2: Rosalia Scalia (Baltimore, Maryland, U.S.A.), February 15, 2012, 11:13 PM.

Finally - thank you, sikhchic.com for posting this piece, and to Millika Kaur for tackling a difficult but necessary topic. Dating violence does not begin and end with teens or tweens, but plagues college campuses, too. When I worked on a college campus, a campus that boasted students from upper middle class and wealthier families, it astonished me how many bright, beautiful young women with great futures ahead of them remained in abusive dating relationships because they could not get past the fear of loss, loss of dating the lacrosse or football star, or the good looking or most popular guy, or being in the popular group. Right now in Baltimore is a trial of a college lacrosse star who beat and suffocated a co-ed student - his gf, also a lacrosse star - to death. Baltimore is a teeny tiny city and many people knew Yeardley Love and shake their heads about the bright future that her boyfriend snuffed out too early and wondering why she felt she could not do better when she earned straight A's, played sports, and proved herself as the all-around good girl with a host of community service organizations left to feel her loss. http://espn.go.com/college-sports/story/_/id/7579635/virginia-cavaliers-lacrosse-trial-defense-witness-says-yeardley-love-suffocated Teen/tween/college level interpersonal violence (at any age) isn't a subject that we must limit to our daughters. It is also a subject that must be broached with our sons. We must teach our sons that real men do not suffocate, strike, assault in any way people they allegedly love and that loving someone means looking after their best interests, means allowing them to become their best selves, even if that translates into losing them to something or someone else. We must teach our sons that might does not make right and that controlling someone is the surest and fastest way to lose them to that someone or something else. We must teach our sons that everyone possesses a host of insecurities and the best way to alleviate the stress of them is to work through them. Of course, teaching both sons and daughters means fostering an open communication/ relationship with them and designating from the time they are small children one day per week on which they can tell parents anything without getting into any trouble - whether it is about the neighbor down the street who offered them beer or the boy or girl at school who's giving them trouble, a failing grade on an exam, a physical or potential medical problem, the person they like and why, or any subject they want to talk about without fear. Interpersonal violence at any age is always about power and control and it doesn't happen in a vacuum. It is often aided and abetted by alcohol, peer pressure, a false sense of machismo on the part of a boy, or from the girl's p.o.v., the misguideed notion that the over-controlling boy means she's "being loved" by demands for hourly texts or a shower of gifts given too early in the dating process. Parents can't be afraid to take a stand and call the parents of a boy or girl they feel is overstepping personal boundaries. The myth is that boys are not plagued by interpersonal violence, but there are some bodacious girls out there, too, who do not understand the concept of appropriate boundaries. The unstated issue is that unfortunately, some of these kids behaving in inappropriate ways are merely modeling behavior they see at home and consider normal, another reason why parents must discuss the signs of a potentially abusive person long before they begin dating or become old enough to date on the sly and what their children should do if they were to meet up with such a person. Before a relationship gets to the steady phase - usually those signs of potential abusiveness have already been played out multiple times, but both the kids and the parents fail to recognize them. They follow: 1) jealous and possessive; 2) controlling; 3) quick involvement (moves too fast, pressuring one into a relationship); 4) unrealistic expectations - (if you love me you will ... (fill in the blanks); 5) isolation - from other friends; 6) blaming others for problems; 7) blaming others for his or her feelings; 8) hypersensitivity (claims their feelings are hurt when they are actually angry); 9) cruel to other children and/or animals; 10) playful use of force (such a pinching).