“Did you like that?” asked Turkey.

“Um … I mean …,” the woman sputtered.

“Then don’t do it to me.”

The woman stepped back, a bit bewildered, and walked away without saying much more. Turkey and I just carried on with our shopping. She had handled the situation, so no commentary was needed from me.

I remember telling that story to a friend a few days later and having them raise their eyebrows in alarm. “You let her get away with poking somebody in the face?” she asked me.

“What do you mean ‘let her get away with’ it? It’s her body, and the woman poked her in the face first.”

“Well, yeah, but like, it’s rude. It was just a boop.”

“No. What’s rude is that this woman poked her in the face without taking into consideration whether she wanted to be poked in the face—it doesn’t matter that it was ‘just a boop.’ Turkey was just returning the favor.”

It’s entirely possible that you had the same reaction to reading that story as my acquaintance did. After all, it seems pretty reasonable to say that little kids should not be poking grown-ups in the face, right? Maybe you thought, She should have just told her to stop, or Maybe she should have said “Next time, ask first,” and that would have been enough. And I counter with this: At three years old, how many people do you suppose listen to Turkey? (Other than her immediate family, of course, who almost always listened to three-year-old Turkey.) The unfortunate answer is that because of her age, not a ton of people listened. Using her words might have worked to stop the interaction—it’s possible. But poking this woman in the face absolutely worked. Turkey set a boundary for her body—I will not let you poke my face—and provided a very concrete demonstration of what would happen if the boundary was violated—she’ll poke you back.

We established in chapter 1 that kids don’t understand abstract thought until they’re getting close to their teen years. That’s the whole reason why we use very concrete statements like “There’s nothing you can do to make me stop loving you.” Starting as soon as they’re able to understand the spoken word, we want to keep things clear, concise, and easily understood. Unfortunately, consent is one of those concepts that can easily get abstract if we let it, because a lot of factors influence what counts as consent. That’s why for small children, we use both the word “consent” and a catchphrase similar to the one we use for love. For my family, our consent and bodily autonomy phrase is “It’s my body and I get to pick.” The phrase still fits firmly within consent because making choices about what you will allow to be done with and to your body is the definition of consent. However, by clearly stating “It’s my body and I get to pick” rather than using just the word “consent,” we consistently reinforce and help the child internalize the fact that consent means they get to say yes and no.

Now, before we go much further, I want to make something very clear: “It’s your body and you get to pick” only applies in situations that are not health and safety related. It’s your body, but you do not get to pick if you wear a seat belt. It’s your body, but you do not get to pick if you are clean. It’s your body, but you do not get to pick whether you will be getting your broken arm set with a cast. Sometimes there are situations where your safe adult has to step in and make sure that you are being cared for in the way that helps you grow and stay healthy.

It’s helpful to consider what your health and safety nonnegotiables are for your child before you ever get to the point where they might argue with you about them. For me, my nonnegotiables are almost entirely safety related, and include holding hands in parking lots, being within eyesight while out in public, remaining buckled in when in a car, bathing routinely, getting annual blood draws (if required), and brushing hair. Now, some might argue that brushing hair is not a health or safety standard, but I disagree. My children’s hair texture requires regular brushing if they are going to wear it long because it can become matted; collect dirt, mold, and mildew; and just generally negatively impact their health and well-being. That doesn’t mean I hold them down and brush their hair. It simply means that they have a choice: They can either have their hair brushed (by me or by themselves), or they can choose to have shorter hair. One or the other.

See, even within safety requirements there can be autonomy via choice. You can choose whose hand you’ll hold in the parking lot. You can choose to walk near me, in my eyesight, or ride in the cart. You can choose to buckle yourself in or let me buckle you. You can choose a bath or a shower. You can choose what color bandage you’ll get after your blood draw. Empowerment in exercising bodily autonomy can happen within the boundaries of health and safety.

