By Children being taught the principles of consent is important by laying out a foundation of what consent is to a child before they learn about consent in a sexual context.
Learning about boundaries is common in kindergarten. Teachers educate their students about their space bubble and respect. Elementary school is when you learn to properly engage with other people of another background to yours, including race and gender.
Sarah Casper and Daniel Pollack wrote an essay last year about why we need to teach consent skills to children.
“Children can learn how to effectively handle rejection by curating a list of respectful responses to a friend’s ‘no,’ practicing these in everyday interactions and intentionally using a pre-identified coping skill when they’re frustrated,” Pollack said.
Daniel Pollack is a professor at Yeshiva University with an extensive knowledge in cases involving foster care, child abuse, child neglect and sexual grooming of children, according to his LinkedIn.
Casper, former doctor of psychology candidate, is an advocate for teaching children “critical thinking, decision-making, and social-emotional skills” through her Comprehensive Consent program.
She explains that consent skills are a variety of social emotional tools that help children learn how to talk about physical interactions with others. She advises schools, parents, and caregivers must teach consent skills to children in “low stakes” environments before they become aware of “high stakes” environments.
“Sex is a high-stakes environment,” Casper said. “But sex is not the first place where consent needs to be discussed.”
Whether a child is capable of setting boundaries and knowing how to identify coercion will influence how they react in a high stakes environment as an adult.
