Consent …
The Oxford English dictionary defines consent as permission for something to happen.
Consent and sexuality
In 2024, we are also well versed that consent directly relates to sexual activity, physical touch and boundaries.
We all know a woman, or have been that woman, who has been sexually affected by a lack of consent from us. We read daily of sexual assults and we all know the great work the Me Too movement did in raising the awareness of gaining your sexual partners consent every single time
And as parents, we read numerous articles about teaching our children to give their consent before allowing a family member or stranger to hug them or of us asking our babies before we change their nappies.
All of these are vital.
Consent is important.
We should never assume that someone is OK with our actions toward them without asking.
But,
Consent is a lot more than just getting permission before we as adults have sex or we give our kids a hug before school.
What is consent really?
Consent is about respecting other people’s opinions, acknowledging their boundaries, hearing their words and treating others with the same kindness we would like to be treated with.
These are huge life skills.
Ones that do not start when our 10 year old has a crush or our teenager starts dating. These are skills that need to be learnt from little.
These are skills that we as parents need to model to our children as well as teach. There’s an old saying ” You can tell your child what to do and how to behave, but they learn the most from watching you! ”
Parents need to teach consent
So, how do you as a parent teach consent?
It’s easy …
You model the behaviour by asking consent!
You correct yours and your childs behavior!
You guide your children!
You hold yourself and your children accountable – and follow through if you witness a time where consent was lacking.
You are your child’s first teacher and strongest role model.
You are the person they will model as adults.
Consent and respect go hand in hand
I truly believe that Consent and Respect go hand in hand.
If we teach our children to respect rules, boundaries and other people it will be easy for them to both ask for Consent and not take it personally of someone says NO to them.
You see we need to be aware of both sides.
With every person asking for consent there is also another person not asking.
Someone disrespecting another’s boundaries. Someone only worried about their own self gratification.
As parents you could be raising either of those humans and how you teach them from little will very much determine which human you are raising.
And, so, we need to parent our children without blinkers and the fear of the lifelong therapy our children may need to attend due to the trauma of being told No! Or of having to respect their elders, authority and the rules of society.
An example
I recently attended an outing where I explicitly said no to a child who continued to enforce his demands on me . Calmly I reiterated several times that the answer to my child doing what he was doing was No!
Whilst it wasn’t something negative, it went against the way in which I am raising my son.
Over and over he continued until his parent stated how wonderful it was that he could question things as she was never allowed to.
Sadly, there was no questioning. He’d asked. I’d said no and given an explanation why and he was continuing because he didn’t like my answer and wanted to get his own way.
There was no ” gentle parent” moment to learn from here.
This is when the parent should have taken him aside and explained that he was appearing disrespectful and not hearing my lack of consent, instead of making excuses for him.
This may seem small and it is, however, let’s say the boy was 17 and not 7.
Would the parent still name the same excuses if he were harrasing a young girl or boy to kiss him?
Now,
I hear you say but he’s still a child and those are two different cases.
Yes, they are and he is however, this perfectly illustrates why teaching our children respect alongside consent is so vital.
Consent is not a solitary action. For us to teach our children to give consent we also need to reach our children to respect consent and that starts by teaching them that the word NO is a full sentence!
We need to teach a child that NO and STOP are safe words. There is no need for an explanation. If anyone says either of those you do not have consent to continue with your behaviour and request.
We need to hold ourselves accountable for the type of young man or woman we are raising and if we truly want a society where consent matters, we need to teach our children respect too.
What a frustrating situation.
It really was
Wow this is very educational and so very important especially in the time we are living our children are to be made aware. I absolutely agree that Consent and respect go hand in hand. Thank you for a great informative read.