Young people can be abused in their own relationship by someone their own
age or by someone who is over the age of eighteen. Abuse in teenage relationships, like in adult relationships, is about power and control. The dynamics of abuse and victim responses to abuse are similar.
Despite these similarities several conditions differentiate adolescent dating violence from its adult comparison:
- Reliance on peer approval. Teenagers tend to conform to peer norms. As a result many teenagers decide acceptable behaviour and sex roles based on how these are interpreted by their peer groups.
- Gender roles can be exaggerated, especially with regard to teen sexuality.
- Both males and females frequently act out their gender differences in
manners that reflect stereotypical notions of male dominance and female passivity.
- Lack of experience in dating and in relationships adds to adolescent
confusion.
- Girls may feel that their status depends on their attachment to a male and on his status.
- When it comes to love and relationships, the majority of teens are
idealists. This has a number of implications. For example, an adolescent abuser’s excessive jealousy and possessiveness is frequently romanticised by young victims who misconstrue their partner’s obsessive demands as ‘proof of passion’.
- Teenage abusers justify the use of violence and control tactics as acts of love.
- Teenagers may have to cope with the double standard: girls are revered for their sexual morality while males are encouraged to be sexually active.
- Adolescents are extremely reluctant to confide in adults or authority
figures.
- Many teenagers fear that their concerns about relationships will be
ignored, belittled or ridiculed. Some believe that parental or adult
intervention will result in loss of independence or trust.
- Adults tend to underestimate the intensity of adolescent relationships.
