domestic violence in a relationship.

However, a more troubling aspect of this behaviour is the growing trend for domestic violence that occurs between teenage couples. There has, through the formative years of the twenty first century, been a sharp increase in the reports of violence in teenage relationships, with a 1 in 5 teens aged between 13 and 14 claiming to have physically assaulted by their partner. With the same ratio of teenagers also citing instances of emotional abuse between the ages of 13 and 17, there is an intensifying focus on the reasons that may be behind this sudden degeneration of teen relationship behaviour.