You can develop and practice good relationship skills in your everyday contacts with parents, friends and classmates. You can also learn to evaluate your many relationships by studying the characteristics that make a relationship healthy.
In order to get into a healthy relationship, it’s important to love and take care of yourself before and while you’re in the relationship. It is never a good idea to get completely wrapped up in someone to the exclusion of your family and friends.
In a healthy dating relationship, each person has people who can support them. You should never feel that you have to hide what’s going on in the relationship. You need people around you who are supportive.
- Be honest.
- Not hold your feelings in.
- Be respectful when you are telling your boy/girl friend what you are feeling or thinking.
Pay attention when the other person is talking.
Ask your boy/girl friend if you feel like you dont completely understand something, this way problems wont arise later.
Learn to recognize conflict. Don't avoid it or deny that it's happening. Discuss relationship conflicts in private, not in public. Listen to each other carefully when you disagree. You might need to put off the conversation until you can listen calmly and carefully.
Don't criticize, blame or be demanding. Talk about things or give your opinion while still being respectful.
Relationships that have a lot of conflict or violence of any type (verbal, physical, emotional or sexual) are not healthy. If something does not feel right, talk with someone you trust like a friend or family member about your worries.
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Embrace and accept your responsibility and role as a parent. Focus on the child’s best interests. It is important to maintain, at the least, a peaceful relationship with the other parent. Child support is for 18 years, but being a parent is for life.
Even when parents are not romantically involved, they can build a relationship that supports and provides for their children. Team parenting is working together for your children’s sake.
Parent's that don’t stay together can still provide. When parents don't marry or don't remain in a romantic relationship, they can still work together to provide the best for their children. Even if they are not romantically involved, parents need to maintain a healthy relationship that enables them to make good decisions for their children and to make sure their children have everything they need.
Teen parents need to take advantage of “new parent” classes often offered by social service agencies such as the United Way.