Teen Dating Violence: Warning Signs Parents Should Know

Dating is an important part of adolescence for many teenagers. It’s also an opportunity for teens to begin learning what respect, trust, boundaries, communication, and consent look like in a relationship.

Parents and caregivers can play an important role in those lessons—often before their teen begins dating.

Talking openly about healthy relationships can help teenagers recognize behaviors that are respectful, identify warning signs of controlling or abusive behavior, establish boundaries, and know where to turn if a relationship doesn’t feel safe.

These conversations shouldn’t happen only after something goes wrong.

What Is Teen Dating Violence?

Teen dating violence refers to physical violence, sexual violence, psychological aggression, or stalking that occurs within a dating or romantic relationship.

Abuse doesn’t always involve hitting.

It can include:

• Physical violence
• Sexual pressure, coercion, or violence
• Threats or intimidation
• Humiliation or repeated put-downs
• Controlling behavior
• Extreme or controlling jealousy
• Attempts to isolate someone from friends or family
• Stalking
• Digital monitoring or harassment

Teen dating violence is not rare. National CDC data from the 2021 Youth Risk Behavior Survey found that among U.S. high school students who reported dating during the previous 12 months, 8.5% experienced physical dating violence and 9.7% experienced sexual dating violence.

Overall, 13.6% experienced physical dating violence, sexual dating violence, or both.

Teen dating violence can also have consequences beyond the relationship itself. Young people who experience dating violence may be at greater risk for concerns including depression, anxiety, substance use, and suicidal thoughts.

What Does a Healthy Teen Relationship Look Like?

Parents sometimes spend so much time teaching teenagers what not to do that teens receive surprisingly little guidance about what a healthy relationship actually looks like.

A healthy relationship generally includes:

• Respect: Both people treat each other’s feelings, opinions, identities, and boundaries as important.
• Trust: Neither person has to constantly prove where they are, who they’re with, or what they’re doing.
• Independence: Both people can maintain friendships, activities, interests, and relationships outside the dating relationship.
• Communication: Disagreements can happen without threats, humiliation, intimidation, or violence.
• Boundaries: Each person can establish limits about physical affection, sex, communication, privacy, time, and technology.
• Consent: Physical and sexual activity requires voluntary agreement. Either person can change their mind.
• Equality: One person doesn’t control the other person’s decisions, friendships, clothing, activities, or access to other people.

One of the most useful things parents can teach teenagers is:

A relationship should not require you to give up your safety, privacy, friendships, identity, or right to say no.

Warning Signs of an Unhealthy or Abusive Teen Relationship

Every disagreement between teenagers isn’t dating violence.

Teenagers are still learning communication, emotional regulation, boundaries, and relationship skills. They may sometimes handle disagreements poorly.

But some patterns deserve particular attention.

Controlling Behavior

A partner may try to control:

• Who your teen talks to
• Who they can be friends with
• What they wear
• Where they go
• Which activities they participate in
• How quickly they respond to messages
• How they spend their free time

Control may initially be presented as concern:

“I just worry about you.”

or:

“I only get jealous because I love you so much.”

The important question is whether concern is being used to justify controlling another person’s choices.

Isolation

Pay attention if your teenager suddenly begins withdrawing from friends, family members, activities, or other important relationships because their dating partner doesn’t want them participating.

A controlling partner may criticize friends or family, create conflicts whenever the teen spends time with other people, or pressure the teen to choose the relationship over everyone else.

Fear of the Partner’s Reaction

A teenager may begin carefully managing everything they do because they’re afraid of upsetting their partner.

You might hear:

“I have to text them back right away or they’ll freak out.”

or:

“I can’t go because they’ll get mad if I’m there.”

Feeling responsible for constantly preventing another person’s anger can be an important warning sign.

Frequent Humiliation or Put-Downs

Repeated insults, humiliation, threats, degrading jokes, or intentionally embarrassing someone are not signs of a respectful relationship.

This can happen privately or publicly—including in group chats and on social media.

Physical Aggression

Hitting, pushing, grabbing, restraining, kicking, throwing objects at someone, or intentionally physically hurting a partner are serious concerns.

Threatening physical harm also matters even when an injury hasn’t occurred.

Sexual Pressure or Coercion

Teenagers should understand that dating someone does not create an obligation to participate in sexual activity.

