EU366: Talking Consent with Sara Davidson

Exploring Unschooling

Pam and Anna are joined by Living Joyfully Network member Sara Davidson to talk about what she’s been learning about consent.

Sara was previously on the podcast in episode 312. It was great to hear her family updates and to dive deep into the topic of consent. We talked about four different types of consent, enthusiastic, willing, unwilling, and coerced, and Sara shared some stories that illustrated these different types. We also explored some strategies and tools that have been helpful with our families as we try to live consensually together.

We hope you find our conversation helpful on your unschooling journey!

THINGS WE MENTION IN THIS EPISODE

The Living Joyfully Shop – books, courses, including Four Pillars of Unschooling, coaching calls, and more!

The Living Joyfully Network

Watch the video of our conversation on YouTube.

EU312: The Breadth of Unschooling with Sara Davidson

Ace – What Asexuality Reveals about Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex by Angela Chen

Come As You Are: The Surprising New Science That Will Transform Your Sex Life by Emily Nagoski, PhD

Are You Willing? Instantly transform your vitality, parenting and life flow with this breakthrough practice by Marion Rose

The Art of Receiving and Giving: The Wheel of Consent by Betty Martin

The Wheel of Consent

Follow @exploringunschooling on Instagram.

Follow @pamlaricchia on Instagram and Facebook.

Check out our website, livingjoyfully.ca for more information about navigating relationships and exploring unschooling.

Sign up to our mailing list to receive The Living Joyfully Dispatch, our biweekly email newsletter, and get a free copy of Pam’s intro to unschooling ebook, What is Unschooling?

We invite you to join us in The Living Joyfully Network, a wonderful online community for parents to connect and engage in candid conversations about living and learning through the lens of unschooling. This month, we’re talking about seasons—in unschooling and in life. Come and be part of the conversation!

So much of what we talk about on this podcast and in the Living Joyfully Network isn’t actually about unschooling. It’s about life. On The Living Joyfully Podcast, Anna Brown and Pam Laricchia talk about life, relationships, and parenting. You can check out the archive here, or find it in your your favorite podcast player.

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

PAM: Hello, everyone! I’m Pam Laricchia from Living Joyfully, and I’m joined by my co-host, Anna Brown, and our guest, Living Joyfully Network member Sara Davidson.

Hello to you all. On today’s episode, we have invited Sara to join us in talking about a topic that she’s been exploring deeply recently, which is consent, and I think this will be a really fun and interesting conversation.

Now, before we get started, have you checked out the Living Joyfully Shop yet? Our online shop has my unschooling books, lots of helpful coaching options and online courses such as Navigating Conflict, Validation, and Four Pillars of Unschooling. You can also learn more about the Living Joyfully Network there. We are excited to be creating a one-stop shop to support you on your unschooling journey, and we hope you’ll check it out at Livingjoyfullyshop.com.

So, with that done, Sara was first on the podcast a couple of years ago in episode 312, which we will link in the show notes. I encourage all our listeners to check out that episode and learn more about her journey to unschooling. We are very thrilled to have you back, Sara. It has been such a pleasure getting to know you on the Network these last few years.

I was just wondering, can you give us a bit of an update just to get the conversation started? How old are your kids now?

SARA: Oh, sure. I’d love to give an update. I believe that the last time we spoke on the podcast, my kiddos were 9 and 11, and now they are 12 and 14. In the last podcast episode, I talked about all the non-human animals that were part of our family and those have not changed except for we have one addition.

We rescued a bunny along the side of the road a couple months ago and ended up adopting them. And they are Bun Bun and they are a force of nature and we love them, but they have been quite an adventure. So, they are the new edition and our only animal edition.

Ryan and Izzy are my two kiddos and they have grown and changed so much. Some things have stayed the same. Yet they’re also almost completely different people than they were the last time I was a guest.

Ryan, he still really loves gaming. He’s into Roblox obbies and Total War, War Hammer 3 and Family Among Us. But what’s new is he’s just recently, like within the last year and a half, he’s started going on all my Saturday morning walks with the dog, which has led to this love of birding. He and I are really passionate birders. And we use this Merlin app to identify all the birds in our area.

