Healthy Relationships

1. Healthy Relationships

2. Define Human Relationship • A state of connectedness between people ( especially an emotional connection) • Different types of relationships • Families • Friends • Teachers • Coaches • Pastors • neighbors

3. Group Discussion • Each Table group take 5 min. to develop a list of Healthy relationship characteristics • Develop a list for Unhealthy Relationships characteristics

4. Healthy vs Unhealthy relationships Healthy Unhealthy Disrespect Distrust Dishonest Unsupportive Imbalance of power Controlling Poor communication • Mutual Respect • Trust • Honesty • Support • Fairness/equality • Separate Identities • Good Communication

5. Warning Signs • Verbal, Emotional, Physical Abuse • Verbal Insults • Mean Language • Nasty putdowns • Gets Physical (hitting or slapping) • Forces someone in to sexual activity • Ask yourself, does my boyfriend or girlfriend • Get angry when I don’t drop everything for him/her? • Criticize the way I look or dress, and say I’ll never be able find anyone else. • Keep me from seeing friends or from talking to any other guys or girls? • Want me to quit an activity, even though I love it? • Ever raise a hand when angry, like he or she is about to hit me? • Try to force me to go further sexually than I want to?

6. Why Understand Healthy Relationships • Treating yourself with respect • Friendship, treating your friends and others with respect • Parents/adults • Romantic relationships • Natural part of growing up to develop romantic feelings and sexual attractions to others. Powerful human emotion that drive us to seek out lots of different experiences and try out different things. • It is all part of discovering who we are, what we value, and what we want out of life. • What do we do when they aren’t working out? • Making decisions / Problem solving • Take 5 min to discuss Why make Decisions ?

7. Decision Making Skills • To get what you want / don’t want • What do you want? • More fun • More independence • More time with friends • More control over daily lives or current situation • Don’t Want? • Arguments with Parents • Conflicts with peers • Social drama • Loss of privileges • Adults telling you what to do • Take 5 min to discuss how many decisions you make daily

8. Why is it so agonizing? • What are some of Small decisions and Bigger Decisions ? Consequences ( good and Bad) • Decisions = Change, change is difficult for most people • Conflicted relationship between Making choices and Preserving freedom ( all choices reduce more freedom than they create) • Dreamers vs Doers – Dreams require no commitment, but Decisions do • Indecision over a hard choice - Examples? What did you lose? • Ambivalence – want to do something else, but can’t quit because of what you will lose. No decision made • Life one-way trip charted by those choices that we make and didn’t make. Choices cannot be unmade. • 3 Limitations on decision making • First, Free choice is never free because all choices come with consequences that set our course through life. • Second, one life, choosing decides how we spend our life time. • Third, no guarantee your choices will get you what you want. Choosing is a Gamble. • Hard decisions, they offer costs and payoffs either way you choose. • Choosing is a compromise. • You can’t get what you want w/o giving up some of what you want and what you don’t want. So, to respect this mix you must take time to think both aspects out. • Don’t let reluctance to make a hard decision result in letting an important choice pass and later looking back on that loss of opportunity with regret.

9. Four Steps in Decision Making • Step 1 The Situation - each situation has an invisible Stop sign. Stop, think, then act. You have to recognize the Stop sign!!! If, you don’t you could regret your decision to act. • Step 2 Think – Think about all the possible choices you have in the specific situation. Then they need to consider the possible consequences of each choice. • Step 3 Decision - After thinking about all your choices and possible consequences of each choice, decide what You need to do. • Step 4 Evaluate your Decision - Good decision, Okay decision, Poor decision.

10. Refusing Skills • Are a set of skills to help people avoid participating in high-risk behaviors. Such as, crime, drug use, violence, and or sexual activity. Refusal skills help people resist peer pressure while maintaining self-respect.. • Types of Communication – Verbal, non-verbal, body language are used in refusal skills • SWAT – S- say no effectively, W- Why- give a clear reason for not doing the behavior, A – Alternative - suggest an alternative action or suggest something else you might do that is safe, T – talk it out – discuss your feelings about the behavior.

11. Say no effectively • Use and repeat the word NO often • Send a strong nonverbal NO with your body language e.g. hand and body gestures to emphasize the point. • Project a strong, business like tone of voice • Look directly at the person’s face and eyes • Stand straight and tall • Use serious facial expression • Don’t send mixed messages

12. Why – Give a Clear Reason • I want to finish school before I start having sex • I’m not ready for sex • I respect myself and want to protect myself by not having sex • Reaching my future goals is more important than having sex • I want to avoid HIV, STD/STI’s and unplanned pregnancy • I have my whole life to have sex. I ‘m too young right now.

13. Alternative - Suggest something else • Let’s check a movie on cable • I’d rather play video games • Let’s talk about some sexual activities that are OK for both of us. • We could fix something to eat. • I’d like to go for a walk outside • Let’s get out of the bedroom. It makes me feel uncomfortable.

14. Talk it Out • Things you can say about why you’re saying NO • I feel that waiting is the best choice • I’m not ready to have a baby • I feel intimate and close with you already. We don’t need to have sex. • I feel like you don’t really care about me when you pressure me like this. • I would feel a lot better if we waited. • I’m not ready for sexual intercourse • Thanks for understanding my need to wait. I feel like you really love me. • If you can’t respect my feelings, then I’m prepared to end this relationship.

15. Role Play Scenarios • Your partner asks you to go further sexually than you are comfortable • You are at a party where drugs and alcohol are being consumed and your friends want you to join in. • A friend brings “homemade weed treats” and offers them at school. • A friend and you are shopping and they want a jacket, but they do not want to pay for it. They ask you to distract the clerk while they put it into their backpack and walk out. • A classmate asks you to give them answers to the test in Science. • A classmate keeps brushing up against you in the hallway during passing period. You feel it is intentional.