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um when we do a survey of Youth that are in school in high school in Boston we find that fully a quarter of our young
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people in high school a quarter one in four have experienced an abusive relationship and I don't think this is
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even an urban problem across this country one in four one in five one in six young people um are self-reporting
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um that they've been in relationships that are not healthy one thing that I know that's very different from like
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when I came up is my life wasn't on Facebook my life wasn't in tweets uh there was no social media so you can
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imagine that now on top of the emotions you're feeling around the breakup yourself you have to worry about what
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the perception is in your peer group or even greater than your peer group it has
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become so public um and I think that's added a a level of stress that um we frankly as adults haven't had to deal
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with and we really need to make sure that young people understand how to set these boundaries around their digital
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lives what are the strategies you use when someone who you don't know well um and who you may not like and who may not
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like you uh now goes and does a posting about your relationship with so and so and young people are really looking for
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what would be the strategy for handling that situation I think it's almost easier to sort of explain like how do
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you get into a good relationship then how do you exit a relationship that stopped working it's very hard to break
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up um in a way that leaves you very intact but doesn't destroy the person you're leaving you know it is a genuine
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health issue um because both physical and emotional abuse leads to things like depression uh drug use missing school um
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and illness and the Cornerstone of building peace in our neighborhoods it's not law enforcement it's not going to be
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the courts it's not going to be probation it's going to be people understanding how to build a healthy
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relationship how to manage their emotions and how to address conflict I think there are a lot of young people
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who want to know how they can love somebody fully and be love fully in a way that lets them keep their identity
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and keep their respect you know you have an opportunity when people are young to
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give them the skills that they need to manage their emotions and their relationships and if you don't make use
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of that opportunity really shame on all of us