Relationships and Dating

By Kimberly Campbell, MA, LAC

The girls at Spring Ridge Academy have multiple questions about relationships that run the gambit from how to begin anew with their families, to holding sexual boundaries while dating. I have been putting together an intensive workshop to provide a forum for the girls to begin to explore their thoughts, concerns, and questions around this topic. The participants will be receiving a great deal of education around family relationships, and how patterns which emerge in families manifest in their adolescent relationships later on. There will be art and dance and hiking and plenty of opportunity for gaining information about the most important relationship in any girl’s life, her relationship with her self.

Day one will include interactive lectures. Those of you who have sat in on any lecture by me can quickly visualize when I describe the first lecture as Musical Chairs. There is opportunity for dramatic acting as the girls will be invited to volunteer to participate. Throughout the three days the girls will discuss Facebook and how they “promote” their image on their personal profile. They will consider music lyrics. (I did not realize until I began searching diligently for “healthy relationship” music lyrics across all genres that the best lyrics were in Heavy Metal. Color me surprised! I had no intention of even looking there until I discovered, to my utter dismay, the difficult task of finding healthy relationship lyrics in other musical genres.) The girls will be writing skits to share with one another about relationships and what they are learning.

Hopefully, you are getting a good understanding that this learning experience will be filled with fun and activity. May I give you some homework now, parents? This is the same homework I frequently give. I believe that mother - daughter cooking assignments build nurturing, loving relationships. Mothers supply the infant with food and that is often diminished by adolescent years. I believe mothers and children working together in the kitchen renew that nurturing, loving relationship. Father – daughter weekend area visits serve to strengthen that relationship, separate from mother. Fathers teach children some of the basic fundamentals of life. I want to encourage you fathers to take your daughters for area visits as frequently as you are able and teach your daughter how to expect her future young man should treat her.

Kimberly Campbell, MA, LAC is a therapist at Spring Ridge Academy.