Relationship education

Shaya

New member
Question: Should "how to do a relationship" be taught in high school? If not, then should society's expectation on developing a good relationship change from a "trial by fire" experimental model to a "research what others have done to avoid their mistakes" model?

Relationships are the hardest things in life in my opinion. Harder than any course I did in university and with more emotional impact on me. Uni smarts mean nothing if you're curled up on a bed in a train wreck of emotions because you f'ed up your relationship. In light of this, should we be taught how to do relationships? We would consult a manual to put together a bookshelf or an ikea bed, a manual for fixing a car or aeroplane, why not consult a manual for relationships instead of expecting it to work like magic because society says, "all you need is true love."

No! Love alone is not enough to make a good relationship. You may love cooking but that doesn't make you a good cook - you read the cookbook. You may be naturally talented at running and compete at the olympic level but you train and you read physiology, physics, techniques of other runners before you. Love for something without study or without hard work is not a recipe for success in any area of our life. Why should we expect differently in our relationships? Why does society lead teenagers and young couples into believing that "all you need is true love?"

There seems to be a societal expectation that being hurt in love is part of life, or part of growing up. There seems to be an expectation that you can only learn relationshipping by trial and error. Wrong! I've seen 'dumbasses' burn through 10 relationships and come out none the wiser. I've seen 'dumbassess' struggle through quadratic equations for 10 days and come out none the wiser until they're taught how to do it right. Relationships, like quadratic equations, can be taught. Being hurt in love may be part of life, but you can learn to love better, healthier and with less pain if you are willing to read or learn from others who have done it before.

My clever wife brought up an interesting point. She pointed out that the aftermath of a bad-ass affair can sometimes be as traumatic (or more so) than a cancer scare with years of chemo- and radiotherapy. If you doubt it, just look at Mark's story, a person who had an affair for years, ending up an absolute wreck, now a couples counsellor and sharing life lessons we can all learn from. The emotional aftermath of a health scare or death of a family member is traumatic, as is the aftermath of an affair. We funnel all kinds of money into cancer prevention, all kinds of money into researching preventative measures for heart disease and depending on your country, there is even recognition and research into the impact of disease on carers or family members. But what money goes into teaching people to avoid affairs or similar relationship woes?

My wife's point is that there seems to be a disproportionate focus by society on the emotional impact of disease on a family compared to the emotional impact of an affair on the family. My wife identified this as a possible public health measure when framed as "days of productivity lost from work." A cost benefit analysis may show that a tiny amount of money put into changing society's views on relationshipping may increase a nation's productivity by improving psychological health of the nation.



In summary, western society seems willing to put money into studying the mental health of diseases. Depending on your country, there is often money directed towards preventative measures. However, I feel there is a glaring hole in the preventative health aspect of our relationships. Poor relationships can turn a previously successful, highly educated individual into a miserable person with mental health issues, drug addiction and a cycle of poverty, which also impacts our children's mental health and their relationships when they grow up, potentially trapping them in an inter-generational cycle of unhealthy relationship styles. Poor relationships impact days lost at work and other economic factors in society. Relationships are hard. Since we use a manual for almost every difficult task in life, why not use one for relationships? I believe that society's view of relationships as a life experience to be learnt from by trial and error is incorrect. I believe that society's message that relationships will work "as long as you love each other" is incorrect. I believe that relationships, even your first relationship, can be healthier if taught or learnt from a manual.
 
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I don't think that relationships should be taught in schools, mostly because then you face the issue of who decides the curriculum and who decides what a relationship is. I see the same issues with this as we see with sex education in schools and not teaching anything beyond abstaining in highly religious areas.
 
Should "how to do a relationship" be taught in high school?

IME, basic healthy dating used to be taught as part of home economics just like basic cooking or basic housekeeping, or basic check book balancing. (I grew up elsewhere.)

I'm not sure if they do that now here where I now live. I'm not even sure there IS home economics in schools now. I know I got some info through health class as a teen -- but that was more along the lines of sex health hygiene and not like dating and recognizing abuse and stuff.

I think it should be taught more comprehensively in school but people are going to argue about curriculum because some parents don't want their kids being taught anything at all, don't want them taught certain things, or ONLY want them taught certain things. So you might get the "first period" movie because it might happen in schools and the school has to help child deal with it... but you aren't going to get "recognize abuse in dating" or "how to put on a condom" as reliably.

Some of the American Girl "A Smart Girl's Guide" series deals with some of those "life skills" things that home ec used to cover and it's geared for tweens/teens. Staying home alone, good manners, making friends, managing money, organizing your room, dealing with crushes/dating, etc.

Our Whole Lives covers healthy dating/healthy sex and it is taught out of Unitarian and Unity churches. You can buy the texts at the UUA bookstore. We went that route with the kids because sex ed in regular school was meh. We can teach at home, but getting it reinforced by others matters.