Last year, he started getting interested in running. He set up his own training programs and he’s now run three 5K races all on his own, which has been really fun to watch. And he also started getting into football and he’s playing around with the idea of playing tackle league football, which would be the first organized sport that he’s ever done, if he decides to do that. So, that’s really cool.

Izzy’s 14. I don’t know if I mentioned that Ryan was my 12-year-old, but Izzy’s 14. She’s really into Microsoft Flight Simulator. She’s still very passionate about aviation, just like last time. She’s been running her own Discord server with some other homeschooling and unschooling kids that has a Minecraft server associated with that. And so, that’s really fun for them.

So, airplanes, airplanes, airplanes, everything airplanes. Whether it’s airports, the logistics behind it, the flying, everything, she’s into that. And then also into traveling. She recently started getting into planning for a future car and driving has been an exciting prospect for them. Also, current events and politics and riding their bike. So, those are Izzy’s interests right now, which is really fun.

And then, Joe’s still into Fortnite. He plays Fortnite. He’s still into soccer. But last time we talked it was the German soccer league, and now he’s shifted to the Italian soccer league as his favorite. He also likes building stuff with his hands.

And then for me right now, what’s bubbling is gardening. I have started all my plants from seed, which I’ve never done before. And birding and watercolor and stuff like that.

And so, those are our individual interests that have some overlap between family members. As a family unit, we are loving Exploding Kittens, which is a tablet-based game, Poetry for Neanderthals, which is an actual physical card game. We recently discovered that oranges and cream taste amazing together, like whipped cream with oranges. And so, now we’ve been having oranges and cream tea parties and I don’t know if that’s going to become a tradition, but it’s been really fun.

ANNA: I love that. There are so many fun things and it’s been fun to watch the different interests ebb and flow and I love it. I always enjoy the updates and what’s happening with you all doing all kinds of fun stuff.

PAM: About the oranges, last week, Mike and Jules made an orange-based salad, but oranges and marshmallow and some cream in there and some pineapple and coconut.

SARA: It’s similar!

ANNA: My mom makes that. It’s a southern thing, so that’s interesting. That’s considered a southern thing here. But I remember it. It had a lot going on for me at the time. But I love that.

Oh my goodness. Okay, so we’re going to dive right in, because I’m very excited. You have mentioned recently on the Network and to us that you’ve been exploring consent and willingness and how those two things weave together and all the little things that surround that.

And I was wondering if you could just share some of your exploration around that and what tools you’ve found helpful and the paradigm and the mindset shifts. Because I think it’s been an interesting journey from what I’ve heard already and I’m excited to talk about it with you.

SARA: Yes. I just wanted to start with why consent is such an interesting topic for me and why it feels so important. I feel like it’s one of those cornerstones, when we talk about building space for these connected relationships that we want to have with our immediate family, and then ultimately with the world. But let’s just keep it in the immediate family for now. Consent and willingness is the cornerstone of that, and the best and just most amazing and richest learning happens in that space of willingness and consent.

I’ve found a couple of tools that have been really helpful for me. They have things that order my brain a little bit. I have three tools that I’ll probably touch on while we’re talking, but the main one that I wanted to mention was the framework for consent that was created by a sex researcher named Emily Nagoski, who wrote the book Come As You Are. And I encountered this framework through Angela Chen’s work. Angela is the author of Ace.

So, Emily Nagoski developed some categories for consent that went along the lines of this enthusiastic, willing, unwilling, and coerced consent. What helped me with that is, first of all, I know Emily Nagoski was specifically writing this framework for physical touch and intimacy, but I feel like it really can expand outward to pretty much all relational interactions. And it gave me this more nuanced framework for consent beyond this binary like, yes, I’m consenting, or no, I’m not, which can feel really black and white and confusing at times when there’s so much of life that actually occurs in kind of a gray area.