In situations that are not health or safety related, my children have autonomy over their bodies. Hugs, kisses, tickles, wrestling, pats on the backs, or physical ways of getting their attention (like being poked)—my children get to choose what kinds of and how much touch they will accept. I have one child who loves getting tickled everywhere except the bottoms of their feet. They have made it abundantly clear that they would love to get tickled all the time, so long as you don’t touch the bottoms of their feet. I have another child who loves to be tickled, but only with what they call tiny tickles. No big belly scratches that make them double over—they want little bitty tickles in very short bursts. Again, please tickle them as much as they want, but only with tiny tickles. They get to decide what kind of and how much touch they receive at any time.

As humans, we communicate verbally and nonverbally, and within that communication there are almost countless variations of inflection, word choice, body language, proximity, and other factors that can change the meaning of what is being conveyed. We’ve all heard that no means no, and I think all of us would agree with that. But … I’m a Midwesterner. Here “No, yeah” means something different than “Yeah, no.” Someone in a movie might say, “No! I can’t believe they did that.” A sarcastic “no” might actually mean “yes.” Upon reflection, we recognize there are countless ways a word as seemingly simple as “no” can be used. That’s why we’ve come up with boundary phrases specifically around physical touch in our home. It’s a given that we pause play and check in when someone says “no” or “stop,” but the most powerful boundary phrase is “I don’t want to play that game.” It is an instantaneous hard stop to any activity. The phrase also prompts anyone involved to touch base and find out what’s going on: “Okay! Is there a reason you don’t want to play this game anymore? Are you feeling done? Are we doing it wrong? Is there something you want to change?” It encourages communication about the situation and models boundary setting—I as a person am not willing to be touched any more.

As children get older and their vocabularies increase and they begin to engage with logic and more abstract thinking, we can help them broaden their understanding of and deepen their appreciation for consent. The current gold standard for conceptualizing consent is the FRIES acronym, devised by Planned Parenthood:

F is for freely given.

R is for reversible.

I is for informed.

E is for enthusiastic.

S is for specific.

This acronym helps our children begin to understand the nuances of “I don’t wanna play this game.” That their “yes” to play any given game is based on a few specific factors.

Freely given means that there cannot be any sort of threat, coercion, convincing, or other circumstance that has made someone say yes when they normally would not. As kids get older, they will learn that individual factors will influence whether consent can be freely given—factors like whether there is power imbalance, whether either party is under the influence of drugs or alcohol, or whether one of the people is cognitively vulnerable.

Reversible means that just because you’ve said yes before, or even that you said yes 30 seconds ago, does not mean your yes has to be maintained. You can change your mind at any point, and once you have, the interaction needs to stop.

Informed refers to the information provided about what the person is being asked to consent to. When children are young, it means the difference between big tickles and tiny tickles. But as kids get older and begin to engage with other people, the I means asking things like “Are we going to first base or second base?” or “What’s your STD or STI status?” and other such questions. Without having all the information about what an interaction might entail, you cannot truly give consent.

Enthusiastic is related to the state of mind of the individual who is providing consent. I don’t want you to give me a hug because you feel obligated to—I only want a hug if you want to give me one. Children who are shown that their enthusiasm matters internalize that any interactions between bodies should make both people feel good.

Specific means the consent a person provides only extends as far as it has been defined in the “informed” part of consent. You’ve agreed to give me a hug. That doesn’t mean I can give you a kiss without asking. In their futures, it means they know that just because they’ve agreed to make out with their partner doesn’t mean they have agreed to be naked while they do it.

Respect for consent and bodily autonomy is part of the bedrock of being a safe adult. If you’re reading this book, I will be honest with you: I’m assuming that you are a safe adult for children. You respect their autonomy, you listen to their voices, you trust them when they tell you things, and you would never ask them to keep secrets, particularly ones that would make them unsafe. I list all those criteria because those are the criteria of a safe adult. I’m using the term “safe adult” instead of “trusted adult” because unfortunately, most children who experience abuse by adults are abused by someone they know and trust.

