Importance of consent

Ask your child for their consent in as many opportunities as possible during their daily routine. Key practice opportunities include:

• before providing personal care (e.g., showering, toileting, dressing)
• before giving hugs or other affectionate touch
• before entering your child’s private space (e.g., bedroom)

After asking your child for consent, wait for their response and respect their choice. This is essential to support your child to understand that their consent has meaning and that other people should respect it. Teachers, health professionals and other family members should also be encouraged to support your child to practise giving consent.

If something needs to happen and seeking consent is not possible (e.g., for safety reasons), then ensure that an explanation is given about why that thing needs to happen and consider reframing the situation to give your child options. For example, instead of ‘Can I put the seatbelt on you?’ you could say ‘It’s the law for everyone to wear a seatbelt when they’re in a car. This is to help keep people safe. Do you want to put the seatbelt on yourself, or should I help you?

Being able to ask for consent is equally important as being able to give consent. Both skills are required.

Prompt your child to ask other people for their consent in as many opportunities as possible during their daily routine. Start with prompting them to ask simple questions using their preferred communication style. For example, ‘Can I…?’ Teachers, health professionals and other family members should also be encouraged to prompt your child to ask others for consent.

Key opportunities for practise include:

• before touching other people e.g., giving hugs to other people, including you
• before touching other people’s belongings e.g., phone, computer, toys
• when planning outings or playing games with friends

Modelling consent in your daily interactions with other people helps to show your child how they should practise consent. Consider asking other important people in your child’s life to model consent in their interactions with you as well. If your child learns best from repetition, consent needs to be modelled consistently by people around them.

You could also record a video of yourself or your child asking and giving consent in different situations. Your child can then re-watch the video as many times as they need to learn the skill. This is called video modelling, and can be particularly useful for children with autism who may find face-to-face social situations confronting.