And so, if it’s okay, I’d like to go ahead and share so we have a common language. I did adapt some of the definitions for each of these categories to make them broader, beyond just physical touch. But I’d like to go through each of those four categories if that’s okay.

ANNA: Yeah, absolutely!

SARA: Okay. So, the first was enthusiastic consent. And I’m going to read from my notes here. So, it’s when I want something for my own reasons, because it brings me joy. When I don’t fear the consequences of saying yes or saying no. When saying no means missing out on something I want. So, that’s enthusiastic consent.

Willing consent would be when I may care about something, but I don’t need to do it right now. When I would not otherwise choose it for myself, but I’m willing because someone else wants it and it’s okay with me. When I’m pretty sure saying yes will have an okay result. And I think maybe I’d regret saying no. Or when I believe that the desire to do something might begin after I say yes. So, that would be the willing consent area.

And then Angela Chen was really clear to point out that the next two categories of unwilling consent and coerced consent are only consent in the most literal sense, that someone did not yell out, “No!” For unwilling consent, it’s when I fear the consequences of saying no more than I fear the consequences of saying yes. When I feel not just an absence of desire to do something, but an absence of desire for desire. When I hope that by saying yes, you’ll stop bothering me or think that if I say no, you’ll only keep trying to persuade me. So, that was the unwilling consent.

And for coerced consent, we get into when you threaten me with harmful consequences if I say no. When I feel I’ll be hurt if I say yes, but that I’ll be hurt more if I say no. And when saying yes means experiencing something I actively dread.

So, those are the four. That’s the framework. And in my parenting journey, I have experienced all of those, and I would like to touch on how that’s shown up for me and what I am trying to foster in my family and then sometimes where I get a little tripped up.

PAM: Yeah. That would be lovely. There were a few places where I was vigorously nodding, if you’re watching on video, because there were a couple of pieces where I really liked the depth to which she went and grabbed some of those nuances. The frame through desire for the more enthusiastic ones, and then when you get down to the other two, I haven’t said no, but the feelings of coercion and how I’m framing that in my head, when I’m almost doing that pros and cons of, what are the consequences going to be? And even bringing in the consequences of both the yes and the no. Comparing them really makes it clear, at least for me, what she’s talking about. So, I love that.

ANNA: I love how it does bring those nuances in, because consent was a very big guidepost for me early on. We’ve been talking about autonomy in the Network this month, which I’ve found really enjoyable. For me, the word really was consent. But you’re right. As a binary, it’s a little bit tricky to fit into life, to explain to people, and to understand. And so, I really enjoyed the willingness definition, too, because there are times I make choices because you’re interested in doing that, and you’re important to me, and I know I’m not going to be harmed by it and I want to do that. And to me, that is still a consent that feels okay.

And then how different that energy is from those lower two on that spectrum. We’re dipping into this territory of actually, it doesn’t feel okay. Yeah, I may have shown up because I feel forced, or I feel worried, but it doesn’t feel the same. I really do love looking at those nuances, because that’s real life. There’s just a lot of nuance.

SARA: Yes. And I think between those top two, which were the enthusiastic and willing consent, and then the bottom two, which were the unwilling and coerced consent, it really isn’t what it looks like. It’s what it feels like.

And so, those top two are connecting. We’re connecting truly with ourselves. We’re connecting truly with the people in front of us. And it builds that relationship and trust. And then once you get moving into those bottom two, again, it’s a feeling. Because consent for one person looks completely different than consent for another. But if there’s that feeling of disconnect, then it’s a little red flag. Did we just tip into this area where we’re now disconnecting from each other and from ourselves?

PAM: Yeah. And I think another piece that’s so valuable, and it ties in with talking about autonomy this month too, is that it’s not a right/wrong, yes/no. It really is so individual. It’s not like, well, this is a situation where consent should be just fine, like we don’t need to discuss the nuances. Of course you want to come and do X, Y, Z with us. But even just planting that seed that it’s a spectrum, that it really is about the individual, and it’s really about the moment, too.

That willingness, using that framework really brings us into the moment. Right now, this is how it feels to me. And yet, it is so much about the feeling and the energy, because it’s so completely individual. It’s not about the question at hand really.

