Child Consent

Teaching children consent in today’s modern world is not only important it is crucial. We have separated ourselves from children so much that often times we don’t even consider them to be people, but rather property or a partial somebody. Property doesn't need to know about consent, when you hand someone one of your possessions you are giving consent to that person to touch your property. Our kids on the other hand are not our property and if we want them to be strong independent adults who respect others we need to teach them about consent as children.

I have seen it more times than I can count, a family gathering is coming to an end and a mom calls out “Sally, it’s time to leave go give grandpa a hug and kiss goodbye”. Sally cries “I don’t want to. I am scared!” The mom picks up Sally and says something along the lines of “You’re fine, grandpa is not scary” and/or “Go give him a hug right now.” We are convinced that we should disregard the child’s sense of safety or control over their own lives in the name of “being  polite. Family members who often want to be a part of our offspring’s lives will fit us with a social standard/obligation we pass on to our children because we feel close to this family member. However the child might not have the same sense of kindred spirit towards them or they might not be as comfortable expressing themselves with physical contact as others. Whatever their reasons we should always respect a child’s (or anybody’s) personal boundaries.

 

No means no. It is that simple when it comes to teaching a child to respect your boundaries or showing a child you respect theirs. Try asking your child if you can have a hug, share their food, or cut their hair. If your child says no, respect them same way you would want to be respected if you had told them no to the same things. When a child is poking your ear and you don’t like it you tell them “no means no” and explain that they need to respect you and your space. When tickling a child, the moment when their giggles turn to them saying no and asking you to stop, stop. Just because it seems silly to you that at one moment it was fun and the next they wanted it to stop doesn't mean you can disregard their feelings. We all have had something that made us genuinely upset and nobody else really understood, our feelings are not diminished by this.

Teaching our children about how consent applies to their own lives will let them feel safe and feel free to explore the world at their own pace. The world is a lot less scary if you know you have the power to say no. This is particularly important to teach our daughters.  I try and avoid gender stereotypes as much as possible, but let’s face it, we live in a rape culture that attacks women significantly more then men. Encouraging communication, setting boundaries and respect of those boundaries has the potential to revolutionize the human race for the better. Teaching this sort of thing to an adult that has had the ability to give consent stripped away from them repeatedly as a child is an extremely difficult thing to do and would be a lot easier if we started treating children like people and teaching these important lessons early.