Betrayal Trauma Recovery - BTR.ORG

Victims of betrayal and emotional abuse often wonder how they can equip their children and teens to engage in healthy relationships.
Anne interviews Sid, teenaged daughter of Dina, who runs Educate and Empower Kids. Sid is a courageous victim of sexual coercion and abuse. She shares her heart wrenching story with empowering tips for mothers of teens. Listen to the free BTR podcast and read the full transcript below for more.
Teens Can Learn That Lying is a Red Flag of Sexual Coercion and Abuse
Sid shares that early on in the relationship, her abusive ex-boyfriend was kind, flattering, and romantic. The first red-flag for her was that he told her a lie.

Our relationship seemed really perfect for the first month. David would send me poems and he’d call me each night and tell me how amazing I was. He dressed nicely and spoke well of others. He was close with his family and a strong member of the church, and he was smooth and ideal and just kind of the perfect social media looking boyfriend. I thought that I had really found someone I could date for a long, long time, even forever, until I found out that he had been lying to me about some things.
Sid

Abusive relationships are often detectable by the presence of lying. If your teen's dating partner is telling lies, it is a strong indicator that your teen may be a target of sexual coercion and abuse.
Educate Teens: Sexual Phone Calls Are Sexual Coercion and Abuse

On the phone is how it began. He would mention to me like: Oh, I want to do this to you and he would insert some sort of sexual act.
Sid

Many teens may feel uncomfortable by sexually explicit phone calls with their boyfriend or girlfriend, but may not realize that this is a form of sexual abuse.
Parents can open up preemptive discussions with children who are not yet dating, or initiate discussions with teens who are dating, regarding the danger of sexual phone calls.
Teach Teens About Consent To Protect Them From Sexual Coercion And Abuse
Consent is an important topic for parents to discuss with children and teens.
Specifically, teens should understand that consent is an enthusiastic yes, when both parties have fully disclosed their sexual histories.
Sid had to say no, yell  no, and eventually cry before her abusive ex-boyfriend would stop sexually assaulting her.

We were kissing and then I remember telling him no. He had started to take off some of my clothing and then he was trying to put his hands in places where I didn’t want and I told him no out loud, and he pretended like he didn’t hear me, and so I said it again and I pushed him off of me, and I started to cry because it had really scared me.
Sid

How Can I Protect My Kids from Sexual Coercion And Abuse?
Educating teens about sexual coercion and abuse is essential to prepare them to protect themselves.
Sid shares her own advice to teens:

First set your standard. Know what you expect from someone. Learn what the signs are of an abusive relationship. When you’re in a dating relationship and you start to feel hurt by them in ways that you don’t really understand, talk to your family or people you trust, maybe people that have experienced things like that and see how they feel about it. Learn about abuse and control and coercion.
Sid

Here are some steps you can take to begin empowering your children to engage in healthy relationships:

* Help teens set boundaries around what they will and will not do with a dating partner
* Help teens practice saying no out loud in the event of an assault