SARA: And so, if you all are okay with it.
PAM: I was going to say, are you going to share some stories?

SARA: Yes. I’d like to start, because I have stories in every single one of these categories.

We’ll start with the really fun ones, which is the enthusiastic consent, which is again, where I want something for my own reasons, because it brings me joy. And what I’ve experienced, for me and for my kids and for my family, is like, this is our yes!! This is our internal, bright, sparkly, joyful, oh, I want that. That is enthusiastic consent. And I’ve learned how to spot that. I know what that feels like for me inside now. It’s really bright. And I can see it on my kids, too. I can see what their yes looks like in their body language and their facial expressions and the energy in their voice.

And so, it’s been really fun, because unschooling has given us this space to really learn what our yes is. What are we really drawn to? Where’s that joy? Where’s that sparkle? And then trying to figure out how to go and do that. Like, ooh, let’s follow that. How can we do that? And maybe we can do that in this moment. Maybe there needs to be some planning that happens. But those are when you get into the nuances and it’s really fun.

And it’s been interesting for me as a mom, because before unschooling I didn’t even know what my own yes felt like. And so, by watching my kids and experiencing that for myself, I’m like, oh, that’s what it feels like when I really am enthusiastic about some things. And I got a couple of stories, but I don’t know if you all want to add to that.
PAM: I love stories.

SARA: So, the fun part about this yes is we get to follow it in unschooling and I feel like we have so much time and space to do that. And then sometimes it can feel a little challenging for me when somebody’s yes isn’t actually what they say. Or I actually can’t do it for them in the moment. I remember there was a time when Izzy really wanted to fly like a bird, and this was when they were really, really young. And I hadn’t heard about validation.

And I don’t even remember how I necessarily handled it, but it felt really hard for me when they’re like, mom, I want to fly like a bird. They just wanted to go to the front yard, spread their arms out, and just fly. And I think what my current self would say is, yeah, that would be a lot of validation. Like, oh my gosh, you just wish you could just go out to the front yard and take off and it’s so frustrating that you can’t.

And then that creativity, like, well, you may not be able to fly like a bird, but would you like to watch a video cam of a bird flying? Or maybe we could get you up in an airplane. Just something to get those creative juices of, that yes, as you imagined it, can’t quite happen, but there are so many other possibilities. First the validation of, that’s really hard. And then the creativity of, but how could we do other things that are also following that yes that you might feel.

And then the other piece, and this is my last story on the enthusiastic yes piece. My brain goes to challenges, because the good stuff just feels crazy and things are happening. There have been times where I’ve experienced an internal yes for something. In this case, I really wanted to go see my favorite movie in the movie theater. And I was just so drawn to do this. And my kiddos were adamant that they did not want me to leave the house. And I tried all different kinds of things. Like, okay, how could I honor this yes? How could I actually go do this thing that feels really good to me?

And through all of the back and forth, it became clear to me that it just wasn’t going to be something that my kids were going to be okay with. And in that moment, it was really about validating myself and how hard that felt. But then re-grounding in, okay, what are my choices? I could go to this movie and say, forget you guys. I really just have to go. Maybe I could choose that. But just re-grounding in what choices do I have? What is my why? And re-grounding in the abundance of time, like, maybe this movie will come back out in 10 years and I’ll get to see it then. My kids aren’t going to be this age forever, telling me that they desperately need me to stay in the house.

And then, for me, I ended up choosing connection. So, I was like, I really have this yes to go do this thing, yet my connection with my kids and honoring that relationship felt like where I needed to actually be and spend my time. So, I put the movie aside. But it did feel challenging there for a little bit to say that that yes needed to wait.

ANNA: That enthusiastic yes. It is fun. I loved the point you said early on, like you really had to figure out what that even felt like to you. Because I think so many of us, as we go through the system, we’re so externally focused, like, what do people need from us? What are we supposed to do in this environment? And so, I do think it’s a process to learn the enthusiastic yes.

