With the discussion of the Cornell 7 online, I’ve obviously been thinking a lot about consent. As many people are saying, it’s critical to be working with kids on consent, boundaries, and bodily autonomy long before it becomes a conversation about consent in the context of sexual activity. I’m seeing so many posts on Instagram talking about how moms need to raise their sons better and the immediate follow up to that being that dads need to be doing this and setting a better example for their sons. As I flagged in my introduction post, so much parenting media online is by moms and primarily directed at moms. I’ve seen many moms asking the very reasonable question: where are the dads talking about this? Here’s one.
It’s a difficult balancing act with young kids (especially toddlers) trying to help them learn and understand bodily autonomy when they do not have complete authority over their bodies. Toddlers are constantly picked up to keep them from getting into something they shouldn’t, getting their diaper changed or teeth brushed when they don’t want it, and a thousand other things every day. Because young kids can’t take care of themselves on their own, as parents there are necessary tasks which require us to handle their bodies even if they don’t want us to. It can be extremely difficult to help them understand that they have control over their own body, but there are some things we need to do to keep them safe and healthy.
One piece of advice I’ve seen many times online is to give your children as much control over their bodies as possible in situations where it is safe to do so. I remember one specific video (although I sadly do not remember the creator) where a dad is demonstrating respecting his child’s boundaries during rough play. There are several clips of the dad picking the child up to toss them back on the couch or throw them over his shoulder and the child says “no.” The dad immediately stops and gently puts them down.
Jacob is a little over a year old and I’ve been working on this with him. “All done” is one of the few words/phrases he uses consistently, and since he learned it he has tried to apply “all done” to everything. I regularly explain that “all done” does not apply to care tasks or things that are otherwise not optional, like getting buckled into the car seat. However, I can look for places where he does have a choice to practice this. When we’re playing and I pick him up or turn him upside down if his body language says he’s not into it or he says “all done” (or something that sounds like it, which is sometimes hard because his “done” sounds a lot like his “dad”), I put him down immediately. Then I say to him, “it sounds like you don’t want that right now, so I stopped. We can play with something else.” The other night in the bath, he was playing and I used the spray bottle I use to rinse him off to make rain over his head and around him. He turned and looked at me, held up his hand in a “stop” position, and very clearly said, “all done.” I of course stopped and put the spray bottle down. I thanked him for telling me he didn’t want that and said I was proud of him for holding that boundary. Megan heard me saying this and popped in to tell him if he didn’t want someone to do something he could also say “stop” or “no”.
This really is a small moment, but it was rewarding for me to see something I’ve been doing intentionally directly working. I want him to know he has control over his own body to the extent that is possible and I want him to be comfortable and confident standing up for himself to enforce that. I was proud of him for being comfortable communicating no, that’s not how I want to play right now. As a parent, I think it’s important to be a safe space for the child to practice those skills. It was fun to see it in practice.