I was talking with a friend the other day over tea. As moms usually do, we got to chatting about the challenges of raising late elementary school and middle school kids—about online safety, about guns and playdates. “I need to have the consent conversation, too,” she said.
It brought up so much for me.
Suddenly, I remembered years ago, when my daughter Sadie* was five. We stayed overnight at a friend’s house. The friend had a three-year-old girl, Emma, and our two daughters got along. I was proud of Sadie for how well she was taking care of the younger girl. Emma wanted to spend the night in our room with Sadie, and we said that was fine. As the evening wore on, though, Sadie got tired, and Emma got more animated. Finally, Sadie said she didn’t really want to spend the night with Emma, she just wanted to spend the night on her own with us. We said that was okay.
Emma, though, was disappointed. The next morning, Emma’s mom took Sadie aside. “Sadie, it really upset Emma that you told her she could sleep in your room and then told her she couldn’t. It hurt her that you changed your mind like that. If you tell her you’re going to do something, you need to follow through on that.”
I paled. I grabbed Sadie away from Emma’s mom, so angry I couldn’t speak. We ended up leaving early. It was a huge blow to our friendship, in part because I couldn’t articulate why I was so upset.
It was only years later, drinking tea with a different friend, that it clicked for me. “The consent conversation.”
Another day, at a different friend’s house. Sadie was watching TV in the living room. Two older boys ran inside from playing, and halted in front of the TV.
“I can’t see,” Sadie said. “Can you sit down?”
They didn’t respond. It was as if she hadn’t spoken at all.
“Hey!” she said. “Sit down!”
Still, no movement. Not even an acknowledgement.
I watched this happening, could see her frustration mounting. “Hey guys,” I intervened. “Sadie can’t see the TV. Can you sit down or move back?”
The older of the two boys glanced back at Sadie and then turned to the TV again. “She can see fine.”
It came to me again, that swift rage. I tamped it down. “She is telling you she can’t see.”
Now he looked at me. “That’s not true. She can see around us.” He remained planted.
I took a few deep breaths and squared my shoulders. My hands were shaking now. “Sadie decides what is true for her. You need to sit down, move back, or walk away.”
With a sigh and an eye roll, he sat, and the younger boy followed suit. Sadie shot me a grateful look.
Here’s the thing. Neither of those interactions was about consent in a sexual context. But both of them were hugely powerful in teaching Sadie, and the kids with whom she was interacting, about consent. It’s okay to say you want to spend the night with someone, and then change your mind. If someone tells you that something is not working for her, her experience of it is valid, even if it differs from your own.
“But,” the boys would say, “she was just wrong. She could see fine.”
To me, that is a hair’s breadth from, “He probably didn’t mean it like that.” “Are you sure you’re not misinterpreting what he said?” “I can’t believe that, he’s a great guy.” We have to believe, communicate, and model the concept that someone else’s different experience of the same event can still be a valid one. Hear what she’s saying. Be open to the possibility that her experience of it is also true.
If we don’t teach our kids to value their (and each other’s) thoughts and experiences from early childhood, it is so much harder to teach them once they get into adolescence. It can’t be a conversation. It must be a mindset. It’s hearing them that a particular grandmother hurts their feelings with her “jokes.” It’s not forcing them to hug your adult friends. It’s recognizing that their fear of the dark is real, even if it means you have to come up with some way of addressing it and you’d really rather they knock it off and go to sleep. It’s not minimizing their opinions and feelings, or making fun of their fears. It’s teaching them to trust their gut, and honoring their perspectives.
It’s a lot of talking. Trust me, “Because I said so,” is a heck of a lot easier than listening to your child’s needs and responding to them. But if we want them to grow up respecting themselves and each other, we have to show them how it’s done.
*All names have been changed.