Are young boys not being taught consent and boundaries through play?

[Dryshampoofordays]

Does anytime else worry about children not being taught consent in play from a young age? I went to a soft play party recently, young primary age. My toddler was invited as well so I was in the play bit with them and seeing the “boisterous” boys playing was just worrying to me. There was a large group of boys constantly “play fighting” all looked stressed, getting hurt, wrestling, hitting each other, crying etc but seemed unable to stop or play any other way? I had to tell them to stop hurting each other, or tell them “he said STOP” multiple times. I have daughters and have always been so consistent in teaching stop means stop, or someone looking unsure means stop, but these boys had no concept of that at all, socially they seemed not to know how to play without the adrenaline of hurting each other. Is this common with young boys? Surely it’s down to how they are being socialised and not biological? I’m worried about the longer term impact of not understanding consent, and normalising hurting others and being hurt just as “being a boy”. I have two daughters so wondering if parents of boys think this is a thing?

I had to tell a relatives child (12) 3x recently to stop smacking/touching his sisters(8) bottom. Yet the second she did the same to him she was put in "time out". According to his parents he's "just being a boy". Yuck

I think the problems with boys and consent are wel documented and true. However, i think we can drop the slack with girls/women on this. A lot of females don't think the same rules apply to them so will touch without consent, especially in environments where there is a shift from the norm.

For instance in kink and swinging environments, a lot of women have experienced inappropriate and non-consensual touch from other women more than they have men.

The other thing is that males often don't understand when a female has violated their consent. They have more understanding when the violator is also male. A lot of men don't understand that a woman grabbing their genitals is sexual assault in the same way if they grabbed her genital area. They don't know that the law is obliged to take it as seriously.

We need to teach consent equally to all.

Permissive parenting - some parents have lost sight of needing to give firm boundaries, the word no can be a complete sentence too. Thankfully the tide seems to be turning and today’s toddlers (ok specifically the ones that come to the drop in I organise through work) are being told no and age appropriate punishment given (typically removing them from the flashpoint) something we didn’t see 3 years ago straight after Covid, we remarked on this the other day

I tell my son and daughter about consent. “No” and “stop” mean that.

As the parent of a 6 year old boy… this is just how they play 🤷‍♀️

@hahabahbag I agree that permissive parenting is a problem - kids learn by our example so if we never model saying no or stop ti unsafe behaviour our kids won’t learn how to do the same when they are being mistreated. I think k that adds to the point you made @Lexibletheflexible - if boys aren’t learning what consent means then they are more vulnerable not just to violating others boundaries but also not feeling able to speak out (or even understand) when they are being violated.

This is horrific! And at age 12??!

I get kids need rough and tumble play, and the sensory/proprioceptive part is really important. But do you consistently address it and intervene if kids are hurting each other or not listening to others communicating they don’t like it or want it to stop? Because I would with my girls if they’re play fighting and it goes too far?

Agreed. But it also means we have to act when their consent is violated with.the same rigour as we do for little girls. For instance, if a boy slapped a little girl's bum, or pulled down her trousers, there would be an edge to the repercussions that hints towards the sexual inappropriateness of his actions. He didnt just hit her, he touched a private area/exposed her private areas.

I don't think we give that same edge to little girls' when they do similar to other girls or boys. It's just seen as a little girl being silly/perhaps boisterous.

I wouldn’t let him hurt or go too far but my son has fun with his friends and often tells me this is how they play at school too without adult involvement. If my son doesn’t want to play I have told him to leave the situation which he does. Tbh I’ve been to many soft play parties and seen this behaviour and only seen tears a couple of times. The kids then apologised and carried on playing (in the same manner). They are a large group of nice boys happy to play with other girls, make up their own games and this is just a part of them

It depends on the parents.

My son and his friends are 5 and they all know that the play has to stop when someone says stop and they’ve been taught that from when they were very little.

If they want to play wrestle or jump
on each other or whatever they have to ask if it’s okay first and respect what the other person says.

I wonder if this is easier for children with siblings to get, purely because they get more supervised time with other children where parents can correct behaviours.

I have a boy and a girl and the rules aren’t any different for either of them.

So is your son not taught to stop when the person he’s playing with doesn’t like it anymore? Or says stop or no?

They can absolutely be rough and tumble and still stop when someone says stop.

That’s so messed up!

I’ve never encouraged play fighting and rough play with any of my kids - it breeds trouble - why anyone would ever think this is a good idea or promotes positive behaviour I have no idea.

Interesting that is the complete opposite of what @BabblingBiddy posted having observed.
sexually inappropriate behaviour should always be stopped, risk assessed (i.e where has it come from - CSA?) and risk managed going forward, never down played from girls or boys.

There wasn’t any sexually inappropriate behaviour at the soft play yesterday it was probably “typical boys being boys” and boisterous playing that they all seemed used to. But as a parent of girls I thought god I’d never ignore my daughter behaving like that or allow others to do that to her!

I'm not sure what's going on in that family.

As the parent of 2 grown up boys, no it isn't.

And yes the behaviour of my young relative is disgusting. But even more so his parents reactions. I spend as little time with them as possible.

Yes, this is what I would expect to see and in my friendship group the girls and boys are all parented this way as well - even the very energetic ones!

Teach kids to have fun but always make sure your friends are ok, and say stop/come away if others aren’t respecting your no. There seemed to be a large group of families who don’t see these things as a problem at the party I was at though!

As a parent of a son and aunt to nieces and nephews that I have seen often early ages through to teens, all the kids are pulled up if any physical play gets out of hand or any child no longer wants to play.

Girls get pulled up as often as the boys do. This is not a boy/girl issue it is just child development.

I have 5 boys and although there was definitely rough and tumble play fighting when they were young, they didn't hurt each other and would have stopped immediately if someone got upset. They did have a couple of little friends who's boisterous play got a bit much at times but they were both less socially able and didn't always pick up on social cues, probably ND. In my experience, most parents I've known would step in if rough play was being taken too far.

I've just had a day out with my daughter and her friend both 10, and I had to tell the friend on 2 different occasions that my daughter haf said no 5 or 6 times, one was about going to see reptiles- shes terrified of spiders, and another was about dipping her chips into her milkshake. I just said, she's said no 5 times, you need to drop it! Makes me wonder what happens when I'm not there!

That sounds so frustrating! At least you can talk to your daughter about what you saw and help her plan how she can manage this in the future/when to come to you if it becomes a problem. Well done for sticking up for her and modelling how firm you need to be with people when they try pressure her. Good lesson for the friend as well, I genuinely think some kids are just not being taught this stuff - if they don’t get taught about boundaries then they will just never learn!

It absolutely riles me when people say boys will be boys etc. No it doesn't matter what the genitalia is between your legs you should never lay your hands on another person full stop. My DS5 is going through a physical stage of attacking his sister. He absolutely gets pulled up on it every single time as does she. I volunteer for a voluntary group and at the moment have all boys. One set of twins decided they were going to wrestle in the middle of an activity and proceed to kick each other in the privates. Like why do you think this is acceptable boys?

You can absolutely get excess energy out of boys in a more constructive way than letting them fight, wrestle or attack each other.

As the parent of an adult boy, no it absolutely is not just how they play. It's very narrow minded and dismissive of you to say so. Parents like you are the problem.

I think there's a huge difference between 12 year old lads play fighting and 12 year old lads hitting a younger sibling