There has been a lot in the media recently about consent. Both historically and recently, there have been many cases where people’s lives have been damaged, and often ruined, because people have not gained consent before engaging in sexual activity.
Sadly, having worked in youth work for many years now, I have seen cases where this has happened. I have had to support young people after they have gone through the trauma of sexual assault and help them as they come to terms with it, whilst negotiating the legal system, which often sadly adds an extra struggle to the situation and doesn’t always end in the justice that they long for.
It got me thinking about consent and how we teach it to young people. At the charity I work for (www.lfis.org), we teach lessons to high school students about various aspects of relationships and sex. A key thing we focus on is consent, making sure that young people fully understand what consent is and how they need to get consent before engaging in sexual activity. However, I have realised that high school is too late to start teaching this, it needs to be something we teach from a very early age. I realised this with the help of my 4 year old son (Micah) and my 2 year old daughter (Tabitha).
Micah loves to give cuddles, he’s very affectionate and caring and is forever coming for snuggles with his Mummy and Daddy. Tabitha also loves cuddles but has very much shown us that it’s all on her terms and only when she wants to! - which is exactly what we want her to be like growing up! If she doesn’t want to do something then no one should be able to make her!
The consent part comes when Micah wants to give Tabitha a cuddle but she doesn’t want to, because she’s tired, or grumpy, or quite simply not in the mood for a cuddle. She’s at the age where ‘no’ is her favourite word and she uses it a lot! It means that we’ve got an opportunity early in both of their lives to teach them about consent.
If Micah asks Tabitha for a cuddle and she says no, that means stop. It doesn’t mean try to give her a cuddle anyway in the hope that she changes her mind. As parents we need to make sure they both follow this rule no matter how cute it is when they cuddle! I don’t want any of our children starting their lives out thinking that if someone says no they don’t have to listen to them.
Tabitha does like cuddles sometimes and it’s great to see Micah learning that he has to ask and he has to get her permission. This is something I want him to continue for the rest of his life.
It might sound a bit trivial in this situation but they need to know what is and isn’t ok so that it is still clear to them in other scenarios that they encounter as their lives go on. They need to know about consent before they get to high school. Boundaries are so important and consent is a boundary I want them to know well.
