Consent Considerations

I think a lot about consent ❤️. Partly because I have a young adult daughter away at college and also because I’m raising teenage sons and want them to behave respectfully…and partly because I have heard so much in my office over the years about sexual assault or sexual boundary violations. Teenagers and young adults talk to therapists about dating, intimacy, awkwardness, and hook up culture. We hear a lot.  We encourage young people to talk to their parents about values and to cultivate their own values as well. Not all kids have parents or a trusted adult that they can discuss this big topic with. I would just suggest to you that if you don’t discuss sex/pleasure/birth control/intimacy/consent, they will be navigating this topic alone, learning from the internet, learning from porn, or from their peers (and the information may or may not be correct).

Be the parent that tries to have the difficult conversation.

Feel free to use these scripts if they are helpful for you. They are blunt, direct, and not for the faint of heart! I have one tailored for girls and one tailored for boys. The talking points are generalized for heterosexual relationships, however, the issues are similar for LGBTQ+ youth so should still feel relevant.