Boys have cooties

Schools target "dating violence," which has apparently become widespread:

Texas recently adopted a law that requires school districts to define dating violence in school safety codes, after the 2003 stabbing death of Ortralla Mosley, 15, in a hallway of her Austin high school and the shooting death of Jennifer Ann Crecente, 18, two years ago. Rhode Island in 2007 adopted the Lindsay Ann Burke Act -- prompted by the murder of a young woman by a former boyfriend -- requiring school districts to teach students in grades 7 through 12 about dating abuse.
Experts say the abuse appears to be increasing as more harassment, name-calling and ridicule takes place among teenagers on the Internet and by cellphone.

"Experts say" -- and who can disagree with the experts? Our daughter is 19. When she was a kid, we taught her the most important lesson of life: Boys have cooties.

Why don't they teach that in schools? That is to say, why don't schools discourage the whole boyfriend/girlfriend thing? Girls especially need to be encouraged to develop a sense of independent identity, so that they don't fall into the all-too-common teenage trap of thinking that their life is meaningless if they don't have a boyfriend.

Girls get into abusive relationships because adults fail to teach basic lessons in childhood. Boys don't hit girls. Ever. This is one of the rules in our house. Our sons know that, however much rough-housing they do amongst themselves, under no circumstances are they allowed to hit their sisters. It is unmanly for a boy to hit a girl, even if she hits him first. And the natural corollary is that no girl should ever put up with a boy who hits her.

Why is it that "experts" say we need special laws and school curricula to deal with an epidemic of "dating violence"?

"Few adolescents understand what a healthy relationship looks like," [researcher] Dr. [Elizabeth] Miller said.
Adolescents often mistake the excessive attention of boys as an expression of love, she said.

Duh. Where did they get that idea? Whatever happened to dads and brothers chasing off pesky boyfriends? We need traditional values, a la Sonny Corleone:

UPDATE: Pandagon is offended by Sonny Corleone. So was Connie. Michael fixed that problem, though, didn't he?