“Oh. Uh. Okay.”
In this scenario, the question was answered in the simplest and most straightforward way because the child confirmed that they wanted an operational definition—what is it? And given their age and previous knowledge, it’s important for them to have the information and follow the “asked and answered” mantra. But there are other ways a similar situation could go, especially with different ages:
“Dad, can you tell me about an orgy?” asks Monica, age eleven.
“What do you want to know?”
“Um, well, what is it?”
“The answer might make you have a lot of complicated feelings. Are you sure you want to know?”
“Oh … uh … well … maybe?”
“Hmmm. Sounds like you’re not sure. What do you want to know?”
“I guess I just want to know if it’s something that teenagers actually do.”
“I can tell you that most teenagers are not doing it, and that if a teenager is doing it, I have some concerns. Would you like to use your Free Pass?”
“No, I’m good. I just figured out that Jared is probably full of crap.”
“I’m not going to ask, but if it’s Jared P. talking about orgies, you’re right—he’s probably full of crap. When you feel like you’re ready for more info, I’ll tell you, and you’ll know I’m right.”
In this scenario, the child made it clear that they didn’t really want all the details, but they did need to know enough to ease their minds and make sure they didn’t feel out of step with their peers. By changing the tone of the question and making it clear that the child was in the driver’s seat on the information bus, the conversation went where it needed to go.
Intellectual consent, or consent for knowledge, follows the same rules as physical consent, so it can be revoked at any time. It is very empowering for a child to know that they can not only stop listening, but tell you to please stop talking when they are feeling done with a conversation.
At a truck stop late one evening, I was reminded of the joys of having a new reader in my household. We had gone in to use the restroom and my daughter was standing by the sink waiting for everyone to finish drying their hands so we could hit the road. As she stood there, she caught sight of a sign advertising help for victims of human trafficking.
“Mom … what is sex-you-all assault and human … whatever that said?”
“Sexual assault and human trafficking?”
“Yeah, that’s it.”
“Oh boy. Where did you see those words?”
“On the sign in the bathroom.”
“Okay, well, are you sure you want to know? It might make you have a lot of questions, and these answers might be a bit scary.”
“I do want to know.”
At that point, I explained the concept of rape to my nine-year-old child. I explained that sometimes, people will hurt other people with sex. That when a person violates another person’s consent and does things to their body without permission, that’s called sexual assault. That this hurts the person, and that people who have been sexually assaulted or raped deserve to have support and help in recovering from that hurt. And then I checked in.
“I know that’s a lot to learn about—if you want to take a pause in talking about it for now, we absolutely can.”
She opted to take a pause—she needed time to process that contrary to her life experience so far, not everyone asked for consent or respected other people’s boundaries. Her face was fixed up in concern and deep thought, so I made sure to reassure her with a mantra we’ve used for her whole life.
“Hey, kiddo—you remember that my whole job is to keep you safe, right?”
“Yes.”
“What happens if anyone tries to push your boundaries or not wait for your consent?”
“I … say no? Don’t let them?”
“You can say no, that’s true. But what else? You tell …”
“Mom.”
“And what will Mom do?”
“Protect me.”
She had asked me a question, provided her consent to receive the information, and then withdrawn consent when she realized she wanted more time before engaging with the information further. For my child in this moment with this subject, I felt comfortable allowing her to be the judge of what she was ready for. But being willing to provide the information simply because I was asked is not always what happens—just as it’s our job to protect the physical safety of our children, it’s our job to protect their intellectual and emotional safety, too.
If my five-year-old had been awake when my older child asked the question about sexual assault and human trafficking, my answer would have been different. My answer would have been: “I know you want to know what those concepts are, but your little sister is not old enough to understand them yet. So to keep her brain safe, we are going to wait to talk about them until we have some privacy.” These limits—a willingness to say “Your brain isn’t ready for this, but I’ll write it down and we’ll talk about the things you need to know before I explain what you’re asking about”—extend to topics we don’t feel our children have the foundation to understand yet.
As a caregiver, you know your children very well. You know what brings them joy, you know what makes them sad, you know how they handle being scared, and what makes them laugh. You also know if they can hold information separately in their minds, or if they tend to catastrophize. I have answered questions differently depending on how the child asking handles information. I have one child who is basically the physical manifestation of anxiety—they are quick to jump to what could go wrong, and any negative happenings in the world can easily be thought of as happening to them. In contrast, another child is much better at understanding that bad things happen, and that they are not terribly likely to happen to them. These differences in our children are why it’s important to remember that all the guidelines set out in this book are exactly that—guidelines.
There’s no one “right” age for giving children information. And there’s no perfect formula for knowing if a child is ready to hear things. We might make mistakes—we might think a child isn’t ready, only to discover they already know. Or we might think that because our child asked, they are ready to hear it … when in reality, they are trying to process something they were inadvertently exposed to. Just like the Bob Ross analogy at the beginning of this book, we can take errors in judgment and turn them into “happy accidents”—take our inevitable missteps in our sharing of knowledge and recover from them. Simply making a mistake in how we have or have not shared information doesn’t make the overall work we’ve invested invalid or ruin our child’s future. What is important is that we communicate honestly with our kids regarding what they know and want to know, think carefully about our boundaries regarding sharing information, and feel comfortable and prepared to enforce those boundaries when our kids test them.
Because boyyyyyy, will they test them.
By asking you questions you never saw coming.
Questions like “Did you and Uncle Jeff have sex?” when you and your brother-in-law emerge from a room with a closed door.
