'It wasn’t on purpose, but I nevertheless communicated over and over again that what she wanted to do with her body didn’t matter.'
The Day I Realized I Wasn’t Sending My Daughter A Strong Enough Message About Consent
It wasn’t on purpose, but I nevertheless communicated over and over again that what she wanted to do with her body didn’t matter.My daughter L. was about 5 years old the first time I really saw her go “spikes out.” We were having a neighborhood get-together in our front yard, and all the kids were playing out on the driveway. L.
Everyone froze, looking uncertainly at each other and then at me. Thinking she was hurt, I followed her inside, scanning her for bumps and scrapes as she sobbed uncontrollably. “What happened?!” I asked. Through hitching breaths, she told me that she didn’t want to be picked up and was tired of being touched by everyone. “Why didn’t you just say that?” I asked, incredulously. “I don’t know!” she replied.
After reflecting on her question, I considered my twenty years as a classroom teacher and students who’ve had similar reactions to intrusions of their personal space. I thought about Raquelle who, exhausted by classmates constantly tugging on her glorious curls, started wearing her hair in a tight bun. And Starla, who stopped wearing her cozy fleece jacket when friends wouldn’t stop petting her. Or Matty, who shoved a boy into a wall when he got tired of him playfully jumping on his back.
L. has become much better about advocating for her personal space needs these days and I’m much better about modeling the kind of body consent I want her to take into her teenage years and beyond. We’ve practiced how to say “I need more space,” or “I don’t really want to be touched right now,” firmly and kindly, and the next steps to take if the behavior continues.
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