Respectful vs disrespectful relationships

Group agreement

5 mins

Teaching tip: A group agreement must be established before any Relationships and Sexuality Education (RSE) program begins to ensure a safe learning environment. Read: Essential tools: Establishing a group agreement for tips on how to create one and what to include.

1. Revise or create the class group agreement.+

Trigger warning: Let students know you will be talking about relationships, both healthy and unhealthy relationships. Reiterate you want everyone to have safe, healthy, positive relationships, and while we will be promoting healthy behaviours, we do need to discuss unhealthy behaviours. Remind students of their right to pass and to speak to teacher/other support if required. 

Relationship qualities 

15 mins 

2. Say: 

   "I want you to think about the different types of relationships you have in your life, and then ones you may have in the future. No relationship is always 100% rock solid - all relationships go through periods of connection and disconnection. It is important that we recognise that relationships require effort and support skills to grow and be maintained."

3. Using a think-pair-share strategy, ask students to form pairs/groups of three and discuss what they think are the most important qualities of any relationship - think about friends, boyfriend/girlfriend/partner, family. Once done ask students to share their own ideas. 

Teaching tip: You may need to be curious and ask students to explain further if they state a quality you are unsure about. It is important to correct qualities that are truly unhealthy. 

4. Show/Hand-out Teaching Resource: Foundations of Healthy Relationships and go through any qualities that weren't covered in the class discussion. 

Relationship flags

15 mins

5. Ask: 

   What does a red flag and what does a green flag mean when talking about relationships? 

   (Green flag: something that someone says/does/believes that positively impacts the relationship or you see as a good quality. Red flag:  something that someone says/does/believes that negatively impacts the relationship or you see as a bad quality.)

6.  Say: 

   "Sometimes green and red flags are really easy to spot. Other times it can be really difficult, as sometimes people have good intentions but have negative consequences for others. Sometimes red and green flags are based on our cultural beliefs or what we have learnt from family/friends/online. 

7. Explain we are going to do an activity looking at red flags and green flags. I want everyone to stand-up and look at the red flag and green flag signs at the back at the room. I will read a statement, and I want you to think on the spectrum of red to green, whether it is a red flag or green flag. It is okay to be in the middle, it is okay to be mostly red or mostly green too.
8. Read out each of the below statements and ask students to speak to someone near them why they chose this spot. You can also ask a few students to share why they are standing where they are.

• Your partner checks up on you regularly, sending lots of messages throughout the day
• Your partner is constantly buying you gifts, sometimes without any reason.
• Your partner doesn't let you go and see your friends and family and gets upset if you stand your ground.
• Your partner says they love you early in your relationship.
• Your partner/friends/family posts photos of you without asking first.

Relationship Values

20 minutes

Students share values about sexual relationships and identify qualities that they value in a relationship through negotiation process to simulate real-life relationships.

Read the statements below about sexuality and gender roles or develop your own statements that are likely to create a difference of opinion. Using signs spread across the floor to create a four-point continuum (‘strongly agree’, ‘agree’, ‘disagree’, ‘strongly disagree’), ask students to physically move to the position which best reflects their view. A piece of rope or string on the floor, or a chalk line drawn on the floor, can also be used so students can actually stand on the line. Remind them of the ground rules they have developed and demonstrate what this actually means, i.e. to listen, show respect etc.:

• Boys always put pressure on girls to have sexual experiences.
• Having sex should be something that both people want to do.
• If you love your boyfriend/girlfriend/partner you have to have sexual experiences with them.
• Beliefs about gender vary from one culture (or society) to another.
• Cultural norms affect laws and policies about sexuality.
• Contraception is a girl’s responsibility.
• It’s hard for same sex attracted people to come out at our school.
• Young people should experiment with sexual experiences.

• Sexual intercourse should only be with someone you love.

   

Ask:

1. How do you think you developed your position/s [on this statement]?
2. If you asked your parents to do the same activity, where do you think they would position themselves?
3. What differences do you think there might be if we did this with only girls or with only boys?
4. What differences do you think there might be if we did this with a group of same sex-attracted young people?
5. What differences could strong beliefs have on how young people would position themselves?
    

