I didn’t just start thinking about how to end sexual violence when I sat down to write this. I’ve been thinking about it for most of my life, certainly since adolescence, when people began confiding in me about the assaults that devastated them. One friend described what happened to them as a slow murder of their soul.
I think about everyone who stayed silent out of shame or fear. I think about those who did speak out and were blamed or not believed by their communities, their families, and their friends, the very people who were supposed to support and advocate for them. Many described this secondary assault as more painful than the first.
So when I read about the alleged gang rape at Cornell, I felt deep sorrow for Jane Doe and shock at the response of the men and women who spoke out against her. We must not forget that sexual assault is never the victim’s fault. Responsibility always belongs to the person who assaults them. It does not matter what she wore, what her relationship was with the person or people who assaulted her, or whether she said yes and then changed her mind. And if she was under the influence of substances, even by her own choice, that does not lessen anyone else’s responsibility. I am speaking as a clinician and as a human, not as a lawyer.
So how do we teach our children, especially our sons, not to sexually assault another person?
That question keeps haunting me. I don’t know the men involved in the Cornell case, or the other countless men who have committed sexual assault. I do know that what was taught, or not taught, to them before the assaults contributed to their behavior — for instance, when they ignored a person telling them “No,” either verbally or by their body language; when belonging to a group mattered more than doing what was right; when they disregarded a person’s boundary; when they did not stop when a person was impaired; or when they did not protect a person in danger, and all of this was seen as acceptable.
I couldn’t help but look back at my own children’s childhoods. Some of my proudest moments as a mother happened at parent-teacher conferences when I learned that my son had noticed a classmate sitting alone and invited him to join his lunch table. Another time, I learned that my daughter had stood up for a child who was being bullied, knowing it might cost her friendships.
We begin shaping our children the moment we hold them as infants and respond to their needs with love and compassion. Babies learn empathy by receiving it when we respond to their cries and name their feelings. They learn that their feelings matter, as do the feelings of others. How we treat our children and others becomes how they treat other people as well.
We teach toddlers about boundaries by teaching them that their bodies belong to them. That means not forcing them to hug relatives, and making sure that when a sibling says “stop,” they stop. And we teach them that behavior has consequences: When you hurt someone, you take responsibility for what you did and do what you can to make the situation better.
Children learn respect, compassion, and right from wrong through what their parents (or primary caregivers) say, how they behave, and what they overhear. If they hear the adults around them say a girl “asked for it,” that is where victim-blaming is learned. Instead, we can model kindness, empathy, respect for boundaries, respect for others, self-respect, respect for rules, and the critical thinking it takes to resist groupthink.
We can’t control every influence. Children learn from everything around them: school, friends, their friends’ parents, television, and social media. That is why parents’ influence is so important. Their words and actions matter. Parenting happens through both messaging and modeling. Children notice more than most parents realize: the subtle cues and the conversations they assume their children weren’t paying attention to. And when a parent does realize that they sent the wrong message through words or behavior, they can tell their children they made a mistake and explain what they want them to learn instead.
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Through our own actions, we show children how to respect other people’s boundaries and needs. We teach them to read one another’s facial expressions and body language. We teach them that if someone has been drinking or using other substances and is not able to make decisions for themselves, they cannot take advantage of that person. We teach them that wrongdoing has consequences. And we teach them that if they are part of a group that is doing things they are uncomfortable with, or that they know are wrong, they need to separate from the group and even get help if needed. Being different from a group is hard, but doing what’s right matters more.
Teaching empathy, compassion, boundaries, respect, courage, ethics, consequences, and critical thinking is no guarantee against abuse, but it’s certainly a great start. And I hope that raising children with empathy means raising adults who believe survivors and provide support.
