Sex and the Village | Teaching consent from the get-go
- Published: October 23, 2024
Q: Our eldest child is a pre-teen, and my partner and I are wondering a lot of things. We grew up with parents whose idea of sex education was to say “don’t do it,” and there was no conversation around gender identity at all. So we sometimes feel like we’re just winging it.
Our kid has a pretty good understanding of sex, mainly because they asked a lot of questions when they were younger, but what advice do you have for who should initiate these questions, when, and how? They have also suggested that they’re thinking fluidly about their gender, though they haven’t made any decisions on pronouns or names (I’m using “they” for anonymity). How can we best support our kid’s thinking as they discover who they are?
We see two questions here, and as both are in no way straightforward, we’ve decided to split this up into multiple responses addressing the sexuality questions of this submission and the gender expression questions separately.
These are great — and tough — questions. As your local sexperts, we just want to open by saying “thank you” for having the bravery to ask us in the first place. It seems as though our default as adults when we don’t know how to explain something to children is to shy away from the topic completely. You want to talk about it, and this addresses the first problem surrounding sexual ignorance in our society: the refusal to discuss sex, and thus its perpetuation as a taboo topic, so much that it results in a detriment to our own sexual maturation and sex lives. However, not only are you choosing to address it, but you want to do it in the most informed way possible. That is great parenting right there.
The first things really to talk about regarding someone beginning any kind of relationship with anyone are consent and boundaries. It begins when we’re children and starting to obtain bodily and mental autonomy away from our caretakers; the phase where we can start to make our own conscious decisions about who we want to interact with and how we want to do it, whether it be through touch, speech, or other ways of communication, without caretakers making those decisions for us.
Society often does not do a great job of teaching young children boundaries and consent. We’ve witnessed even good caretakers subconsciously pick up on not-so-good examples of consent. For example, everyone has likely witnessed a caretaker asking, “Can you say hi to (insert person here)?” or “Go give (insert person here) a kiss!” If the child attempts to refuse the interaction by saying “no” or by running away or hiding, this is typically followed by guilt-tripping by the caretaker and the expected receiver, with the receiver often taking the rejection personally. Sometimes, the caretaker will coerce or force the interaction, which teaches children that consent is not needed right from the get-go.
Obviously, there are some situations in which a child will have to be handled without their consent, as they’re not fully autonomous beings yet, but it is good practice to ask them for consent when it is safe and reasonable to do so.
When children are forced to do things after being given the option to refuse, it teaches them that their refusal and lack of consent don’t actually matter. This can lead to instances later in life where they don’t bother trying to refuse an unwanted interaction, as they feel it is inevitable. The first way to fully give a child their own autonomy is to ask them to participate in an interaction instead of telling them to have one. It’s important to use the correct wording when asking them. Asking “Can you …” is a moot point, as you often know they can do what you’re asking of them. Instead, ask them, “Would you like to …” or “Do you want to …”, which gives them the option to say “no.”
Children shouldn’t be guilt-tripped if they refuse, because if they are, they may consent to unwanted interactions in the future to avoid backlash. If you ever witness guilt-tripping, you can simply say, “They’re allowed to say ‘no,’” or “You asked, they said ‘no.’” Many people may also bring up their personal relationship with the child, saying things like “Awe, you don’t want to hug Grandma?” In this case, you can simply say, “It seems like they just don’t want a hug right now.” or “I’m sure it’s not personal.” While you may say these things to alleviate the receiver, the scary part is that it just might be personal — another reason you should never force an interaction on a child.
Along these lines, it’s also incredibly important to teach young children the correct names of their body parts, including their genitalia. This has the positive outcome of them fully understanding their bodies; you wouldn’t teach them a childish or made-up word for “hand” or “leg.” Unfortunately, it also protects your child in the very scary event that someone were to touch their genitalia. It can help the legal system prosecute a perpetrator for touching a body part on a child if the child is using the correct wording for the body part. Words such as “hoohah” or “weenie” are not helpful, are vague, and perpetuate a stigma of taboo regarding sexuality.
While these interactions take place in childhood, they directly affect our physical, emotional and sexual interactions as teenagers and, eventually, as adults. Think about your own upbringing and how it has influenced how you view consent and boundaries. Were you made to do things you weren’t comfortable with? How did it make you feel? Did that influence how you reacted to situations in the future? What could you do to advocate for yourself and hold your boundaries if needed?
In direct response to the asker: Think about how you’ve brought your child up. No judgment here. Were they taught good boundaries? Has their consent been respected overall? Ask them. If yes, great job! If not, think about how to go about teaching what boundaries are and what consent is. Maybe ask them about times they were made to do something even if they were asked and they said “no.” How did it make them feel? Do they have that same feeling during some of their interactions now? Work together with them to make sure that their reactions result in positive feelings, and if they don’t, make sure to take the time to sit down with them and figure out why they feel the way they do. Help them figure out what they can do in the future to avoid negative feelings through healthy boundaries and consent, and how to cope with the negative feelings they have. As much as we try to advocate for ourselves, life sometimes happens and these feelings come, and it’s important to have an infrastructure in place for how to deal with them.
It’s also important to note the difference between a boundary and a rule — and it’s never too early to teach children that difference. A boundary is a set of guidelines you impose on yourself to protect yourself from harm or discomfort. It directs how you react to a situation. An example of a boundary is something like, “I don’t like to discuss this topic with you; whenever it comes up in the future, I’m either going to ask that we redirect the conversation or I will remove myself from the conversation” or “If you start to yell at me, I will remove myself from the conversation.” A rule, on the other hand, is something both people consent to in a relationship that protects one or both parties. An example would be, “We agreed we would not discuss this topic,” or “You are not allowed to yell at me.”
Rules are harder to enforce than boundaries, as it requires multiple parties to adhere to them. Boundaries and rules are often conflated, and it’s important to learn the difference between the two, as sometimes rules disguised as boundaries can be used to control another person without them knowing.
We will get more into the “birds and the bees” talk next time. Just as this will be an ongoing response, your talks about consent, boundaries and physical and sexual relationships should also be an ongoing conversation with your child. Just because they stopped asking you questions doesn’t mean they don’t have them. In addition to questions, conversations shouldn’t only take place to let them know you have answers, but to ensure they know that you are a safe person to ask questions of and open up to about it. The only real way to make sure they’re engaged instead of just indulging you is to build trust surrounding the topic, which we will also expand on more next time.
*Sex and the Village is a column that answers your questions on sex, gender and sexuality. Submit your questions to Saraphilic and Doc anonymously at ysnews.com/sex-and-the-village.
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