Learn A Mom’s Simple Game To Help Her Sons Learn About Body Language & Consent

Anyone who has spent any amount of time with children (or watching Bluey) can tell you that little ones learn the most through play. Often, they won’t even know they’re learning but because they’re engaged they’re absorbing the intended lesson most effectively. Social media personality Kelsey Pomeroy — who posts across platforms as @kelsewhatelse — often shares useful tips about how she approaches learning and travel with her two sons, from maintaining polite conversation (a challenge for young kids!) to the best way to approach beach days.

Recently, she reshared a video on Instagram highlighting The Body Language game, which she plays with her sons to help them learn consent.

The Body Language Game is simple: her son comes up to give her a hug and she’ll say yes or no, but not verbally. She only conveys her response through body language. “Because we can all read and understand body language,” she explains.

When the boy comes up, she greets him with open arms and squeezes him back enthusiastically.

“What did my body language tell you?” she asks him.

“Yes!” he answers.

In the next round, her child comes up to her and she shrinks her body away from him with her shoulders up high in a kind of cringe.

“Did I say stop with my words?” she debriefs. “No. But I said stop with my body, right?”

She goes through the game a few times. There are smiles and giggles and Pomeroy praises her child for his expert ability to read body language. She then lets him know the utility of this game in the real world: if they want to hug or even high-five a friend they can pay attention to that person’s body language to see if it’s something they also want to do.

More than that, she explains, her sons have the skills to help others just by reading their body language. For example, if they see a friend trying to hug someone whose body language is communicating “no,” they can speak up on their behalf. (“The person does not want to get hugged!”) They can also read body language to know when someone might want a little more contact— if someone is looking sad and dejected on the playground, that could be a sign that they’re looking for someone to play with.

“If I had daughters I would play this game with them too to help teach enthusiastic consent and help practice setting boundaries.,” Pomeroy writes in her caption. “This was only part 1 of a four-part series on the body language game and also using our voice to speak up and say no. We talk about how some people might say yes when they really mean no. Because they feel obligated, or scared, or uncomfortable. So it's important that we also learn how to read body language and focus on enthusiastic consent. We also reverse the roles so he can practice protecting his own body too. We also practice using our voice to say ‘no’, ‘stop’, and ‘I don't like that.’”

It can be hard to know how to broach big topics like consent and body language and boundaries with your child. Often, this is because we know the ways and situations in which they’ll need to employ these skills are a long way off and sometimes scary. But as Pomeroy shows, there’s an age-appropriate way to explain just about everything: it just requires thinking outside of the box and having some fun while doing it.