Stop The Abuse or I'll Hit You

A study has shown that teenagers, and even children as young as 11, should be educated on abusive dating relationships.

Don't get me wrong, I agree that children should be educated about these types of relationships. But is education enough?

What these "experts" need to realize is that you can educate all you want but education alone won't do the trick. You have to factor in family backgrounds, environments, peer influences, the media, and all sorts of other things.

You can't teach someone how to avoid an abusive relationship because one can't exactly spot an abusive person from a mile away. Abusive people are very good at not looking abusive.

Teaching adolescents how to know if they're in an abusive relationship can be helpful, but that's like telling someone they have cancer without giving them any remedy options. And typically, the advice given to people who think they are in abusive relationships is to get away from it, to tell someone else or the authorities, etc., etc. This backfires because much of an abusive relationship is built upon fear. There is a reason someone being abused doesn't go to the authorities; the fear of the repercussions of that action far outweigh the fear of any abuse they are already suffering.

The only thing that can prevent abusive relationships is if people learn to respect each other. This is, of course, easier said than done.

Or you can always teach people my favorite quote: If you hit me, you'd better knock me the FUCK out because if you don't and I get back up I'm killing you.

Kind of negates the whole "abuse" thing, though.