As an autistic child, I learnt that nobody listens when kids say 'no'

I must have been around the age of 7 or 8 when my mum decided she’d had enough of me not hugging people – every other child was normal and gave hugs and kisses so why didn’t I just grow up and do it too?

I was standing at a family gathering in tears, being encouraged (read: forced), to hug my dad’s cousin who I’d never met before, just because they were family. Looking back, it still shocks me that a room full of adults were perfectly fine with pushing a child to the edge of breakdown just because an adult felt weird that a child didn’t want to hug them.

It matters that I didn't consent

I shouldn’t need to mention that I have autism and that people touching me, even if it’s just a hand on my shoulder, is massively out of my comfort zone and greatly increases the chance of a breakdown. I shouldn’t need to mention that my family knew this after a few doctor visits to figure out why I was so ‘weird’. All that mattered in that situation is that I did not consent to being touched by someone I did not know, but I was made to anyway because the adult’s feelings were more important than mine. It might seem silly that I remember this moment over 15 years later, but it taught me an important lesson: no one cares whether I say no or not, or if I’m uncomfortable or not; I’ll have to do what they want anyway.

That statement sounds a bit extreme, and we’ve been discussing consent for so long now that you might be getting bored of it. However, Russell Brand has recently brought up an important topic that has seemingly divided the nation: should we ask for consent when tickling children (among other things)?

Brand has been quoted in the Guardian and many others as saying tickling “is an attempt to subvert the child’s bodily autonomy; to take away their right to their own space and peace”. You may think this is out there but he has one thing right: we need to make sure that children know they have a right to their own body and personal space. I see posts such as this regularly on Reddit, where a child is being violated by another child because the parents never bothered to teach them about personal space and consent. If a child is taught that their own personal space doesn’t matter (or if the subject is never brought up at all), there is nothing stopping them repeating this behaviour with other children.

Two sides seemed to have formed on Twitter over the consent for tickling debate: a) the world has gone mad, and b) tickling is torture. This basically reads as people who loved being tickled and think that everyone should love it, and people who hated it. Of course there’s people who fall in the middle of these extremes and this is where I also fall.

I may hate being tickled but there’s no need for it to be banned – all that’s needed is an understanding that everyone is different and enjoys different things.

A YouGov poll showed 11% of British people think that you should ask for consent to tickle, while 64% said it was unnecessary, with the remaining 25% being unsure. The important question is: what does consent even mean to a child? Teaching consent to a child might seem pointless but I’d argue that cases like the above Reddit post proves that it’s necessary. Consent in the media has really only been talked about with regards to sex and adult relationships, things that children aren’t going to experience for a while. But what we learn as kids translates into the rest our lives as we grow.

What if we had all learnt about consent?

Let’s go back to me for a sec. I learned that saying no didn’t matter. This was constantly reinforced throughout my life by people who continued to ignore me saying no – the bully who broke my arm at age 10 after I told him to leave me alone, the teacher who defended him when I tried to complain, the guy who consistently touched my hair at school no matter how many times I said stop at age 14, and most recently 2 ‘lads’ in a building foyer who thought it was okay to grab me while I was waiting for a friend (if someone’s ignoring you and walking away the no is implied).

One thing is abundantly clear: these people were taught that they can do what they want no matter what the other person does or says. What if these people had been taught that saying no as a kid was a valid answer that should be respected?

A Huffington post article reviews a child friendly book, ‘C is for Consent’, and discusses how a parent should not be insulted by their child saying ‘no’ to a hug, kiss, or indeed a tickle. If they can say no to you then they can say no to others and will understand what someone else saying ‘no’ means. Teaching kids about bodily autonomy early on with a book like this lets your child know that they don’t have to be uncomfortable, and that it’s not okay to make their friends, classmates, or siblings feel uncomfortable either.

So do we need to ask for consent every time we want to hug, kiss, tickle, or in some way show what we see as affection to a child? I think the important answer here is to just listen to your child, know them, and respect their feelings. Let them know that they’re allowed to say ‘no’ to unwanted touch.

I babysit a 3 year old boy whose parents want him to learn consent from a young age so they chose tickling.

You have to ask, “May I tickle you?” Wait for a “Yes” response and then you may tickle. If at any point, someone says, STOP, you have to stop.
He’s 3 and he understands.

— Gwennie ☺️ (@gwen_wilsonSA) October 3, 2018

Some kids love hugs and tickling, and some kids would rather sit by themselves and give you a little wave instead. If you say “Come give me a hug”, and your child says “no thanks”, don’t put your own feelings above your child’s, just listen to them. Every child is different, and every child is allowed to grow and change their minds about what they like.

If you’d like some links on how to teach your child consent, or if you’re not sure on what consent means for a child, there’s some great articles on fatherly and autistic mama.

I still have issues saying ‘no’ and ‘stop’ to people because those words have been ignored so much that they stopped having any meaning. It’s important that we normalise consent for all ages, so that we don’t feel awkward or bad using it in any context. Children grow up to work in offices and other environments where they should be able to confidently say “that’s making me uncomfortable, please stop”, and have an incident end there. If we’re mad for thinking that, then mad must be the place to be.