Teen Sexual Health

Teen Workshop Modules

Healthy Relationships Begin With You! - Overview | Setting The Stage | Understanding And Loving Yourself Is Key | Getting Comfortable With Yourself | Taking Yourself Into A Relationship

Relationships II: Taking Yourself Into A Relationship

Estimated Time: 20 minutes

Resources:

• Taking Yourself into a Relationship Activity

Procedure:

• The next step is figuring out how to use this in the real world and in real relationships.
• The following model is one way to use these ideas to make decisions:
  

  You Feel:	Respected Comfortable SafeHappy Confident Trusting	Guilty Uncertain Stressed Confused Upset Uncomfortable	Afraid Threatened Ashamed Fearful Controlled
  How It Fits With Who You Are, What You Value?	In line	Not sure	Violates
  How much are you putting into the relationship compared to your partner?	50-50	A little more or a little less than an equal spilt	A lot more or a lot less than an equal spilt
  Negotiation/Willingness Traffic Sign	Green Light-Go	Yellow Light-Proceed with Caution (slow)	Red Light-Stop

  
  
• Brainstorm common situations within teen relationships. If the group is unable to come up with a list, you may want to suggest the following themes:
  • One partner is ready to try a new sexual activity and the other is not.
  • One partner hooked up with someone else at a party while their partner was out of town.
  • One partner is very jealous of the other. He or she doesn't want the other to spend time with other people, is always asking where they are and what they are doing, and is constantly putting down the other person's friends.
• Choose the top five situations. Divide into five small groups. Have each group create a short role-play of the situation. Explain that participants should make their characters cartoonishly obvious to make the situation clear.
• Have small groups do their role-plays one at a time. Ask the entire group the following questions. Remind them that because we are all unique, it is unlikely that they are all going to think exactly the same thing.
  • Is this a healthy or unhealthy situation?
  • Is each person fulfilling their 50% role in the relationship? How?
  • How does this affect the quality of the relationship?
  • What traffic sign would you give each person in this situation?
• After all the groups have presented their role-plays, ask the following discussion questions:
  • What did you notice in these situations?
  • What makes it hard to be only 50% of a relationship?
  • What can people do to make it easier?
  • How could knowing yourself and what's non-negotiable help make good choices in these situations?

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