5 Ways to Teach Young Kids About Consent
At first thought, consent might seem like an overwhelmingly adult topic — and that’s probably because for a long time, consent was an overwhelmingly absent topic. After the #MeToo movement shone a light on the dark reality of a world that normalized sexual harassment, abuse, and assault for far too long, many of us began to look closer at how often consent was missing from the moments where it mattered most.
These conversations about the prevalence of sexual misconduct have left many of us wondering what we can do to change such a pervasive culture of disrespect and violence. How can we prevent these attitudes from continuing to circulate? And that’s the key word: prevention.
Far too often, solutions focus on navigating the aftermath. Let’s be clear — victims and survivors of sexual violence deserve an abundance of support and resources to help them cope, but in order to get to the root of the problem, we need to think about how we’re centering consent as a key value early on in people’s lives. That’s why it’s so important to start talking to our kids about consent from the time they’re young.
When we think about consent, we probably think first of consent and sex — and for good reason. Enthusiastic consent should 100% be a part of any sexual or intimate context. But consent goes beyond just that: it’s about respecting…
