- Dr Lucy Foulkes claims people shouldn’t be ‘flippant’ about school crushes
From ’10 Things I Hate About You’ to ‘To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before’, teenage romances have been the focus of blockbuster hits for years.
It’s often tempting to trivialise these romances as ‘puppy love’.
However, an Oxford psyschologist now claims that we should take teen relationships more seriously.
Dismissing relationships between lovesick teens and the repercussions of a break up is often underestimated, Dr Lucy Foulkes claims.
She says people shouldn’t be ‘flippant’ about school crushes and resultant relationships because for some they are actually the ‘most intense’ of their lives.
From ’10 Things I Hate About You’ (pictured) to ‘To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before’, teenage romances have been the focus of blockbuster hits for years
It’s often tempting to trivialise teen romances, such as those portrayed in ‘To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before’ as ‘puppy love’
The University of Oxford academic psychologist said for some, the effect of teen heartbreak is felt for a ‘really long time’ and needs to be taken more seriously.
On why the relationships feel so intense, she said: ‘It’s a period of time when we’re still forming our own identity and so a big way we figure out who we are, is we look to the people around us and we look to what they say about us and how they treat us.
‘And we absorb that into the fabric of who we think we are.
‘So, if there’s someone that you love that rejects you, that can really become embedded in your self-concept and how you understand yourself and that can last for a really long time.’
The University of Oxford academic psychologist said for some the effect of teen heartbreak is felt for a ‘really long time’ and needs to be taken more seriously. Pictured: The Summer I Turned Pretty
She added: ‘Take adolescent love more seriously.
‘It quite often gets dismissed as being puppy love or something, people are quite flippant about it.
‘But actually, it can be the most intense relationship of some people’s lives in good and bad ways.
‘And I think it would be great if we respected it a bit more, both in terms of how much people like and love each other, but also how painful it is when it goes wrong.’
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