Teaching Young People About Relationships

The following set of posts is written out of sheer frustration! And yes, this topic is part of mental wellbeing.

How many of you pay attention to the development of reading or writing skills in your child? I bet almost all of you do. How about developing your child's social skills, relationship skills to be more specific?

Recently I’ve been meeting several smart young people. They excel in their studies and at work. Their parents spent money, time and effort in grooming them to shine in these areas. They went to coaching classes, summer camps or had special one-on-one classes for writing, public speaking, debating, physical activities…the list is endless. They look very well rounded…but so many of them seem to lack the ability to manage relationships.

Some of these young people (men and women) stayed in abusive relationships because they were told they have to adjust! Others tried to please their partner so much that they changed who they were fundamentally, resulting in deep self loathing. Others entered into abusive relationships with their eyes open—because they were going to change the person! A few entered into relationships because they liked their partner's personality but missed all the warning signs. When they did start to notice these, they continued to brush it off by explaining or excusing it..."Otherwise he/she is a gem of a person!"

These are well educated, talented young adults with supportive parents. One even told me that her parents were very loving and it was a rude awakening to meet these kinds of people. Well, I beg to differ. Parenting is not about just providing food, clothing shelter and educational opportunities to our children and saying ‘I treat my girls the same as my boys.’ It is also about teaching them how to form relationships, how to resolve conflicts and when to walk away from a relationship. It is all very well to be ‘loving’ but if we raise them to be naive then we are not doing our job well.

I happened to watch a few TV shows to keep my mom company and the dialogues awakened my curiosity. I started paying attention to how we expose our kids to the concept of ‘relationships.’ Before you come back with, “Oh, that’s just make believe,” sorry, too many people base their lives on these dialogues. 

To be continued...

Ms. S