Would your teen know how to spot a toxic relationship before it turned violent?
Posted on
Content warning: Domestic abuse, coercive control and sexual assault.
“Raise your hand if you know who this is?”
Standing in front of a sea of young people, I watch as one by one, hundreds of teens scan the projector screen behind me. Suddenly, their eyes light up.
Small pockets of laughter ripple through the room as boys whoop or raise their hands and girls smirk or simply sit back quietly, waiting for what’s to come.
On screen is a bright and buzzy image of a celebrity couple, one known for their rollercoaster relationship. She’s a gorgeous actress best recognised for her role in Transformers, while he’s a famous music artist. Together, they look like the epitome of cool.
That is, until you look a little deeper.
Like, for example, the engagement ring he gave her – one that’s made up of dozens of tiny metal thorns designed to pierce and rip her skin if she ever tries to take it off.
“That in itself is a huge red flag,” I note. “But what’s really interesting is the way that they describe their relationship…”
Slowly I read through a quote from an interview, where the actress compares their love to a ‘forest fire’ or a ‘tsunami’.
“The threat it poses is so powerful…you have no choice to surrender with reverence and with gratitude.”
As someone who has been educating on domestic violence for over a decade, I’ve spoken to a lot of young people about unhealthy relationships. While most have a general idea of what toxic relationships look like, at the end of the day, there’s still a lot that they don’t know – and the gaps between what they perceive as ‘romance’ versus ‘control’ can be wide and varied.
As I move onto my next slide – a story of a teenage boy named Alex, who narrowly survived years of abuse from his then-girlfriend – I can instantly tell what some of the teens in the audience are thinking. Particularly the boys.
That would never happen to me.
The truth? Sadly, it can and it does.
In Australia alone, nearly 30 per cent of Australian teenagers aged 18 to19 have experienced intimate partner violence in the past year. It’s shocking and unacceptable, but what many parents and teens don’t yet understand is this: the best way to prevent physical or sexual violence within relationships is to empower our young people to spot the red flags that come before the abuse escalates.
Abusive relationships rarely begin with physical violence.
As someone who was in several toxic relationships as a teenager and now educates communities across Australia, I can tell you firsthand that domestic violence rarely begins with punches, slaps, or physical assaults.
Instead, it’s a slow drip of small behavioural changes, often starting with general disrespect and overstepping of boundaries, before escalating into the most dangerous non-physical red flag: coercive control.
Confirmed to be the biggest future predictor of homicide, coercive control is a pattern of intentional psychological abuse that aims to control, exert power, isolate, intimidate, scare, or threaten you into compliance.
Sadly, as we’ve seen through news stories such as the murder of Queensland mother Hannah Clarke and her three children, and 22 -year-old American vlogger Gabby Petito – who was killed just days after police failed to recognise her partner’s coercive control, this is still one of the most misunderstood yet deadly forms of domestic abuse.
Warning signs of coercive control include:
- Isolating you from close friends/family
- Love bombing and flying through milestones. E.g. pushing to move in together as soon as possible or bombarding you with adoration, praise, or superficial/material items like expensive gifts
- Financial abuse by taking control of your money, dictating what you can spend or giving you a small ‘allowance’
- Using your faith to control you and justify why you should ‘submit’ or put up with abusive behaviour
- Psychologically and emotionally manipulating you into thinking you’re the bad person, or doubting your own memory of things that have happened (otherwise known as gaslighting)
- Stalking you and monitoring where you go or who you see.
All these red flags are common and dangerous acts of abuse, and this is how domestic violence starts long before we see bruises, broken bones, or – sadly – lives lost.
I know, because once upon a time, I was a child growing up in a home with coercive control, and looking back, I can now see how close we were to becoming the next Hannah Clarke family. Though the abuse was rarely physical, it was escalating quickly, and if my father had not died shortly after I finished school, I don’t know if we would be here today.
At the time, I swore to myself over and over again that I would never, ever, go into an abusive relationship. That I would never choose a cruel, scary person like my dad, who I had to physically run away from – ducking through barbed wire fences and running across thick paddocks – to find safety.
I would only choose someone who loved and respected me.
It was a nice vision, but with no male role models and no awareness of emotional abuse and coercive control, I subconsciously gravitated towards the things that felt familiar. Disrespect. Violations of my boundaries. Men who put me down and made out that I was ‘crazy’ or ‘silly’ when I tried to confront them on things they’d done to me. And over time, these led to greater harm,including sexual assaults.
It was only when I learned (through a lot of trial and error), how to detect the non-physical signs of domestic violence early – while putting boundaries in place that kept me safe – that things began to change.
But here’s the thing, no person, regardless of age, should have to try to work this out on their own. And while society and awareness campaigns have shifted significantly since I was a teenager, I also know from the work I do with young people that there’s a lot of confusion about what is and isn’t abusive.
I’ve had a lot of very raw conversations. From mid-teen boys who’ve asked me in private for help with differentiating between peer pressure and coercive control, to a university student who shared that her partner often laughed at her when she cried or showed vulnerability and then asked – to the entertainment of the crowd – “Is he abusive, or just…emotionally dumb?”*, it’s crucial that young people have the space and expert guidance to explore these nuances.
With February marking International Teen Dating Violence Awareness Month, there’s never been a better time to start a conversation with your teen about spotting the signs of toxic relationships.
Even though it might feel a bit awkward at first, they’ll thank you in the long run.
Three ways to talk with your teen about coercive control
1. Pay attention to high-profile news cases and use them as an opportunity to talk to your teen about healthy vs toxic relationships. From the Diddy Trial to Netflix’s Gabby Petito documentary, and the ongoing discussion around the victims of Jeffrey Epstein, there are so many opportunities to ask (age-appropriate) questions about what abuse can look like outside of just physical abuse.
2. Encourage your teens to make a list of their own ‘green flags vs red flags’ for friendships and intimate relationships.
3. Ask your school to invite a lived-experience expert to educate students about the warning signs of domestic violence. If your school doesn’t have capacity, request a ‘lunch and learn’ session at your work. There are lots of programs out there, but if you’re interested to know more about an in-person Red Flags 101 session, you can reach out here to make time to chat with me.
Instead of teaching our kids ‘If someone hits you, leave immediately’, we need to tell them a stronger message: ‘Don’t wait for the abuse to become physical.’
They need to know that if their partners violate boundaries or disrespect them, they need to get out immediately because it will get worse.
Anyone can be a perpetrator, and anyone can be a victim – they need to empower themselves to stay safe.
*(Spoiler: If you can’t safely open up to your partner, there’s no future for that relationship – regardless of whether it’s ‘technically’ abuse.)
If you or someone you know has been impacted by sexual, domestic or family violence, contact 1800 FULL STOP on 1800 385 578 or Lifeline on 13 11 14 for free and confidential support.
Jas Rawlinson is an award-winning speaker, advocate, and author. Click here to access the online version of her ‘Red Flags 101’ program for families and workplaces, or join her free mailing list for advocacy updates and resources on boundary-setting and healthy relationships.