Explain that we have many different kinds of relationships and many different kinds of love. There are many different ways to love somebody. People may feel love for members of their immediate or extended family, for close friends, and for their partners or spouse of the same or the other sex. The terms ‘true love’ or ‘real love’ often refer to an intimate partner bond that has moved beyond the ‘falling in love’ or infatuation stage. Sorting out feelings of affection, romantic love, sexual desire, and ‘true love’ is often difficult and confusing. Everyone receives messages from their culture about what love is, whom we should (or should not) love, and how we should express (or not express) our love.

Have students work in small groups to develop their own definitions of love, sexual desire and intimacy and whiteboard common findings. For instance:
Love: A deep feeling of affection, attachment for another person.
Sexual desire: A wish, longing or craving, especially for sexual activity.
Intimacy: The capacity to relate to another person in an emotionally open, equal, and caring way – feeling free to express your inner most feelings.

20 min
1.  Draw a boat on the board called a ‘Relation-ship’. 

2. Ask students to nominate one quality that they would value in a romantic relationship that they would like to bring on board. Record these suggestions on the board.

3. Give each student three relationship cards from the Teaching Resource: Relationship cards. Allow 10 minutes for students to bargain and trade their cards with other students for cards with attributes that they value the most in a relationship.

4. Ask students to report on what cards they have and their experience of negotiating with other people for cards that they wanted.

• What cards do you have?
• What cards did you want?
• Was it difficult or easy to get the cards that you wanted?
• How is this similar to a family relationship?
• Discuss that sometimes the positive qualities that we bring to our relationships can also be negative. For example, honesty can be a good quality but it can also be hurtful. Ask students to reflect on this and think about how their qualities could be either positive or negative.

Alternative activity: Place students into small groups. Laminate the cards and place a magnet on the back of each one. Provide each group with a pile to scatter face down. Students can make fishing lines out of their pencils with a piece of string and a magnet on the end. Students each start off with 3 cards and can take turns fishing for better cards, trading as they go. For each turn they must explain why they decided to either keep or trade their card.

30 minutes

Students explore positive and negative aspects of a romantic relationship.

1. Have students use graffiti sheets (butcher’s paper) or the board to brainstorm examples of positive or negative romantic relationship situations (e.g. your boyfriend/partner puts pressure on you to do something you don’t want to do; or your girlfriend/partner calls you to wish you good luck for your music exam).
2. Ask students to work in groups of four to construct their own board game called ‘Relation-ship’ that deals with romantic relationship situations. Use the Teaching Resource: Relation-ship board game pieces to assist students.
   1. Explain that each group of four is to construct a set of 24 game cards that describe positive or negative actions that affect a relationship.
   2. Each card will need to outline a positive or negative relationship situation and the amount of spaces that the player moves forwards or backwards if he/she were to experience this situation. Some examples are ‘Your boyfriend/partner asks you to come to a family dinner - forward two places’ or ‘You have a huge shouting match with your girlfriend/partner on the way to school – move back one place’.
   3. Discuss the need to have appropriate rewards and penalties for different relationship situations.
3. Each group’s cards are shuffled and given to another group. They should then be placed in the middle of the game board. Each student has a token that represents him/her and they take it in turns to select a card and move around the board. After all cards are used they are re-shuffled and the game continues. The aim is to be the first person to get to the treasure chest.

Whole class alternative: If time permits, write relationship situations on the board, dividing the board into four squares. Have students read the situations on their group’s cards and stick each relationship situation card under one of the following headings – family, personal, friendships and acquaintances. Encourage students to discuss if they agree or disagree with the ‘placement’ of the situation.

1. Discuss how relationships vary depending on which category (family, personal, friendship, acquaintance) they relate to.
2. Allocate specific relationship categories (and the associated situations) to pairs of students and ask them to discuss how to either avoid a negative outcome or enjoy the benefits of a positive outcome.
3. Have students suggest and demonstrate the use of assertive and active listening and speaking skills to improve each relationship situation.