And I feel like my kids really did lead the way for that for me as well. And so, I really started to see, oh, that’s what it feels like. But you’re right, sometimes there are these limitations or these contextual pieces that make that hard in the moment. But I think when we can really ground into it, feel it, check in with our why, it doesn’t have to be a negative story.

And I have a friend that always says to celebrate the closeness of the match. And so, sometimes it’s like, oh, okay, I couldn’t do it exactly like I thought I could, but I’m going to celebrate that I even figured out this was something that I wanted and that maybe I can do this piece of it, or I can do it in a different way. I can watch the movie when it comes on streaming, whatever that looks like. And so, I think it’s interesting just to think about what that looks like and then at the spectrum of how we react when we have that enthusiastic yes.

PAM: Yeah. I love that you revisited your priorities for yourself, because it’s still your choice, right? It was still your choice to make, so it was, I see the impact that my enthusiastic yes choice would have on those around me. And is that something I want to do? And it’s still a choice. Like you said, I could have gone and maybe you do your best to figure out a way that they would be comfortable enough. There’s no literal right or wrong in these moments.

But re-grounding in the fact that it’s our choice and not getting stuck in that yes/no, people are letting me go or not letting me go. This is still re-grounding in, it’s my choice to make, but as Anna was saying, looking into the context of it all. And is that context or are the consequences of me doing this enthusiastic yes in this moment in our lives, with the relationships, and the effect that it will have or will likely have on my relationships, those are all great questions.

So, if we think of it as yes/no, people aren’t letting us, we can get very resistant and very tunnel vision on trying to figure out how to convince them to let us do it, rather than taking the time to really reground in our choice and see the implications and play with those and see what’s really worth it. So, not choosing in the end doesn’t negate the fact that it was an enthusiastic yes. It’s embracing that really, but embracing it within the bigger picture of our lives.

And I feel, too, that some people might think, through the conventional framework, oh, you gave in. They know they can just get mad about something and you’ll change your mind, et cetera. And that may even be what it looks like to people from the outside looking in.

But when we recognize that we’ve grounded in that choice and we have chosen, like you said, to prioritize the relationship and connection and feeling like that was just too much of an impact to follow through on that enthusiastic yes right now, oh my gosh, the richness and the experience and the validation, without even words, the validation of who they are and how they’re feeling in that moment, just by us saying, okay, I understand. And what do they learn taking that forward, when the situation may be reversed other times, this is a conversation that we are all important. They know it was an enthusiastic yes, because you were trying to do it, so they understand that’s important to you.

SARA: And they still sometimes will be like, mom, I’m sorry you didn’t get to go to that movie. I’m like, I’m okay. I bought it and I watch it whenever I want.

PAM: Well, now you’ll get a VR headset, so you feel like you’re sitting in a huge movie theater watching it.

SARA: That’s right. I forgot about VR. Wow. Oh my goodness. Well, that’s all I had on the enthusiastic yes piece. So, I was going to move to the willing consent stories.

So, for willing consent, it’s when I’m pretty sure saying yes will have an okay result. And I think maybe I’d regret saying no. So, this is that more gray area. And I feel like how this looks in my family is a lot of back and forth. And usually what’s happening is one person has an enthusiastic yes for something, but it involves another person and they’re kind of like, nah, I don’t really want to do that. And so, for me, what works best in our family and every family’s going to look different, is I usually talk to each of my people in their own separate rooms. And I bounce around and I’m like, okay, this person said this. What do you think about that? Does that feel good to you? And I just keep cycling. And sometimes this takes a really, really long time.

But I tell myself, I think, Pam, you said it once, it’s like, this is the time that unschooling takes. I want to be part of this process, because this is where I learn all the juicy details. We really get down to the needs. We really figure out, well, why don’t you want to go out right now? Is it just because you don’t want to go out at all today? Or were you watching this video and there’s 15 minutes left and you just want to finish it and then you’d be willing? Or maybe you want to take your iPad with you. So, there’s just so many different nuances.

