You might be awkward talking with your kids about sex. The idea of sitting down and talking with your children about their changing bodies and feelings, about their wet dreams and menstrual cycles might equate in your mind to living out some horrific torture. Enduring the unendurable.
So, fine.
Don’t help them to understand the forests of hair covering the plains that were once their bodies, don’t help them to navigate the feelings of fear and confusion they connect with their physical, emotional and mental changes. But please. Please, please, please, PLEASE. Teach them about consent. www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOS5_I3Yzog
When you teach them about consent you build a better, safer more respectful world. They won’t learn about consent through the shows they watch or the video games they play. YOU must teach them. There are so many confusing images of relationships and love in the media, your children need a guide of what is ok. They need to learn how to be respectful of someone else’s body.
Especially our sons.
We need to teach our sons consent. We need to teach our sons not to rape. The statistics are out there and they are ugly. http://sacha.ca/resources/statistics 99% of sexual assault are perpetuated by males, so let’s teach them another way. We need to do more than show our support in hash tags and Facebook posts, we need to teach our young men that they are responsible for their own actions, that they can build a better, fairer, safer world by their deeds alone.
Nelson Mandela said, “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” Parents, it is time to draw our swords and throw ourselves into the battle for change.
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