I advocate that each child should have least three safe adults they can turn to with questions. I say three simply because of the rule of three, or omne trium perfectum—people (kids included) tend to remember lists that contain three items. It’s important, too, that children have multiple safe adults they can go to if they need help. These are both true and sometimes difficult to achieve. The world can be a scary place—there are people out there who do not have any scruples about hurting a child. When our children are young, we choose their safe adults for them. We do so by making sure we share very similar boundaries and values, we know that the individual would never lie to us about the situations our children are in, and we’ve observed how they handle our children’s autonomy. We also must acknowledge that children have a say in who their safe adults are—if our kids ever raise a red flag about an individual who has previously been deemed safe, our first priority is to listen. Reversibility in consent extends to picking safe adults, too.

Just like it is important for us to be able to identify a reliable and accurate source of information online and to teach our children that skill, it’s important for us to be able to identify who safe adults are and teach our children how to do the same. As their communities grow wider with age, so too will their access to other safe adults. Our children may find a coach, a teacher, a spiritual leader, or the older sibling of a friend who they feel is a trustworthy addition to their cadre of safe grown-ups, and it is their right to do so. If we want to make sure they are adding truly safe people to their social support network, then we have to explicitly spell out to our children what qualities make a safe adult:

They make you feel safe. The most essential part of a “safe” adult is that they make you feel safe. You know that they will not hurt you or ask you to do things that hurt you. They will not put you in situations where you can be harmed, and you know you can trust them.

They follow the family safety rules. Safety rules are going to vary by family based on location, size, culture, and demographics. The family safety rules should be explicitly explained, and the nonnegotiable rules should be so clear that any member of the family can recite them on command. (An example might be “No one picks you up except Mom. If someone else shows up, they have to know the family password.”) These safety rules should always include some variation of “No one may touch you in your swimsuit parts, and if anyone does or asks to, you need to tell Mom.”

They don’t ask you to keep secrets. Safe adults don’t ask you to keep secrets, and never threaten you as a way to force you to keep a secret.

They listen to you. Safe adults listen to what you have to say, and they listen to you without judging you or making you feel bad for sharing with them.

Now, you likely noticed above that I talked about “swimsuit parts.” You’ll find as you go through this book that I almost exclusively utilize biological terminology, and I do not shy away from using the correct anatomical terms for body parts. That holds true when I’m speaking to children, too. That being said, I also use the term “swimsuit parts” when talking to children. People who choose to harm children are savvy, and it is not outside the realm of possibility that someone would use different terminology or slang words to trick a child into complying with predatory demands: “Oh, I know I can’t look at your vulva, but your pussy is okay …” Absolutely not. By stating the health and safety boundary that “No one should look at or touch your swimsuit parts,” a parent provides a concrete, visual representation informing the child that anything covered by a swimsuit is off-limits. It doesn’t matter what slang term might be used or any other way it’s framed. “My mom says no one should touch me on my swimsuit parts, and that’s a swimsuit part.”

You also noticed part of picking a safe adult is establishing a strict rule around secrets. Now, I have my fair share of secrets—there are things that even my closest friends do not know about me. As an adult, I am allowed to have secrets. Teenagers are allowed to have secrets from their parents and from their friends. Young children, however—particularly those still in the preoperational stage of development, or under age seven—should never be asked to keep secrets, because dangerous people might frame abuse as a “secret.”

Let’s say you buy your spouse a really expensive blouse for Christmas and your child sees it. “Hey, that’s a secret. Don’t tell Mommy” may seem like a natural thing to say. Unfortunately, there is hidden subtext in that request. It implies “Your mommy shouldn’t know about this, and if you tell her, I’ll be upset.” A secret implies “If you tell, there might be a bad consequence, and I don’t want you to tell anyone.”

