A friend and I were out with our kids when another familyâs two-year-old came up. She began hugging my friendâs 18-month-old, following her around and smiling at her. My friendâs little girl looked like she wasnât so sure she liked this, and at that moment the other little girlâs mom came up and got down on her little girlâs level to talk to her.
âHoney, can you listen to me for a moment? Iâm glad youâve found a new friend, but you need to make sure to look at her face to see if she likes it when you hug her. And if she doesnât like it, you need to give her space. Okay?â
Two years old, and already her mother was teaching her about consent.
My daughter Sally likes to color on herself with markers. I tell her itâs her body, so itâs her choice. Sometimes she writes her name, sometimes she draws flowers or patterns. The other day I heard her talking to her brother, a marker in her hand.
âBobby, do you mind if I color on your leg?â
Bobby smiled and moved himself closer to his sister. She began drawing a pattern on his leg with a marker while he watched, fascinated. Later, she began coloring on the sole of his foot. After each stoke, he pulled his foot back, laughing. I looked over to see what was causing the commotion, and Sally turned to me.
âHe doesnât mind if I do this,â she explained, âhe is only moving his foot because it tickles. He thinks its funny.â And she was right. Already Bobby had extended his foot to her again, smiling as he did so.
What I find really fascinating about these two anecdotes is that they both deal with the consent of children not yet old enough to communicate verbally. In both stories, the older child must read the consent of the younger child through nonverbal cues. And even then, consent is not this ambiguous thing that is difficult to understand.
Teaching consent is ongoing, but it starts when children are very young. It involves both teaching children to pay attention to and respect othersâ consent (or lack thereof) and teaching children that they should expect their own bodies and their own space to be respectedâeven by their parents and other relatives.
And if children of two or four can be expected to read the nonverbal cues and expressions of children not yet old enough to talk in order to assess whether there is consent, what excuse do full grown adults have?
I try to do this every day I go to nursery and gosh it makes me so happy to see it done elsewhere.
Yes, consent is nonsexual, too!
Not only that, but one of the reasons many child victims of sexual abuse donât reach out is that they donât have the understanding or words for what is happening to them, and why it isnât okay. Teaching kids about consent helps them build better relationships and gives them the tools to seek help if they or a friend need our protection.
Teaching Consent to Small Children
I wish this post featured the OPâs name more prominently; itâs by Libby Anne of love joy feminism, and she writes fantastic stuff. A survivor of Christian patriarchal fundamentalism, she writes about parenting from the perspective of someone working through her own traumatic experiences. I love reading her blog.
I met my nephew (codename Totoro) in person for the first time when he was eight months old. Before this, Iâd known him only through video calling. A few hours after getting home from the airport, my sister (codename Mystery) was holding him on her hip. I asked her, âCan I hold him?â
She smiled and said, âAsk him.â
âWhat?â
âHold out your hands to him and see if he leans toward you or away from you.â So I did, and he leaned away, and I dropped the subject. Five or ten minutes later, he was leaning towards me, overbalancing and almost falling out of Mysteryâs arms, and she said, âHeâs asking you to hold him now.â So I did, and it was magical, getting to introduce myself to my nephew and the firstborn of the Sybil family.
I am all about respecting childrenâs agencies and teaching good boundaries. I didnât ask at the airport, when Totoro was surrounded by new stimuli and needed the reassurance of his mother. I didnât ask when we first got back either; I gave him time to settle down, get used to his surroundings, and get used to me in person instead of a moving picture on a cell phone screen. I thought I was respecting his boundaries. But it had never occurred to me that an eight month old, who couldnât speak or even understand most speech, might be able to establish his own boundaries.
A year later they came to visit again, when he was 19 or 20 months old. The weather was what we Northwesterners call âa bit nippyâ and what thin-blooded Midwesterners like my sister call âfucking freezing, are you kidding me?â As we were getting ready to leave the house, Totoro objected vehemently to the need for pants and a coat. Finally Mystery had me stand by and hand her things as she near-literally wrestled him into his clothes. He was screaming and kicking and saying, âNo pants, no no, donât wanna, no Mama.â
And as she worked, Mystery kept talking to him soothingly. âI can hear you saying no, and I understand that you donât want to wear your clothes, but itâs my job to keep you safe and warm. I know youâre saying no, I can hear that, but itâs very cold outside and I have to keep you safe and warm.â Over and over, reassuring him that she understood what she wanted and that she had a good reason for ignoring his wishes.
And it hit me all over again, an aspect of respecting childrenâs agencies and boundaries that had never once occurred to me. Because sometimes it is necessary to override their wishes. Part of being a good guardian is keeping them safe even when they want to play in traffic or eat nothing but candy. But Iâd never thought about it from Totoroâs point of view, how frightening and how helpless it would feel to scream ânoâ into an unhearing void. Mystery made sure he knew he was being heard, he wasnât being ignored, he was important enough to have people react to his words.
Itâs just, geez. Every time I watch Mystery interact with Totoro I learn something new about agency and boundaries and just plain humanness. It blows me away.
