Romantic Relationships In Adolescence Essay

Romantic relationships in adolescence impact adolescents’ personal well-being (Tolman & McClelland, 2011) as well as later relationship outcomes (Madsen & Collins, 2011). Healthy adolescent romantic relationships are correlated with positive outcomes including relatively higher self-esteem, confidence, and a positive romantic self-concept (Collins, Welsh, & Furman, 2009; Furman & Shaffer, 2003). Negative outcomes range from self-silencing and rejection sensitivity to psychological maltreatment, depression, and poor academic performance (Collins et al., 2009, Williams, Connolly, & Cribbie, 2008). An important negative correlate in youth relationships is adolescent relationship abuse, which may be present in as many as two-thirds of adolescent romantic relationships

Relationship education is often preventative, with 3 the aim of increasing skills and knowledge (Coie et al., 1993; Markman & Rhoades, 2012). Among adults, relationship education has been shown to be an effective means of promoting healthy relationship skills and outcomes (Carroll & Doherty, 2003; Markman & Rhoades, 2012; Stanley, 2001). Examples of relationship education for adolescence are scarce, but at least two have been evaluated: Love U2: Increasing Your Relationship Smarts (Adler-Baeder, Kerpelman, Schramm, Higginbotham, & Paulk, 2007) and Connections: Relationship and Marriage (Gardner & Boellaard, 2007). Outcomes of these adolescent relationship education programs include higher self-esteem, lower levels of dating violence and verbal aggression, higher family cohesion, and better recognition of unhealthy relationship patterns (Adler-Baeder et al., 2007; Gardner & Boellaard, 2007). Since relatively few relationship education curricula have been developed for youth, evaluative research is