Instead, consider what the subtext might be with this phrasing: “Hey, that shirt is a surprise, and we get to give it to Mommy at Christmas.” Do you see the difference there? The underlying message is “Hey, your mommy will know about this eventually, and it’s going to be a nice thing for her.” There is no threat of consequence, because in all honesty, there shouldn’t be one. If the child accidentally spills the beans and ruins the surprise, it’s disappointing, but generally not life-ruining. If what a child is being asked to keep hidden would ruin someone’s life, it is worth reflecting on why the child needs to know this information.

You can take the idea of “surprises, not secrets” one step further by sharing surprise planning with them … and planning surprises for them. I’m personally a big believer in throwing my children at least one surprise party so they know what it feels like to have a good surprise. I want them to know that surprises are positive, joyous things that are designed to make people feel good—so that if anyone asks them to keep a “secret” that they feel might be unsafe, their alarm bells will go off.

Though we strive to choose the safest people to be near our children, and to teach our children how to identify who is and isn’t safe, we cannot guarantee that we will have 100% success, as much as it pains me to say. As you saw earlier in the chapter, our children can get their boundaries tested directly in front of our faces. And we won’t always be there with our children—people who aim to hurt children are very good at putting themselves in situations where they have the chance to do so. As a result, one of the most important parts of protecting our children’s safety is, again, unconditional positive regard: reminding your child that not only is there nothing they can do that will make you stop loving them, but also that you believe what they tell you, the first time they tell you. Even if you feel you have to investigate, even if your child has a history of spinning yarns or spouting tall tales, even if you think there’s no way what they’re saying is right—your first reaction is “Thank you for telling me.” Because keeping them talking, keeping them telling you, is parenting with an eye to their future.

CHAPTER 3: IN BRIEF

Consent is a concept that can be modeled and taught beginning when children are infants and toddlers. They can be shown that they have a say in how their body is treated, and they can learn the evolving boundaries of their own autonomy at the same time. Conversations about consent, both as it applies to children and to their interactions with others, must be ongoing, because of how children’s cognitive abilities change as they grow.

Key Takeaways

Consent often starts as questions about what a child will or won’t engage with physically. Asking permission for hugs, tickles, cuddles, and other forms of physical engagement allows a child to practice giving and revoking consent.

Consent is important, but it does not supersede a child’s health and safety. Reflecting on what you consider health and safety non-negotiables will be helpful when discussing and practicing consent with your child.

It’s helpful to establish boundary phrases like “I don’t want to play that game” or “I will not let you tickle my feet” with your child so that setting and maintaining boundaries can become comfortable.

The safe adults in your child’s life must understand and respect consent, and choosing safe adults includes having conversations about values, boundaries, and consent.

CHAPTER 4 Consent for Knowledge

My mom did an excellent job of showing me how loved I was growing up. I didn’t fear making mistakes, and when I asked questions, I was confident that the answers she gave me were scientifically accurate. After all, I had unrestricted access to a whole suite encyclopedia (which, as you learned earlier, I took full advantage of) and The Learning Channel was frequently the channel of choice in our house—my favorite was watching total knee replacements. Heck, my mom even took advantage of one of her own injuries to teach us about the anatomy of the inner arm.

My parents had purchased their first-ever home when we moved to the small town where I grew up. It was a story-and-a-half house with bedrooms over the garage and a couple sets of stairs up to the front door. After living in the house for almost a decade, my mom declared that the wrought-iron front railing needed to be painted to deal with the rust after harsh Minnesota winters. She dutifully took the railing down and spread it out in the garage to be sanded and painted. Later that week, after putting on the first coat of paint, she needed to run an errand, so she hustled inside and grabbed her purse. As she walked out the front door and headed down the stairs, she tried leaning on the … nonexistent railing. Naturally, because there was nothing there to support her, she went “ass over teakettle” (her words) and fell to the landing. She gathered her wits, noticed some blood, and came inside to holler for my dad. After grabbing a flour sack towel from the kitchen to stanch the bleeding, she headed back out the front door to go to the car. As she walked past the living room, she was met with the stunned faces of my older sister, myself, and my little brother.