Pressure might include:

• Repeatedly asking after someone says no
• Using guilt
• Threatening to end the relationship
• Threatening humiliation
• Using substances or impairment to take advantage of someone
• Ignoring someone’s boundaries
• Sharing or threatening to share intimate images

Teach Teens About Consent

Consent should be part of conversations about healthy relationships—not something discussed only after a problem occurs.

Teens should understand that consent should be:

• Voluntary
• Mutual
• Specific to what is happening
• Something a person can change their mind about

Agreeing to one form of physical affection doesn’t automatically mean agreeing to something else.

Having agreed to something previously doesn’t mean someone must agree again.

Being in a dating relationship doesn’t eliminate anyone’s right to say no.

Digital Dating Abuse: When Technology Becomes a Tool for Control

For teenagers, relationships don’t stop when they leave school or go home.

Phones and social media can create nearly constant access to a dating partner.

That makes digital boundaries an important part of conversations about healthy relationships.

Potential warning signs include a partner who:

• Demands passwords
• Frequently checks the teen’s phone
• Requires location sharing
• Expects immediate responses to texts
• Becomes angry when messages aren’t answered quickly
• Uses social media to embarrass or threaten them
• Constantly monitors who they follow or communicate with
• Pressures them to send intimate pictures
• Threatens to share private messages, pictures, or videos

Parents can help teenagers understand an important distinction:

Privacy isn’t the same thing as secrecy.

People in healthy relationships can still have personal space, friendships, passwords, and boundaries.

Talk About Sexting and Intimate Images Without Shaming Your Teen

Conversations about intimate images can become uncomfortable very quickly.

Try to keep the focus on safety, consent, pressure, privacy, and consequences rather than shame.

Teens should understand that once an image is sent, they may lose control over where it goes.

They should also know that nobody has the right to pressure them into creating or sending an image that makes them uncomfortable.

If a teen is being threatened, blackmailed, or coerced involving an intimate image, focus first on helping them get safe and obtain appropriate adult assistance rather than blaming them for having created or shared the image.

How Parents Can Talk to Teens About Dating

You don’t need one enormous, perfectly scripted conversation.

Short conversations over time are often more useful.

You can use situations from:

• Movies
• Television
• Music
• Social media
• Stories in the news
• Things happening in your teen’s peer group

Instead of immediately explaining what you think, ask questions.

For example:

“What did you think about how that person treated their partner?”

“Do you think that’s controlling or caring?”

“What would you tell a friend if that happened to them?”

“What do you think a healthy relationship should feel like?”

Your goal isn’t necessarily to get the “right” answer.

You’re learning how your teenager thinks about relationships and creating opportunities for future conversations.

What If You Don’t Like Your Teen’s Partner?

This can be difficult.

If your concern is primarily that you dislike the teenager’s personality, family, style, interests, or other characteristics, attacking the partner may simply make your teen defensive.

If you’re concerned about specific behaviors, focus on those behaviors.

Instead of:

“That kid is terrible for you.”

try:

“I’ve noticed that you seem worried about how they’ll react when you spend time with your friends. How does that feel to you?”

Specific observations are often easier to discuss than broad judgments.

What Should I Do If My Teen Tells Me They’re Being Hurt?

How you respond to the first disclosure matters.

Try to communicate:

“I’m glad you told me.”

“You don’t deserve to be treated this way.”

“I’m here to help you.”

Then listen.

Parents understandably want to immediately fix the situation. But unless there’s an immediate danger requiring urgent action, moving too quickly without listening to your teenager can make them feel that they’ve lost control again.

Ask what they need.

Talk about safety.

Identify trusted adults who can help.

Depending on the situation, support may involve a parent or caregiver, school personnel, counselor, healthcare provider, domestic violence advocate, law enforcement, or another appropriate professional.

Don’t Punish Your Teen for Telling You

Imagine that your teen finally tells you their partner has been monitoring their phone and threatening them.

If the immediate response is:

“That’s it. You’re grounded, I’m taking your phone, and you’re never seeing that person again.”

your teenager may learn an unintended lesson:

Telling my parents makes my life worse.

Safety sometimes requires adults to intervene. But whenever possible, involve your teenager in deciding what happens next and explain why particular safety steps may be necessary.

The goal is to help them regain safety and support—not make disclosure feel like punishment.

Don’t Assume Breaking Up Is Always Simple

Parents may understandably wonder:

“If someone is treating you badly, why don’t you just break up with them?”

Leaving an unhealthy or abusive relationship can be complicated.

