Parenting is one of the toughest jobs to date. With difficult conversations, to life lessons, and insurmountable patience, parents can tend to use parenting themselves.
2018 has been a very vocal year against sexual misconduct. With movements such as, #TimesUp and #MeToo, now is the time to instil in your children the importance of consent and importance of our bodies.
From a young age, parents tend to shelter their children from the evil’s of the world in order to make them live carefree and happily, but educating your children on their body parts can benefit them throughout the entirety of their lives.
Teaching your children scientific names for their sexual organs will help them associate boundaries. Penis, vagina, breasts, etc. are terms that are pertinent to understanding your sexual boundaries. These are not bad words, but words that will help children understand their bodies and when they felt they have been violated.
Not only could teaching the proper terms for their body parts help with setting boundaries, but it could overall help children communicate any instance surrounding their body part that needs attention, “my testes hurt,” or “my testes itch.”
Cutesy language or nicknames given to body parts can also create confusion for children and adults. If one little girl refers to her vagina as something completely different from another little girl in her class, she may not be able to communicate her need properly.
Creating nicknames for body parts can lead children to believe that the real terms, the proper terms, are shameful, leading them to be conditioned to be embarrassed or ashamed of those body parts.
As well as teaching proper terms for body parts, it is important to illicit boundaries on activities. Sex positive families, can help raising children insurmountably.
“Give your auntie a hug.”
“Give your uncle a kiss.”
“Hug your brother and makeup.”
Conditioning your children that they are required to give physical affection to anyone, even their family members, can be setting them up unsuccessfully for later on in their lives. You can instead approach them with…
“May I have a hug?”
“Do you want to give your auntie a hug?”
Leaving the power up to the children will help them to understand that they set the boundaries for what they feel physically comfortable doing. Letting your children know that they set the limits for their bodies will help them to trust their instincts.
Later in life, as we have seen, many men and women are faced with times where they have unfortunately felt sexually violated, and have had a hard time communicating it. Equipping children could help them feel more confident in their adult lives with right and wrong.
In this political climate, we can’t undo the wrong doings that have happened to victims of sexual assault, but we can see where we can adjust things in hopes to prevent more misconduct in the future.
Children are a great place to start.
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