Have you been watching the news lately? Is it even possible to avoid it at this point? And how is what is going on in the world figuring in to our parenting choices and our thoughts about parenting? In my opinion, there is no way this isn’t figuring into our parenting choices. And hopefully those choices includes educating our children about their own set of choices and how those choices can impact their world. We all want our kids to grow up and make the world a better place, right?
What the heck am I talking about? I’m talking about sexual harassment, sexual assault, consent, body autonomy, and boundaries and how we teach our children (our BABIES who none of us wants to think about being involved with any of these adult issues) what these things mean in age appropriate ways. It’s not easy. Even for me, a person who is educated in communication and who engages in challenging conversations for a living, feels overwhelmed when deciding where to start when I look into the eyes of my own children.
That being said, we can’t just stick our heads in the sand and pretend these things will go away. Because they won’t. Not yet, anyway (click for scary statistics). And it is irrelevant to me whether you are raising boy children, girl children, or children who are gender nonspecific. All children need to know about consent and boundaries and body autonomy as well as sexual harassment and sexual assault. Odds are either they themselves or someone they know will be facing these issues in their personal life at some point. Being uneducated, or not understanding how to reach out for help, is not an option. Your kids need to know what to do, who to talk to, and how to address these issues in appropriate ways for the ages they are in. We can only do so much to keep our kids safe, we can only protect them so much, but part of keeping them safe and protecting them must include educating them and keeping these lines of communication open.
So where to start, especially if you are the type of person who feels uncomfortable having these conversations with your kids? Books are always good. If you don’t feel comfortable jumping in to the conversation without first determining your own values around sexuality as a parent, From Diapers to Dating: A Parent's Guide to Raising Sexually Healthy Children - From Infancy to Middle School is a great book. For the little ones, Let's Talk About Body Boundaries, Consent, and Respect is perfect for the 4-7ish year old age group, which can absolutely be introduced earlier than that and continued to read later than that, even in dribs and drabs when your child seems interested or has specific questions. For the middle school and high school aged children who are starting to date, Can I Kiss You takes a good look at consent in a very respectful and easily digestible way.
For a more visual way of explaining consent, I saw a wonderful Instagram post by @teachandtransform the other day with a follow up post because I think some people were confused by her discussion of “secrets”.
As always, I’d suggest previewing these options before exposing your kids to them and using your own personal discretion about how much or how little your kids can handle. None of these topics needs to be learned in a day and I would say that all of them are long term conversations that can be had slowly and at the pace you and your child are comfortable with. But keep those lines of communication open. Make sure your child knows that above all else, they can talk to you.
Mindfully,
Meredith xo