OBJECTIVES
Participants will:
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MATERIALS
PRESENTATION GUIDE
This lesson is straightforward. For most presentations, you can simply go over the material found in the factsheet. This guide simply provides comments on how you might present the material, suggestions for eliciting participant discussion and descriptions of supplementary material and activities you may want to use. Don't feel like you have to follow or use everything in it. You know your audience better than anyone else, you know how much time you have to make your presentation and you have your own unique ways of presenting material you're most comfortable with.
INTRODUCTION
Begin your presentation by going over the material in the first two paragraphs of the fact sheet. As you do, be sure to emphasize the point that it is not at all unusual for some teens to be "madly in love" and very involved with a romantic partner while other teens the same age are not. Both are perfectly natural and normal. Each individual has his or her own timetable for romantic and sexual interests. Be sure to make the point that, despite these differences, nearly all teens want to understand what's going on as we date and fall in love. They also want to know how to handle some of the problems that may arise.
JUST FRIENDS
This section addresses the fact that it often becomes difficult for a teen to be "just friends" with a member of the opposite sex. Other people begin to assume they're "boyfriend and girlfriend," talk about them and "tease" them. Make the point that this happens and emphasize how it is very regrettable since members of the opposite sex can and should be great friends.
Continue by asking participants if this has ever happened to them. If so, ask how they felt about it and how they handled the situation. Ask the group for other suggestions on how to handle it. Give participants plenty of time to voice their ideas and respond to the ideas of others. You can then go over the list of suggestions found in the factsheet. (If an overhead projector is available, use "When People Make Being 'Just Friends' Difficult" to make a transparency.)
UNDERSTANDING LOVE
As you go over the material in this section, be sure to mention both the positive and negative aspects of "love." It's exciting and delightful. It also can be confusing and painful. Try to draw participants into the discussion by asking how they know, or will know, when they're "in love." Ask what "love" means to them. After giving them a chance to respond, acknowledge the fact that these aren't easy questions to answer since people have many different ideas of what love is and experience it in many different ways. You can then go on to make the distinctions found in the leaflet between "love" and "sexual desire" and between "infatuation" and "true love."
HOW LOVE GROWS
Begin discussing this section by telling participants that the "Wheel of Love" can help them think about what happens as love grows. Explain it to them by going over the description found in the factsheet. End your description by asking participants if they think it makes sense. Ask if it describes what they themselves have experienced. Conclude by telling the group that using the wheel of love to think about their relationships can help them sort out their feelings and understand what is going on.
THE DATING CHALLENGE
This section is designed to increase participants' awareness of some of the common dating problems teens experience and potential strategies for handling them. Try not to appear overly negative about dating, however. Begin the section by pointing out that most teens begin dating as they move through the teen years and that dating can be fun and exciting. Then you can point out that dating also creates problems and begin to discuss the five found in the factsheet. (Use "Common Dating Problems" to make a transparency.) Be sure to involve participants in the discussion. As you go over each of the problem areas, encourage discussion by asking questions. Ask if anyone in the group has experienced the problem being discussed and ask how he or she handled it. Ask participants for their ideas on how to handle the situations and have the entire group discuss the pros and cons of each suggestion.
Parents
Most of the discussion in the factsheet on problems with parents focuses on the situation of parents thinking their children are too young to date. Be sure to mention that there are many more problems with parents and ask participants what some of them are. As you cover this section, try not to let the discussion degenerate into a general "gripe session" about parents. Remind participants that the goal is to talk about ways of resolving problems. As part of that, encourage them look at the issues being discussed from a parent's perspective. Even if they don't agree with it, being able to take the perspective of a parent will help them understand why parents do some of the things they do.
Who Asks and Who Pays
The factsheet makes the point that, up until fairly recently, boys were expected to ask girls out and to pay for their dates but that most people don't see anything wrong with girls doing these things today. Some people still think the "old ways" are best, however. Others, despite agreeing with the changes, are reluctant to adopt them. For example, a girl who thinks girls "should" be able to ask a boy out may be reluctant to actually do it herself. Ask participants why they think some people are reluctant to change and what problems, if any, they think this creates.
Understanding the Opposite Sex
Begin this segment by pointing out that many teens don't know what their dating partners want and don't understand how they feel. Make the point that part of the problem may be due to the different ways males and females view love and dating which results in them wanting and expecting different things. Emphasize the importance for dating teens to understand what those differences are.
