Teaching Kids Consent
As parents, teaching our children to respect “no” and how to honor other’s boundaries is the foundation for their understanding of consent. In our culture, consent has gender specific rules built into the framework. As a generalization, our sons need to normalize hearing “no” and not take it as a personal affront. While our daughters need to cultivate the self-confidence that it is healthy and normal for their boundaries to matter and be listened to. As a mother to both a son and daughter and a woman of this world, I have made many mistakes while going against the weathered grain of the current societal norm on consent, to teach my children how to best honor themselves and others.
For me, as a first-time parent, it was very challenging to not want to give my son everything he asked for. When I said “no” to him, I also wanted to have a conversation to help him be able to get what he wanted and ask in a way that felt good. This often led to him getting what he wanted, post conversation. While this is certainly an important step, I have realized, as my son has gotten older, that it’s really the second step. The first step in learning consent is to teach our children what a clear “no” is. We do this both by being clear and consistent with them when something is a “no” (rather than entering into the ambiguous world of maybe) and also by being an integrous model around how we state our “no’s” to others. This includes honoring when others say no to us. They are watching us all the time. We need to be consistent with our teachings and practice what we preach.
Something I noticed in retrospect is, while my son was little, I inadvertently taught him to keep pushing until he got a yes. My frequent maybe’s and postponing answers until “later”, created a lot of wiggle room for him to understand a “maybe” could definitely lead to a “yes.” As a little boy this didn’t seem to have a negative impact. When my son was around 8, I began to see more clearly how my lack of clarity with him throughout time was to his detriment. It was like a punch in the stomach to realize that the choices I made affirmed the cultural messaging that has mislead so many boys and men to not respect consent and find infinite loopholes in anything that is not a firm, clear “no.”
During this time period, I also noticed I started feeling a lot of frustration and resentment when my “no” wasn’t being respected by my son. My emotional response was a clear indication that I needed to look more clearly at my role in our relationship around consent and boundary setting. Once I became aware of the connection between my “maybe’s” and his unwillingness to listen to my boundaries, and the implication this had for his future relationships as an adult, I began to give him only “yes” or “no” answers. Of course due to the length of this learned behavior, there was a backlash. Still, a couple of years into this re-patterning, there is resistance almost every time I say “no”, and it’s very uncomfortable for him not get what he wants when he wants it.
More recently, I have chosen to have conversations with him about consent and what this means. I share with him how important it is for healthy intimate relationships and also that boys are not modeled to respect a woman’s “no” in our culture. I tell him that respecting when I set a clear boundary for him is an opportunity to practice hearing “no” and respond to it graciously because his desire is not the only one that matters. I also am very specific with him about when his two-year-old sister says “no” that how he responds to her is teaching her whether her “no” is valued. I encourage him to check in with her while they are playing to take practicing consent one step further and be attentive to her needs and desires. These conversations haven’t completely eliminated his resistance, but they have opened a gateway to greater understanding and self awareness for him on how to be a good human. We have created a platform to talk about these challenges as he enters his teenage years and into sexual relationships. It is also a forum to discuss behaviors he witnesses in the world around him where women are disrespected and continue to guide him down a path of love and honor.
In our culture, it is often male children that are encouraged to keep pushing, leading to men who feel entitled to get what they want, when they want it, and that feel “no” actually means, “no for now but when I keep pushing it turns into a yes and I get my way.” It is so important for boys to hear a clear “no” and learn how to respect that and not keep pushing. It is never too late to re-teach our children new choices. When “no” becomes a respected preference, there is an opportunity to quickly pivot, and redirect a child’s desire towards something that feels good to all parties. Children learn to push their agenda at all costs when they are surrounded by adults who play in the field of perpetual maybes, dangling “yes” as a possibility in front of the child’s nose. Practicing ambiguous boundary setting when children are small, leads to an adult who does not know how to respect “no.” There is a way to encourage our children not to give up on their desires and pursue them in a way that is respectful to themselves and others.
An extra layer is added on for our daughters. They need to be supported from an early age that their “no” matters. For example, when we push our children to give other adults hugs when they clearly state they do not want to, this sends a message of yielding to another’s desires (their parents) in order to not be disapproved of. Seemingly benign moments like this set the stage for toxic confusion, for women in particular, about standing strong in their clear “no.” When we pay close attention to our children’s “no’s,” we may begin to see how often we disregard them. How will our children develop the courage to stand up for themselves when even we did not honor them?
There are many that do not want to see the power dynamics shift into a state of more balance and honor. Consent will do exactly that. For us to thrive as humans, the current state of women being afraid to state their “no” for fear of persecution and men feeling like women are obligated to serve them, has to change. It is diminutive and disabling to all of us. When teaching our children about sex and intimacy, include checking in with one another every step along the way. Encourage them when they hear a “no” to pause and ask more questions to gain a better understanding of the other’s perspective. Strengthen the communication muscle right from the beginning so that it never feels awkward. Let it be as normal as the other acts of sex. Not to mention, it increases the capacity for more intimacy and greater pleasure for everyone.
Do you already practice consent and checking in in your intimate relationships? If not, it is an excellent place to start. Modeling by example, right?!
It is such a simple action and the ripple effects are profound. They will rock every area of our lives and the fabric of who we are as a people. Whether our children are 2 or 40, age does not matter. Having conversations about consent with all genders is pertinent in changing the relationship we have to one another, bringing more respect and honor of one another’s bodies, one another’s desires, and one other’s sexual preferences. These conversations will allow us to heal by making new choices about how we relate to consent ourselves, where our boundaries are for ourselves, and in our relationship to others. We can talk to our adult children by taking responsibility for where we made mistakes around boundaries and consent, and vulnerably share how this has had a challenging impact. We can do things differently and support one another to rise up. We can create a world where our children become adults that feel respected and safe, that honor everyone’s desires including their own, and represent humanity at a much higher level of compassion and integrity than we currently do.
Dare to Desire.
Kristen