If we want teens to take consent seriously, we need to start being an example

By Ryan Morris, Director of Advocacy and Outreach for YWCA Richmond

Many young people are getting messages about consent. They have seen the “Tea Consent” video; they been taught that they need an enthusiastic “yes,” not just the absence of a “no,” when giving and receiving consent. Unfortunately, what they aren’t getting is perhaps the most important lesson of all: real-life examples from the adults modeling what consent looks like.

The importance of modeling consent

When someone gives consent, they’re giving permission for something to happen or agreeing to do something. Consent has become synonymous with sex but really, consent applies to everyday interactions and situations as well. In fact, it’s through these everyday ways of practicing consent that adults who work with young people can best reinforce its value.

Unfortunately for many young people, they have gone their whole lives without the adults in their lives demonstrating what it looks like to ask for their consent. It often starts young when children are required to hug relatives and family friends who they don’t remember or don’t feel comfortable touching.

Well-meaning parents and youth workers too often overlook the power of giving young people a choice when it comes to what they do with their time. This shows up in many ways in the lives of teens. Teens are forced to take classes they are not interested in, to participate in extracurricular activities their parents choose, and ultimately are required to do what adults tell them without asking them what they want. This can unintentionally send the wrong message about the importance of consent.

As caregivers and youth leaders, we are trying to teach our young people the importance of consent from an early age and show how they can practice it with one another. But we contradict our message by not asking for consent in our everyday interactions with young people. Here are some ways service providers can give and get consent from the young people they work with:

1. Ask your young people what they want to do, and respect their choice when they vocalize it. When what they want is not possible, question why you think that and have a conversation with them. If what they want is not possible, they deserve to have the information and reasoning behind that circumstance. This will help them grow as critical thinkers and develop empathy for the hard choices others have to make.
2. When designing your programming, get the input of the young people you work with. Have a focus group with young people before starting a program to know what they are interested in. Regularly meet with the young people in your program to assess the impact the program is having and what they think about it. Let the young people run some of your meetings or activities.
3. Accept a “no” when a young person does not want to do or participate in something. They may feel uncomfortable doing the activity, they may just not be interested. Try and provide them with something else to do, or get to the why behind their actions. Typically, if your program is focused on the wants and needs of the youth, this will rarely happen.

Consent in Action

What does it look like when an after-school program puts the idea of everyday consent into action? Empower RVA Teens is YWCA Richmond’s signature violence prevention program. Our dedicated group of high school students goes through an eight-week training program to learn about healthy relationships, consent, and healthy communication, all while learning how to be leaders and have these conversations with their peers.

The students then have monthly meetings where they decide what their continuing education is, what events they want to put on for the community, and the focus of the group. They are in charge of the focus of the group and decide what is the most important for them to learn, and the adults in the group follow their lead. Recently, two of our students decided to put on a spoken word workshop. While that is not something we typically do, we encouraged them and provided them with the support they needed to succeed.

So often in youth programs, the focus is on what the adults in charge think the students need. This is likely because these same adults, as teenagers, were not given the option to consent to what they were learning when they were growing up.

But adults are not always the experts on what is going to be most relevant or useful to a teen’s life. That’s why our program is dedicated to ensuring that content remains relevant to our students and they are getting what they want and need out of the program. How do we know what our students want to learn about? We ask. How do we know what skills they want to grow?

We ask.

There might be things I, as an adult, think they need to learn and understand, and I can make my argument to them for why they need that information. In the end, if the students do not want to do what I’ve asked, we do not make them. We recently asked our teens about what they wanted to do for Teen Dating Violence Awareness Month. We were interested in coming in and doing workshops with their peers, but the teens insisted this would not be the best use of our time. They wanted to do awareness campaigns in their schools. So, we did the awareness campaigns. The students were not made to participate in what they thought would not work for them. We asked, and we listened. This is a crucial lesson in consent, because we are not only teaching it — we are modeling it.

As adults, we are getting it right when we teach about consent. Now we need to step up and model it for them. If we don’t show how consent can be given and received in everyday situations, we cannot expect our young people to be able to do it when it comes to sex and relationships. Although we are just one youth program, in one area, with a few teens, we are teaching those teens how to get and receive consent and how to do effective community work. We are giving them the tools they need to teach their generation and those after what it looks like to clearly respect the decisions and opinions of other people, not only in sex and relationships, but our whole lives.

Ryan Morris has been a youth development and domestic and sexual violence professional for almost 10 years. She is currently the Director of Advocacy and Outreach with YWCA Richmond, which includes working with the amazing young people of Empower RVA Teens.