Five ways parents can teach healthy relationship skills
You’re 14 and you’re at a party. A group of friends come up to you and one pulls out a cigarette. “Wanna smoke?” she asks, as she lights up and starts passing it around.
You don’t want to get in trouble for smoking. But you also don’t want to get “unfriended” for not smoking.
How do you respond? How do you teach your children to respond?
This is the kind of question participants discuss in the teen healthy relationships programs that are funded by the Canadian Women’s Foundation. The programs teach strategies for developing boundaries, empathy, assertiveness and conflict resolution -- skills that parents can also teach at home.
CHALLENGE: Research shows that when girls are constantly exposed to sexualized, unrealistic media images of women, their self-confidence is undermined and they become highly critical of their bodies.
For young girls today, it isn’t always easy. Dreaming about the future can seem limited by messages from the media and society that tell girls who and how they should be. Against all of these pressures, it can be difficult for a girl to embrace her curiosity or independence. Many girls struggle to believe in themselves and to know that they matter.
Talk about a wake-up call.