If you have time and think your group were respond well to it, consider using the following "fish bowl" exercise as a way to both highlight male/female differences and involve more participants in the discussion. Divide participants into males and females and have each group develop a list of questions or topics related to love and dating they would like to hear the other sex discuss. Allow the groups a few minutes to develop their lists and select someone to be a spokesperson for the group. Proceed by having the females sit in a circle facing each other and have the males sit outside the circle. Ask the male spokesman to read the first question/issue on the male's list and encourage the females to pretend the males aren't present and respond to it as if they were talking only to the other females. Tell the males they are to listen, but not respond, to the discussion. Whenever the discussion lags, ask the male spokesman to go on to the next question/issue on the male list. After the females discuss all the items on the males' list or half the time you've allotted to this exercise has elapsed, have the females and males exchange places and begin to repeat the process by having the females' spokeswoman read the first item on their list and having the males discuss it. After completing the process, discuss the exercise with the entire group by asking their reactions to what they heard. Ask if anything they heard surprised them and give participants a chance to respond to anything they heard the other sex say.
Another way to involve participants in a discussion of gender differences is to ask the following questions and allow time for discussion:
- In your school, what makes a girl a desirable dating partner?
- What makes a boy a desirable partner?
- Are there any differences?
- If so, how might they explain some of the misunderstandings that arise between females and males?
However you decide to cover the material from this segment of the leaflet, be sure the points about males focusing more on sex and females more on love and males being less likely to express their feelings are brought out. Ask if participants agree or not. End the discussion on "understanding the opposite sex" by emphasizing the point that dating partners need to sit down and really talk about what they want and expect from each other.
Jealousy
Begin this segment of the lesson by pointing out that jealousy is a serious problem that catches many teens by surprise. Explain what jealousy is and what causes it by going over the material in the factsheet.
If you want to involve participants in the discussion, consider having them complete the "Participant Survey." After they have completed it, tell everyone it is designed to measure jealousy and that higher numbered responses indicate higher levels of jealousy. You can then ask participants to share how they responded to each of the four jealousy-producing events and why they did so. If your group is large, you may want to break it down into groups of four to six people so everyone gets a chance to participate. (Since a partner's involvement with solitary activities, same-sex friends and family members usually doesn't elicit as jealous a response as involvement with a member of the opposite sex, you may want to focus the discussion on survey item number 3 if time is limited.)
Be sure to emphasize the importance of communication in handling jealousy. Good communication goes a long way towards resolving the misunderstandings that often evoke it. Also be sure to emphasize the fact that some ways of handling jealousy are bad. Violence is never acceptable and simply shouldn't be tolerated.
Setting Sexual Limits and Behaving Responsibly
Since other SIT lessons cover this topic, you probably won't want to spend a lot of time discussing it here. Simply acknowledge the fact that deciding what sexual behavior is acceptable for themselves, sticking to their decision and dealing with the consequences are all issues dating teens must deal with. If you've already covered these topics in your SIT program, you may want to refer back to the discussions you had at those times. If you plan to cover them in future SIT sessions, you may want to mention when they'll be held and encourage participants to be there.
Conclude your discussion of common dating problems by asking participants if they can think of any problems you haven't already discussed. If so, have them discuss them and invite the group to give their ideas on how they might be handled.
LOVE, DATING AND SEXUAL INTEGRITY
End your presentation by going over the last paragraph of the factsheet. Acknowledge the fact that meeting people, dating and falling in love are exciting and fun. Point out that, since they are highly charged, emotional experiences, it's easy for someone to get hurt. That's why it's important to act with sexual integrity. Encourage participants to be honest, to be sincere and to let their own moral principles guide their behavior.
SUPPLEMENTARY EXERCISES
There is a lot of material on love and dating and many ways to present it. If you're interested in alternative or supplemental exercises to the activities outlined above, you may want to consider three supplementary dating exercises.
AUTHOR: Gary L. Hansen, Ph.D., Extension Specialist in Sociology, Cooperative Extension Service, University of Kentucky; and William W. Mallory, Fayette County Extension Agent for 4-H/Youth Development, Cooperative Extension Service, University of Kentucky.
