We Can’t Teach Consent While Training Obedience
Key Idea:
We spend enormous energy teaching young people about sexual consent — yet in most other areas of their lives, we routinely override their autonomy. If we want them to recognize coercion and leave harmful situations, we cannot simultaneously train them to comply with authority without question. Consent is not a single lesson. It is a daily practice of agency.
We are talking about consent more than ever.
We teach children the language of “no.”
We explain bodily autonomy.
We emphasize that coercion is not consent.
And yet, in most of their daily lives, young people have very little real power.
They are required to go where they’re placed.
To follow rules they didn’t help create.
To ask permission to meet basic needs.
To defer to authority — even when they disagree.
Young people are one of the only groups in our society legally required to surrender control over most of their waking hours.
We call it education.
We call it structure.
We call it preparation.
But it is also — undeniably — a system built on limited autonomy.
And that contradiction matters.
“No” Has to Feel Like an Option
In recent high-profile abuse cases, survivors have described something haunting: not just harm, but a deep sense of powerlessness. Grooming, manipulation, shame, and fear can distort a person’s perception of what choices are actually available.
Sometimes the door isn’t locked.
But saying no doesn’t feel real.
Leaving doesn’t feel possible.
That’s how coercion works. It narrows the imagination. It conditions compliance. It teaches survival through accommodation.
And if we zoom out — uncomfortably — we have to ask:
What are we teaching young people about their ability to refuse?
Where We Get This Wrong
It’s easy to point at institutions.
It’s harder to look at ourselves.
Many of us — parents, educators, caregivers — override consent in small, socially acceptable ways every day.
“Go give Auntie a hug.”
“You’re fine — it’s not a big deal.”
“I know you don’t feel like it, but you’ll be glad you did.”
“Trust me.”
Sometimes we do it out of convenience.
Sometimes out of genuine care.
Sometimes because we have more experience.
And often, we do.
We’ve lived longer. We’ve seen more. We understand consequences our children can’t yet fully imagine.
But experience can quietly become dismissal.
We can start trusting our perspective more than we trust a young person’s internal signals — their hesitation, their resistance, their sense that something feels off.
Discomfort itself isn’t the problem.
Growth requires discomfort.
Learning requires discomfort.
The real question is: who gets to discern what that discomfort means?
Is it the kind that builds resilience?
Or the kind that signals a boundary?
Is it stretching — or is it overriding?
When young people rarely get to participate in that discernment, they don’t develop the muscle for it.
And there’s another layer we don’t talk about enough.
We are often afraid to let them make mistakes.
Not only because mistakes can hurt —
but because their mistakes can reflect on us.
What will other adults think?
Will it look like we’ve lost control?
Will we be judged as permissive, irresponsible, naive?
So we step in sooner.
We smooth things over.
We decide on their behalf.
Sometimes we call that protection.
Sometimes we call it love.
And often, it is both.
But if young people are rarely trusted to interpret their own signals — and to experience the consequences of small, survivable missteps — they don’t build confidence in their internal compass.
They learn to look outward for direction.
Compliance Is Not the Same as Safety
We often equate obedience with goodness.
“She’s such a good kid.”
“He never causes trouble.”
“They follow directions.”
But compliance is not the same thing as discernment.
A young person who has spent years being rewarded for quiet obedience may struggle to access the internal questions that matter most:
Do I want this?
Does this feel right?
Am I allowed to say no?
If most authority in your life is non-negotiable, your nervous system learns that resistance is risky.
Even when resistance is necessary.
Consent Is a Muscle
Autonomy is not a switch that flips at eighteen.
It is a muscle that develops through use.
Young people build agency when:
Their “no” is respected in low-stakes situations.
They have meaningful input into decisions that affect them.
They can question rules without humiliation.
They are trusted with increasing responsibility.
They are allowed to leave conversations or spaces that feel wrong.
Not unlimited freedom.
Not the absence of guidance.
But real participation in shaping their own lives.
Without those daily repetitions, consent becomes theoretical — something memorized in a classroom rather than embodied in experience.
If We’re Serious About Consent
Right now, we send young people two conflicting signals:
Protect your boundaries.
Do what you’re told.
One message prepares them to recognize coercion.
The other prepares them to tolerate it.
We cannot meaningfully teach consent in one context while structuring childhood around obedience in every other.
If we want young people to recognize exploitation — and to refuse it — we must give them practice making decisions, setting limits, and navigating disagreement long before the stakes are life-altering.
The ability to walk away from harm doesn’t appear out of nowhere.
It grows in environments where autonomy is honored consistently — not occasionally.
If we are serious about consent, we have to be serious about power.
And power begins long before adulthood.