And so, I’m the hopper that just hops between my three people until we reach this consensus where everyone’s like, okay, yeah, I’m good with that. And how this feels in my body, the willing consent, it doesn’t feel like this big sparkly yes to me. But it feels light. It’s like, yeah, I can do that. And it’s like there’s no resistance, there’s no heaviness about it. And then I can see that for my kids as well. I can see that they’re not going, eh, sure. Or that they have that facial expression where they’re just kind of like, ah, whatever. But they’re actually like, okay. Yeah. And it’s this lighter, not sparkly yes. But an okay. Yeah, I’m good with that.

So, there have been some times where one of my kiddos had a binary just within themselves where they both want to do something and they also don’t want to do something. And so, I think Anna, you were the one who gave me words for this, which I found really helpful also with myself to be like, okay, so a part of you sounds like you really want to do this thing in this way, but it sounds like another part isn’t so sure. And so, what is this other part that’s not so sure? Is there something they’re worried about or is there something we can do to make that part more comfortable? And so, it’s kind of like a parts work piece.

And then the other piece about the willing consent I wanted to touch on is when there’s an actual need. Like, for instance, for my sparkly yes, I want to go to the movie, that wasn’t an absolute need of mine. I determined that I don’t really need this. It would be really nice to have. There are certain things that I needed to leave the house for, like food, or to go walk the dog, because we have a dog and that dog has needs and this is how we needed to fill that need. And I had strong resistance for me leaving for those events as well. And I had done some work around that and realized, no, this is actually something that I need to do for our family members, to keep our household running the way that we need it to run, to keep people fed.

And in that instance, and again, I think Anna, you gave me words for this, to help somebody who’s not in that willingness place yet, to validate them and say, I know how hard this is for you, to have me leave the house. How can we make it easier? Is there something that would make you feel more comfortable? Because I know when I leave, it’s hard for you.

And so, it wasn’t that I was just never leaving the house, but it was this delicate acknowledgement that this still isn’t okay for this person. And I can let them know, I see you, it’s not okay for you. But then we did find ways and it took years of iterations of, what if I went out this way or at this time, or called you here or took my pepper spray, and it was just an ongoing conversation of, this is hard for you. How can we make it feel better?

ANNA: Yeah. I love that. I think, Pam, you’re going to want to talk about talking to different people, because I know that was a big piece for you and we found that the same, like it doesn’t have to be this big family meeting that we’re all hashing out. Because sometimes, depending if we’re internal or external processors, leaving space for that, and so I love that piece of it.

I, of course, love the parts language, because I think it does help us identify like, okay, what does that part need to feel better? It gives us a little bit of a focus versus just, no, and I don’t know, and this back and forth of feeling so confused. And so, that language has been really helpful for me as well. And so, I love all of those pieces and that creativity to get to the willingness. So yeah, it’s not an enthusiastic yes for you to leave, but okay, let’s try this. Let’s try this. It’s like, yeah, I’m willing to try that. And I love that you said, too, that it changes. Because we may make agreements and like, okay, alright, I’m willing for you to go with these conditions, and that that feels better to me. And then it’s like, okay, there were still parts that felt hard, so we need to keep tweaking.

That’s what I love about, I called it consensual living, where we were really just understanding that we’re going to figure this out. There are lots of solutions to any given problem. And so, that trust that we’re going to be heard, we’re going to be seen, it’s not going to be ignored or pushed through. I really found that was the fountain of creativity, because when those basic needs of trust and being heard were met, then they were much more willing to get into that creative process. But when they were feeling unsteady, and I’ve seen it in other families where, if they’re going to push through it anyway, what difference does it make? You don’t see that creativity bubble up. And so, it can take a while to build that trust. But I love that description of how you did that.

PAM: Yeah, I was going to say, that trust and how that takes a while to cultivate, because they are giving us some trust in situations like you described, Sara, in that willingness is a trust that we’ll try this and we’ll see. It’s not like, okay, I have just committed to you doing this forever moving forward no matter how I feel.

