I’ve been working on this for a while, and with the help of my spouse who is brilliant at coming up with ACRONYMS, we were finally able to finalize something I was happy with. I believe that one of the keys to eradicating sexual violence is harnessing the power of CONSENT. After all, consent is what defines whether an experience between people is sexual intimacy, or sexual violence.
Consent is a hard topic for many people. While I’ve chosen to focus on the sexual aspects of what consent means in the video below, consent is more than sexual. We give our consent or don’t give our consent on a daily basis. Often times, we do this so often we don’t even think about it. For some of us, we give consent even when we don’t want to, because we simply don’t believe we have an option to say no.
Teaching consent to kids is imperative to eradicating childhood sexual abuse, and later adult experiences of sexual assault. Modeling healthy consent and giving our kids an opportunity to practice it in their homes is key to helping raise kids into adults who have respect for the autonomy of both themselves and others.
Here’s an easy way to teach our kids consent - you’ve probably heard this before.
Stop forcing your children to give hugs to family members, including you!
Ask your child(ren) if they’d like to have or give you a hug. If they shake their head “no”, or say “no” or shrug their shoulders, respond with, “Okay! If you want to give me a hug, you just let me know!”
Tell your friends and family to not expect hugs from your children, and to respect when the child does not want to hug them.
When we do this, we give kids the ability to practice autonomy, and really decide what hugging means to them, and who they want to hug.
This can help parents to recognize if something HAS happened. For instance, if your child is all about hugging a certain individual, and then suddenly they stop wanting to be near a certain person, or persons, this may indicate that something happened. It DOESN’T mean something happened, and if you suspect it, I’d recommend connecting with a trained organization in your area who specializes in childhood sexual abuse, as this is a tricky topic to engage children in. My advice is to monitor the behavior and see if it’s just a natural progression of your child or if there are other signs of abuse.
When we don’t teach our children consent and instead force them to hug people, we teach our children two things we really didn’t mean to.
Children do not have control over their body.
Children are responsible for the feelings someone has when they don’t get to touch them.
Children will inevitably grow up having lessons they learned either on purpose of by default. Children who do not understand they have the right to decide who touches their body grow up into adults who do not understand it is okay to say no to sexual intimacy when they don’t want to. Also, these children are much more likely to fall prey to and victim to peer pressure by their partners because they don’t want to “make them feel bad.”
So, now that we know how important consent is, check out this great video we created for an easy way to remember what consent means!
Please let me know what YOU think and how you are incorporating consent into the lessons you give your children in the comments below.