UUPA recently developed poly curriculum called "Love Makes Family." I haven't seen that one yet so cannot comment.

So stuff is out there already.

If not, then should society's expectation on developing a good relationship change from a "trial by fire" experimental model to a "research what others have done to avoid their mistakes" model?

I think it is both. I learned from my dating joys and mistakes. And I also learned from observing others what was good and what was not. I don't need "society" telling me to do that observing. I already observe. Besides... "society" changes by "individuals" changing. Not that long ago mixed couples was taboo. That changed. Because individuals decided to change.

Galagirl
 
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A reliable, accurate relationship manual would be great and could be used in (high) school. But who would write/compile that manual? and how would that be decided?
 
I don't think Relationships 101 should be taught in school. I do think that effective communication skills should be taught (such as NVC and active listening.) Consent could also be taught to young children, without it having to be framed as a sexual thing. How to regulate and handle your own emotions would be helpful, too. Those three things alone would make for healthier relationships without even discussing romantic/sexual relationships.
 
I don't think Relationships 101 should be taught in school. I do think that effective communication skills should be taught (such as NVC and active listening.) Consent could also be taught to young children, without it having to be framed as a sexual thing. How to regulate and handle your own emotions would be helpful, too. Those three things alone would make for healthier relationships without even discussing romantic/sexual relationships.

Yes, this is a great response.

I would add, not just how to regulate and handle your own emotions, but how to recognize that your emotions do not justify any of your words or actions. You may not be able to control how you feel, but you should learn to control what you say and do.

And techniques for managing yourself when under the influence of strong emotions...things like basic good self care (make sure you eat and sleep the right ways, even if your emotions are messing with you) and exercise, yoga, meditation, etc.

I go crazy about how sex ed in the schools is taught. I yelled at the woman. She called me, because my younger son had opted out. This was in 8th grade, and he had serious social anxiety at that time, he had only recently begun to recover from living with his Dad at the worst of his crazy (the poor kid was so stressed he was literally pulling his own hair out.) So I was ok with him not doing the sex ed class. The teacher called me to confirm, and she said again and again, "We teach them ABSTINENCE." as though that would help make her case. I told her that was only giving me more reason to keep him out of the class, and I'd prefer if they taught less about abstinence, which I consider to be fairly unrealistic, and more about consent.

In my older son's school, they had renamed Home Ec. and called it "Singles Living." (Sounds cool, huh?) Still your basic, how to boil noodles, use a checkbook, and sew a button on your shirt. All while hopefully not burning your apartment complex down! Yay!

They could come up with a good name for the class, other than calling it "Relationships 101" or similar. The point need not be teaching them how to succeed at romantic relationships, it can be just a matter of giving them all of those great tools that help in our interactions with other people. After all...odds are pretty good that we'll all need to do that, in one fashion or another, might as well learn how to do it respectfully.

Yeah. Consent. Can't stress enough how important it is for kids to learn a new, modern version of what that means. I came through high school thinking it was basically something that only girls got to give or withhold. Now that I'm a mother of teenage sons, both of which have been on the receiving end of aggressive and unwanted attention from certain girls, I am horrified at the mindset I had, and wish someone was teaching the kids better behavior.
 
Thanks for adding to the discussion guys and gals. I agree with everything you guys and gals have brought up. Good to see lots of views and perspectives on this and I get the feeling we're all in some kind of basic agreement.
 

Thanks for the link. I've read the first few pages and look forward to reading more. As a quick preview/review of the link, it is a longass pHD dissertation written in 2014 exploring polyamory as a relationship style, claiming it as the first such exploration of its type in this field, and encouraging other people in the field to explore the topic with the author.

The author, whom I believe to be highly intelligent, draws on 3 years of experience to explore the mono-normative culture in our society. The author draws on studies or parallels with the queer, gay, lesbian and bisexual movements and their break from a hetero-normative culture in recent times to discuss why it is important to also break from mono-normative culture.

Or at least that's the impression I'm getting so far. I could be wrong. Maybe Atreides would be willing to give a more accurate summary?
 
Haha, I quickly left that before going to work, thanks for your summary.

In addition to all of that, the author explores the concept of "Relationship Literacy." In composition studies, there is an increasing attention to many concepts of literacy, i.e. technological literacy and such, that we have to learn in different spheres of contemporary society. The author combines queer-style critique of mononormativity with an exploration of the developing language around alternative relationships in nonmonogamous communities to propose "Relationship Literacy" as a valuable field for social change and personal and communal development.

She held a trial class for a semester within the Queer Studies department at her university and explores the responses of the students to the diverse relational concepts introduced in the class. I found it incredibly fascinating and have returned to it repeatedly.
 
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