Teens Suffering Psychological Violence More Likely to Be in Violent Relationships

A teen’s relationship with their parents has great impact on that teen’s perspective of dating violence, according to a study.

Researchers at Iowa State University found parental psychological violence makes a child “more likely to be in relationships where they’re being victimized or perpetrating violence against their partner.”

Researchers also found family stress in adolescence may manifest itself later on in life.

Looking at data collected over 24 years from the Iowa Youth and Family project, researchers found experiencing emotional and financial stress as a youth may lead to “intimate partner violence” during a person’s 20s and 30s.

“Psychological violence makes a child ‘more likely to

be in relationships where they’re being victimized.’”

Researchers collected data on low-income inner-city teens and found adolescent girls were more likely to act violently than adolescent boys.

The results suggest teen girls are either more likely to suffer direct parent-child violence than teen boys or teen girls are more affected by familial violence and stress than teen boys.

Researchers also noted different teens held differing views on what constituted violence.

“It is true that if you grow up in a violent household, you have a higher likelihood of being in a violent relationship,” said study author Brenda Lohman.

However, study co-author Tricia Neppl argued the data demonstrates the importance of preventing teen violence in order to keep children from repeating the cycle of violence they learned at home.

“Beyond parenting, I think it starts with peer skill building and peer development,” she said. “Adults can start by explaining appropriate things to say to other peers and that you don’t call peers names. These skills then carry over into future romantic relationships.”

Source: ScienceDaily.com.