Welcome to SAFEHOME’s Parent Information Page.  Please look over the material and links found here.  If you have further questions or are in need of further assistance please contact:

Allison N. Basinger                                             
Education and Prevention Coordinator     
Email                                                                  
913.378.1533    

 or  

Audrey Cress
Education and Prevention Advocate
Email 
913.378.1527

The first thing to remember is that abusive relationships do not start out abusive.  If I came up to you right now and slapped you across the face, you would probably do one of the following:

Slap me back.  Say choice words to me.  Walk away.  Never hang out with me again.

Our instincts, as humans, are to protect ourselves and when someone does something to hurt us, our immediate reaction is to prevent that from happening again.   You are not alone.  Most people would react in one of these ways.  And in saying so, you have just proven to me what is true.  Most abusive relationships do not start out with someone being physically or verbally abusive.

Abusive relationships are like the story about the little frog in the water.  Have you heard that one?  It goes like this.  If you take a frog and throw him in a pot of boiling water, what does he do?  He doesn’t die.  He jumps out.  The frog is like, “That water is too hot, I’m not hanging out in there.”

But if you take a frog and put him in a pot of luke warm water and slowly turn up the heat.  Slowly, slowly increasing the amount of degrees in the water.  What does the frog do then? 

He sits and sits and sits, until he cooks – dead.  The water temperature changes so slowly that the frog doesn’t recognize that it’s getting hotter and that there is danger if he stays.

So it is with abusive relationships!   A perpetrator will start by using small forms power and control over their victim.  Things that test the victim’s boundaries.  Things that make the victims feel a bit uncomfortable but not enough for them to say something about it.  So then the perpetrator turns up the heat another notch and does something else to test or break the victim’s boundaries.  Again, this may concern the victim, but not enough to do anything about it.

A perfect example would be calling someone “gay” or “bitch”.  This happens all the time in halls and classrooms of our school, all the time!  Students often don’t say anything to the person who calls them this name because they think, ‘that’s just the way students are’.  In all reality, our students are not starting out in luke warm water, a few degrees have already been cooking the water just in how teen society relates to each other (ex. “gay”, “bitch”).

Something else to keep in mind is that we know the foundational principles of all abusive relationships is Power and Control.  Relationships that involve any of the following: Bullying, Sexual Harassment, Sexual Assault, Rape, Dating and Domestic Violence all revolve around one (or more people) trying to have Power and Control over another person (or people).