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teach kids consent!

It’s not just about sex
By Kwiigay

 

| remember learning about consent in middle school, with a few puppet shows over as many
months. The shows covered few scenarios, mostly involving adults in our lives (coaches, family
members) and focused only on sexual consent. They didn’t teach you what to do when your
[parent] orders you to hug your great uncle [name], or when grampy [name] pinches your
cheek at [holiday] dinner. These kinds of scenarios can be uncomfortable as a kid but because
of our size, age, etc, we were easier to ignore and speak over. But what happens when a kid’s
boundaries are crossed too often? Chances are they'll lose their ability to self-advocate, which
leads down a long and dusty road of danger and disappointment. To learn those skills, | took
the long way around - through trial and error. It took me until my 20’s to confidently juggle
being mindful of those around me with looking after myself. I’ve had countless conversations
with folx of my generation and heard story after story that are similar to mine. As adults, we
recognize through unspoken social rules that consent is something we need to give and receive
in many more contexts than sexual ones. For all of our youth, we only wish for them to grow
into well-adjusted, confident, and successful adults. Clearly we need to do more to better equip
them in all contexts; these skills will last them for the rest of their lives.

Depending on a person’s social determinants of health (physical and mental health, physical and
mental ability, sexual orientation, gender, age, race, substance use, and experience of childhood
abuse) we can see rates of sexual assault increase drastically. Teaching kids about these kinds
of differences in their communities is really teaching them the ways in which we can each hold
privilege or be marginalized. This opens the door to talk about power dynamics in our relation-
ships (which are not always bad, many are important for our growth), and how they can affect
a person’s’ ability to set boundaries. In order to fully understand consent, we must include con-
versations around non-verbal cues, which aren’t so easily hidden.

The simplest way to empower our youth, so they may grow into confident adults, is to give
them these tools. We should also be sure, as adults, to be checking in with ourselves and tak-
ing an active role learning about these issues, regardless if we have kids or not.

some stuff!

http://www.teachconsent.org/#ask
https://teachingsexualhealth.ca/parents/information-by-topic/understanding-consent/
https://www.canadianwomen.org/the-facts/sexual-assault-harassment/
http://intersectionalfeminism101.tumblr.com/faq