If there's one thing I'm learning from the recent survey about children's participation in worship and Sunday school (to which you may still respond!) it's that many of you are very hesitant about including children in indoor activities until there is a vaccine available to those under 12. Right now that looks like some point in September.
Until then, we will begin to meet as a congregation, both outdoors and indoors. Many - if not most - of our adults and teens will be vaccinated may be starting to feel pretty okay with closer contact and un-masked interactions (though our current policy will be for everyone to be masked indoors). But children are still vulnerable.
I'm wondering if this is a time to brush up on how we talk about and communicate consent related to our and our kids' space. If you've participated in Zoom worship or listened in afterwards in the past couple of weeks, you'll have heard Pastor Megan preaching the gospel of consent. Because for so long we've been podded with the same folks, we may have grown accustomed to knowing (or thinking we know) the desires and expectations of the people we're with. Now that we're venturing out into the world a little more, we need to negotiate, check in, test assumptions.
Practice helps! The other day on the way to meet up with a friend, my six-year-old was talking about what he was going to tell his friend. While not intentionally hurtful, what he was planning to share might not have gone over that well. I suggested an alternative, so did he. He tried out his new suggestion. We practiced. Having conversations about consent might also look like that: before an encounter, deciding what to say, how to say it in a sensitive way, trying out different ideas. Parents, we might also have to practice how to talk to other parents about our expectations.
Folks, I've shared it before (a long time ago) but it's worth sharing this chart from Liz Kleinrock, an educator and anti-bias, anti-racism trainer. So much of consent is about communication and respect, not just of another person's body but about their autonomy. May we all have both grace and respect for each other. And may this time of increased sensitivity to the vulnerability of others continue to live in us going forward.
