We talk a lot about how to teach consent to adults, but what about to kids?
Today I’ll share three simple suggestions for improving the messages we give to children
about consent and boundaries.
Hi everyone, my name is Sarah, and welcome back to Everyday Consent!
Much of what we talk about on this channel is learning and practicing good habits for
prioritizing consent and communication in sexual situations.
In many cases, a good portion of that work is really just unlearning bad habits or harmful
messages that we’ve picked up throughout our lives.
But wouldn’t it be great if we hadn’t picked up those bad habits in the first place?
Totally!
And that’s why there’s been a lot of discussion and articles written trying to find the best
parenting practices to better teach consent to children.
It’s also something that I spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about, for someone
who doesn’t (and may never) have kids.
How do you balance autonomy with safety?
How do you teach a child that they have the final say over who touches them and when,
but still reserve the right to grab them if they’re about to run into the street, without
that being a contradiction?
And how do you teach them to be polite and respectful to others, but also speak up for
themselves if someone is harming or abusing them?
These questions are not easy to answer, but they are worth thinking about, and many people
are doing just that.
Now, of course, when it comes to parenting, everyone has a different opinion.
And parents are often overwhelmed with others telling them how to raise their children.
In many cases all those messages even directly contradict each other.
It’s nearly impossible to ever say there is one “right” approach to parenting,
especially for bigger or more complicated things.
And, just to reiterate, I am not a parent or child-care expert myself.
So feel free to take what I say with a grain of salt.
But I have read and thought a lot about the topic, so I wanted to share some of the advice
that most people agree on.
Mostly these things are the purview of a child’s parent or guardian, but any time we interact
with children these can be helpful to keep in mind.
So with that, here are three simple ways to teach children better messages about consent.
Number One: don’t force them to hug relatives.
It’s really common to teach kids to show family members physical affection, for a lot
of reasons.
Parents, understandably, want to nurture the familial bond between their children and other
relatives.
Hugging can help do this because it helps the child associate the relative with physical
comfort and safety.
And it helps the relative feel accepted and trusted by the child and the child’s parents.
But parents might scold or even force their child if the child resists hugging their relative.
Children are frequently taught that it is very rude not to hug their relatives.
And while this may not seem like a big deal, it does send some pretty undesirable messages
to the child.
It teaches them that their own desires and comfort about their body are secondary to
being polite.
Fast forward to when that child is a teenager or adult and becomes sexually active.
They’ve repeatedly heard that their own discomfort with physical affection is to be
pushed through for the sake of the other person’s feelings.
That’s not a good message to have internalized if they are, say, making out with a partner
and that partner wants to have sex, but they are more hesitant.
They might ignore their own misgivings instead of asking to slow down and end up doing something
that they don’t want to.
This one is pretty relevant to my experience.
A lot of the time when I was growing up I really hated being touched.
So when I was forced to hug someone, I developed this habit of sort of dissociating from my
body.
That way, my body could just let it happen but my mind could pretend that it wasn’t
really happening to me.
Even though I logically know that I should have autonomy over my own body, I still sometimes
see this popping up in my adult life.
For example, when I’m at a party and someone is drunk and being way touchier than I’m
okay with, I sometimes have trouble telling them to stop.
Instead I slip back into this habit of dissociating and just let it happen.
And that’s a problem.
Not only am I being touched in a way I’m not okay with, the other person is receiving
further evidence that it’s okay to touch people without asking.
Back to kids and hugging relatives, the solution here is pretty simple: don’t force kids
to hug someone when they don’t want to.
This doesn’t have to mean endorsing rudeness to the relative in question.
A common suggestion is to offer an alternative, such as waving to the relative or blowing
them a kiss.
Now, this might make the relative sad, and feel free to explain your motivations.
But keep in mind that you have a good reason for doing this.
It is important to honor the child’s boundaries about their body and make clear that it is
okay for them to say no to physical contact that they don’t want.
Number Two: When tickling or roughhousing with children, stop when they say stop.
Now, when it comes to tickling especially, saying stop or resisting is often part of
the game, and is not always meant earnestly.
But stopping is a good idea even if their “no” is just playful.
You can even make your stopping playful too, by exaggerating it.
Just make clear that if the child actually wants the play to continue, then they must
say so or in some other way indicate that they want to keep being tickled.
This does two things.
First, by stopping when they say stop, it makes clear that their words matter, and especially
that their No matters.
And second, by making them indicate if they want to keep playing, it teaches them to communicate
about what they want and if they want to be touched.
So basically, they learn that it’s okay to say No, and that it’s important to say
Yes.
This is really awesome!
Because obviously, you can’t really practice sexual consent situations with your kid, but
you can help them practice telling someone what they want and exercising control over
how they are touched.
Number Three: A Crush Does not Excuse Violence.
Imagine a child comes home from school and complains about how another child was pulling
their hair, or hitting them, or otherwise annoying them.
The parent casually says "Oh, honey, that just means they like you!"
Not good.
Even though kids frequently do express affection through violence, shrugging it off like this
is really problematic.
First of all, this perpetuates a “boys will be boys” apologism of casual violence.
It also trivializes and ignores the child’s complaint, teaching them that their feelings
are unimportant.
And lastly, it teaches them that it’s normal to associate violence with romance, and even
to see violence as flattering.
Again, definitely not good.
While it is okay to talk about the other child’s motivations, it’s important to not let a
crush excuse the behavior.
Instead focus on the fact that hitting is not okay, and talk to the child or an authority
figure about how to get the other child to stop.
Do any of these examples sound familiar from your own childhood?
What were some good messages that you received about consent growing up?
What were some not-so-good messages?
How could those situations have been improved?
Let me know down in the comments, or you can always email me at everydayconsent@gmail.com.
If you want to keep learning about this topic, I’ve left some further reading in the description
below.
Hit the like button if you liked this video, and if you want to see more from me, don’t
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Thanks everyone.
Happy consenting, and I’ll see you next week!