Let's Talk Consent

One of the MOST important concepts: consent.

We need to teach kids consent from a young age. If we can teach our kids yes means yes, we also need to teach them no means no and someone can change their mind whenever they want.

There are so many different ways to discuss the topic to young kids: use examples like if you want a cookie that your friend is offering, you will say yes for it. But if you end up not wanting the cookie anymore, your friend cannot force you to have the cookie. Same thing vise versa.

If you invite a friend over for a play-date, and if they say yes they will come, but if later they say that they do not want to, you need to respect that and not force them to play with you.

Teach the kid that they need to ask for permission before engaging in physical contact someone - “Go ahead and ask your friend, Ryan if you can hug him!” If Ryan denies the kid’s request, say “it’s okay, we can just wave to Ryan!”

Emphasize the point to children from a young age, that if someone says no once, it remains a no till they give a firm yes.

Also emphasize that even if Ryan was okay with hugging you last week, the kid should not assume Ryan is okay with hugging this week. Ryan has the right to choose.

As the child gets older, introduce more mature and real examples for them to learn from.

Of course the point of this post isn’t to teach you how to parent your child, but rather is to create emphasis on the need to educate and teach your child consent.

What’s not a firm yes, is a no.

I DEFINITELY do want to say this: consent is not emphasized enough in school. This isn’t a topic that one doesn’t need to pay attention to, it is rather extremely critical that children start learning about it from a young age itself.

Normalize having conversations about it from a young age, and up to any age! There’s no age where we need to stop discussing consent!

No means no until there is a firm yes.

Take care and let’s all do better together 🤍