The Toxicometer

Duration of activity: 45 min

Learning objectives:

Recognize the characteristics of positive, happy and healthy intimate relationships contrary to the characteristics of unhealthy and toxic ones
Recognize the signs of toxic intimate relationships
Recognize how toxic relationships become abusive

Materials needed:

Scenarios with the stories for the person reading out the story -cut out, one scenario per piece
Hat where young people can pick a scenario
4 chairs
Empty space in the room, where the chairs can be placed.
4 stacks of cards numbered 0 to 10- one stack per ‘judge’

Step by step process of the activity: (25 min)

Introduction: While our goal is to have positive, happy and healthy relationships, sometimes certain behaviours are making the relationships become unhealthy, toxic or destructive. In this activity we will explore how healthy or toxic some relationships are by rating them on a ‘toxicometer’
Invite 4 young people to become judges and ask them to take a seat. Explain that they will need to use the cards, numbered from 0 to 10, to score a scenario of a relationship they will hear: 0 is an extremely toxic relationship and 10 is a very healthy and positive relationship.
Invite another young person to pick up a scenario from the hat and ask them to read it out loud. The judges rate the scenario according to how healthy/toxic they think the relationship and explain the reasons for their score.
You can then ask another young people to come up and read another scenario and so on
You can also change the judges after a couple of scenarios, so more young people get to participate
Wrap up using the discussion questions below

Facilitation questions for reflection and debriefing: (15-20 min)

Was it easy for you to score each scenario? Why so?
Were there scenarios that were more difficult to score than others? Why so? What made it more difficult to score them?
Why did the judges score different scores you think? What does that show us about our perceptions regarding what constitutes a toxic behaviour or not?
Is it easy to recognize toxic behaviours in a relationship you think? Why is that?
What is the risk of toxic relationships?
What impact do toxic relationships have?
What can a person do if they are in a toxic relationship?

Take home messages and activity wrap up:

A toxic relationship is a relationship characterized by behaviours that are damaging, emotionally, psychologically and sometimes also physically. While a healthy relationship boosts our self-esteem, a toxic relationship damages our sense of self and is emotionally draining. It is laced with insecurity, self-centeredness, manipulation, possessiveness, dominance and control. Toxic behaviours are often hard to recognize because they have been normalized. Most of time a partner finds it difficult to identify behaviours that constitute manipulation, possessiveness, control and coercive control and are not aware of them when they happen.

The best ‘toxicometer’ is your own feelings in the relationship. If you’re experiencing feelings of unworthiness, unhappiness, tension, intense frustration, exhaustion, discomfort and entrapment, your relationship is becoming toxic. Toxic behaviours also run the risk to escalate to seriously abusive relationships, which can destroy a person’s self-esteem and have a very negative impact on their well-being.

If you’re experiencing a toxic relationship, it is always important not to try to ‘take it all’ on your own. Reach out to someone who can help you understand what’s going on, cope with your feelings and explore your options. Talk to your partner. Be open, honest, firm and assertive. Put your boundaries. If they remain unresponsive and the toxicity continues, you may consider ending the relationship, if that would be feasible.

Tips for adapting the activity and follow up:

Adapt the scenarios according to your local context and your target group. Feel free to write new ones that are more fit to your group.

Adapting the activity for online implementation

● Similarly to the adaptations discussed under activity 10.4 ‘Microaggressions’, there are various options in adapting this activity.

● If you don’t want to lose the interactive character of the ‘judges’ in this activity, you can still implement this methodology online fairly easily. You can decide on pre-designated (rotating) ‘judges’ (volunteer participants) who can vote on a specific scenario. So that participants don’t feel they are put ‘on the spot’, you can have 3-4 ‘judges’ voting on the same scenario. Judges can vote either by a thumbs up, a coloured piece of paper that they raise up to the screen or by coloured side effects on their background. For the next scenario you can proceed with choosing different judges and so on.

● Another option in a synchronous mode is to use breakout groups and ask participants to work on a different scenario in smaller groups. You can then hold a discussion in plenary following presentations from each group on the scenario they have discussed.

● If you want to work in plenary instead of breakout rooms, you can present the cases one by one and then ask participants to ‘vote’ using the thumps up icon or by raising a coloured piece of paper on the screen (or using visual effects on their background).

● Alternatively, the worksheet can be turned into a digital quiz. Each case can be presented with the options ‘not toxic relationship at all, ‘somewhat toxic, ‘seriously/dangerously toxic, ‘not sure/it depends’, as possible answers to choose from. Remember that the important thing is not to have ‘right’ answers (therefore do not score answers as right or wrong in the quiz) but to develop a discussion on what constitutes toxic relationships and how toxic relationships are often overlooked.

● If you’re also working asynchronously with the group, one option could be to send the worksheet with the cases to participants beforehand so they can think about it and decide whether each case represents a toxic relationship or not prior to the workshop. You can then discuss each case one by one in plenary.