may talk to their coach and so we want to make sure that those people feel connected to a resource for the schools that we are in the classroom it's a really nice way of building that connection directly to a domestic violence organization and one thing we always encourage is that a lot of times wonderful friends like these folks here are the people that someone turns to but then says something like that you need to promise not to anybody else and that can be a very difficult position to be in where you're concerned for your friend but you also don't want to violate their trust and so we encourage that as a friend you can also reach out to reach you can call our hotline you can talk to somebody so that you can have a confidential conversation first to sort of figure out what best to do to support your friend  and then go from there and so really what we're there for is to support people in figuring out the best options for them as was mentioned before you know abuse is really about taking power and control from someone that friends and family also often feel like the power control has been taken away from them that helplessness you talked about of you know wanting to help someone and not necessarily knowing what to do or what to say at a certain point so we really want to make sure that we're empowering communities and we're empowering young people to take on this issue this is been a wonderful discussion met happy to have had to join us here today unfortunately we're out of time thank you so much of that help and i encourage folks watching the show to go to our web site m p y inc dot org backslash teen dating you can watch all five of the videos that we produced and also with lots of resources the air to help you in addressing these issues and i look forward to seeing you in a future episode of middlesex upda