Consent Parenting

Hello everyone! Welcome to another episode of Voices of Your Village! Today on episode 136 I am joined by Rosalia Rivera to talk about consent parenting. What does it look like to parent from a place of consent? To teach our tiny humans from infancy what consent looks like, what it feels like, and how to advocate for it. This is a topic that is very dear to my heart and I am so jazzed that I got to hangout with Rosalia and chat about it with her. I have been following her on instagram and learning from her constantly. In this conversation we got to talk about tough things like when your kid has to get in their carseat, when we need them to do something and what that looks like when coming from a place of consent parenting.

After you tune in, come on over to instagram @seed.and.sew and let’s chat about it. Let’s dive into your follow up questions and be in conversation about this topic. It is such a vital one. If we are gonna change the culture that our kids grow up in, compared to the one we grew up in (that I grew up in, for sure!) then we need to keep having these tough conversations.

Alright folks, let’s dive in!

Rosalia is a survivor of sexual abuse, she wants to make it clear that she only states that at the beginning of her introduction because it influences her work and it is a really important piece of how she teaches. Born in El Salvador and grew up in New York, Rosalia now lives in Canada with her husband and three young sons. Her journey of teaching about consent started with her own kiddos. When she had kids she realized she didn’t want to make the same parenting errors that her mother had. So, in realizing that Rosalia sought out to create work that was accessible and empowering to survivors to have these conversations. Now, she has been consent-educating her children and other parents for 4 years now.

“With moms there is this idea that your body has to be shared at all times.”

Rosalia and I started by chatting about grooming. Grooming is the strategy that predators use to gain the trust and affection of a child, for the purposes of abusing them. But, it is not just the child. Parents can also be groomed by a predator, which normalizes abuse for the child. At one point I was an advocate for a person who had been the victim of abuse in the workplace, and there were others who said, “He would never do that, he is such a sweet human.” He had this presentation to everyone, so when the abuse happened it was a shock that no one could believe. This clash of realities is what makes abusers so powerful.

For a lot of parents, this becomes the problem of wondering who to trust. They don’t want to be paranoid. This is why it is so important to learn what grooming signs are and listen to your intuition, and make it a point to teach your kids to listen to their own intuition. 

“Boundaries are a way to show love. If you truly love a person, showing it through respect of their boundaries is the truest way to show that love.

Rosalia and I continued chatting about how to create consent culture within our families, including our own children but also how our children interact with their grandparents. We offer different ways of connection besides touching that are just as effective at fostering a relationship. When we tell kids that they don’t have to hug or kiss, we aren’t telling them to ignore or be rude, we are just reminding them that they get to choose how they show affection with their body.

“In these little ways that we are teaching kids from day one, it makes a huge difference in how they are going to internalize consent as they grow up.”

For more of Rosalia, you can find her at aboutconsent.com or @consentparenting on instagram. She also has a podcast, About Consent, which is more for survivors who want to step into healing their journeys. Rosalia, thank you so much for coming on the podcast to chat with me today. This was such a full and important episode, thank you for sharing your wisdom with all of us.

Now it is time to keep this conversation going. Come find me @seed.and.sew and keep the ball rolling. This is a tricky topic, remember to give yourself grace as you are navigating consent parenting with your tiny humans.

Until next time,

Xoxo

Alyssa