A teenager may:

• Still care about the person
• Hope the behavior will change
• Be afraid of retaliation
• Fear embarrassment at school
• Share the same friend group
• Worry about private information or images being shared
• Feel responsible for the partner’s wellbeing
• Be threatened with self-harm by the partner
• Not recognize the behavior as abuse

When safety is a concern, developing a safety plan with a knowledgeable professional or advocate can be more useful than simply telling a teenager to end the relationship.

When a Partner Threatens Suicide or Self-Harm

Sometimes a teenager may say:

“I can’t break up with them because they said they’ll kill themselves.”

Threats of suicide or self-harm should be taken seriously—but your teenager should not be made solely responsible for keeping another person alive.

Help your teen involve a responsible adult or emergency/crisis resource rather than managing the situation alone.

If someone appears to be in immediate danger, call 911 or seek emergency assistance. In the United States, you can also call or text 988 for the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.

Help Is Available for Teen Dating Abuse

love is respect, a program of the National Domestic Violence Hotline specifically focused on young people and dating relationships, provides confidential support to teens, young adults, parents, and others concerned about dating abuse.

• Call: 1-866-331-9474
• Text: LOVEIS to 22522
• Online: loveisrespect.org

Advocates can help young people and families think through relationship concerns, options, resources, and safety planning.

If someone is in immediate danger or facing a life-threatening emergency, call 911.

Can Therapy Help a Teen in an Unhealthy Relationship?

Therapy can provide teenagers with a confidential, supportive space to explore relationships, boundaries, emotional wellbeing, decision-making, and safety.

A therapist can also help assess concerns such as anxiety, depression, trauma symptoms, self-esteem difficulties, or other emotional effects that may accompany a harmful relationship.

Therapy isn’t about telling a teenager whom they should or shouldn’t date.

It’s about helping the young person understand what’s happening, identify their values and boundaries, strengthen coping and decision-making skills, and address emotional or safety concerns.

If a teen has experienced violence, sexual assault, or another traumatic event and develops significant trauma symptoms, trauma-focused treatment may also be appropriate. Families can learn more about Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT) and our treatment for childhood and adolescent trauma.

Supporting Teen Mental Health in Kalamazoo

Kalamazoo Child & Family Counseling provides therapy for adolescents experiencing relationship difficulties, anxiety, depression, trauma, emotional dysregulation, and other mental health concerns.

Parents who are concerned about changes in their teenager’s mood can also read about signs of teen depression and ways parents can support a depressed teenager.

For teens who need a higher level of mental health support than traditional weekly outpatient therapy, families can also learn about our Adolescent DBT Intensive Outpatient Program.

Frequently Asked Questions About Teen Dating Violence

What are warning signs of teen dating violence?

Warning signs can include controlling behavior, extreme jealousy, isolation from friends or family, monitoring a partner’s phone or location, threats, humiliation, sexual pressure, stalking, or physical aggression. A teenager may also appear afraid of how their partner will react to everyday decisions.

Is jealousy a sign of dating abuse?

Occasional feelings of jealousy can occur in relationships. The concern is how someone responds to those feelings. Jealousy becomes particularly concerning when it’s used to justify monitoring, threats, isolation, accusations, controlling friendships, or restricting another person’s choices.

Should teenagers share their passwords with someone they’re dating?

Being in a relationship doesn’t require giving up personal privacy. Demanding passwords or using access to a phone or social media account to monitor or control a partner can be a warning sign of an unhealthy relationship.

What should I do if my teen says their partner is abusive?

Listen, thank your teenager for telling you, take the concern seriously, and focus on safety rather than blame. Avoid making disclosure feel like punishment. Depending on the circumstances, consider involving appropriate professionals or a teen dating violence advocate and developing a safety plan.

Should I make my teen immediately break up with an abusive partner?

Immediate safety concerns may require adult intervention, but ending an abusive relationship can sometimes increase risk or create other complications. When possible, involve the teenager in safety planning and seek guidance from professionals or advocates experienced with dating abuse.

What is digital dating abuse?

Digital dating abuse involves using technology to threaten, harass, monitor, pressure, embarrass, or control a dating partner. Examples can include demanding passwords, requiring constant location sharing, monitoring social media, sending repeated threatening messages, or threatening to share private images.

Where can teens get confidential help with dating abuse?

In the United States, love is respect provides confidential support for teens and young adults. Call 1-866-331-9474, text LOVEIS to 22522, or visit loveisrespect.org. Call 911 for an immediate life-threatening emergency.

Reviewed by the clinical team at Kalamazoo Child & Family Counseling. Last reviewed: September 22, 2026.