#safedating4teens: 4 weeks. 4 important messages for teens about dating.

By Christine Murray, See the Triumph Co-Founder

February is Teen Dating Violence Awareness Month, and this month at See the Triumph, we’re shifting our focus to helping teens understand the differences between safe, healthy dating relationships and abusive ones. Of course, it’s important to talk with teens all year round about how to foster safe and healthy dating relationships. In fact, during February of last year, our focus was on helping parents and other adults know how to talk with teens about this topic.

This year, we’re planning to make the most of this 4-week window by sharing resources and information aimed at reaching teens directly. Each week, we’ll focus on one of four important messages for teens about dating. We’ve boiled it down to these four messages in hopes of keeping it simple for the teens to apply to their lives and relationships. We know there are many competing demands for the time and attention of young people today, and they’re trying to figure out their relationships while they balance school, friendships, technology, extracurricular activities, and a range of other interests and activities.

For those who’ve been following See the Triumph over time, you may notice that our series this month will be a little different than our past series. We will still have some of our typical blog posts and other resources available, as always. But, most of our resources this month will be in the form of infographics with pointers on safe dating. A lot of the pointers we’ll share will be based on the message to teens who are dating that we shared last year.

We hope you’ll help us reach even more teens this month by sharing the resources we offer this month with the teens you know in your own life. In addition to posting like we usually do on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Causes, this month we’re also ramping up our Instagram efforts. If you’re on Instagram, or if you know teens who are, please connect with us there throughout the month as we expand our efforts to reach teens directly: http://instagram.com/safedating4teens.

Teen dating violence is a critical issue to address, because the relationship patterns and experiences they have during these years can have a powerful impact on their views and experiences in relationships in the future. Alongside efforts to prevent dating violence, it’s important to provide support and resources to help teens understand the characteristics of healthy dating relationships. We hope our #safedating4teens series adds to this important conversation. Thanks in advance for all your help and support in reaching the teens in your lives throughout this month!