And so, that trust that they didn’t just lock themselves into something is huge, because conventionally, so often we can be trying to convince them to let us do the thing and then the next time we’ve got to go out, it’s like, well last time I did X and you were fine with it, so it should be fine this time. Trusting that we won’t be bringing that kind of energy or using that kind of coercion, for lack of a better word.

It truly is about consent, but working together and trying to figure out a way to make it work and yes, definitely the going around to talk to them individually, because they were such different processors. It just took some needed longer conversations, some needed space to think more, and I could be there with them and give them that space and engage with them and pick out what they’ve shared, and then I can go to the next person and share it in their language. Because they may not yet understand, no matter their age, the other person’s language and what it actually means. So, I could understand each person’s language and re-frame what other people are saying. Not in their words, but in the words that would be meaningful or understood by the other person.

It was just the most beautiful investment and beautiful use of my time and energy, because it helped us, like you mentioned, Sara, we’re also telling them about their sibling or their other parent or myself, what we are feeling, thinking, how we’re experiencing it. So, they’re learning about us, too, everybody else, too, at the same time that they’re taking the time and the conversation to understand themselves and how they’re feeling affected or what their needs are, what they’re feeling right in this moment, or their constraints that they’re feeling.

So, they’re all figuring themselves out, and I’m learning more about them. It’s just this beautiful spiral that takes time, but as you’ve said so many times, Anna, that’s my time that I’m investing upfront versus the time that I’d have to invest later if we just plowed ahead, did the thing, and then we had meltdowns and upset that we’d have to process through after. So, it’s not like I do it or I don’t do it.

SARA: You’ll spend the energy one way or the other.

ANNA: Yeah. I would always rather have those conversations where I’m learning about them and they’re learning about me, versus trying to manage energy and make repairs and do all the things afterwards, which sometimes we get in a place where we have to do that. I think we’ll talk about those in those next two spots that you’re going to talk about. But if I can avoid it with some connection and stuff upfront, then I will. That is just me.

SARA: And this is where I think I wanted to throw in the second resource. I have read the first 25% of this book. But just knowing that it’s there, it’s really been helpful and it’s Are You Willing? by Marion Rose. And she has a willingness practice. I haven’t actually used Marion Rose’s specific practice, but she walks through her willingness practice.

What’s been helpful for me is, I’ve glanced through it and been like, oh, I can do this for myself to see if I can arrive at a willing consent. For example, I just did it last week when Ryan wanted to make homemade dog food and I really wanted to want to do that. But I noticed that I felt some heaviness and some resistance. And so, with this willingness practice, instead of being like, oh, I’m just going to ignore that, I’m feeling a little heavy and tense about some things, nebulously, and just go do the thing, I knew that that tightness would come out somehow in my interaction, while I was doing this dog food with him.

And so, I sat down and I’m like, what am I trying to protect? Why am I feeling tight? And I realized, oh, I was feeling tight, because I was worried that if I made dog food, I’d be too tired to make dinner and that I’d be on my feet a lot. And that that would mean that I would do this one type of cooking, but then I couldn’t provide for myself and the family later on. And then I was able, recognizing that, to come up with some ideas that would care for those things while I was making dog food with Ryan.

So, I was like, well, if I get tired on my feet, he’s pretty self-sufficient, I could just pull up a chair and sit. And also, while he’s making dog food, I could do some things that prepare me for my meal. So, I’m prepping for the dinner by cleaning up or whatever. And so, I worked through those tight spots and that friction to finally, I came to this point where I was like, yes, I would like to do that with Ryan. And it was this light feeling and there’s nothing that is feeling tight or tense or heavy to me about this yes.

And that’s where I knew, but that’s where it was so worth that upfront willingness work that I did. Because then when it came time to make that homemade dog food with Ryan, I was having so much fun and I wasn’t snipping about, oh, you made a mess here and now I have to clean it up. And it was just really light and it felt really nice and I knew I had cared for myself as well in this activity that I didn’t choose for myself.

ANNA: Yeah, to me, that really sounds like my practice of getting to the underlying need. Because we can have this first reaction of, I don’t want to do this, I want to do this. But then when we get to the underlying need, it’s like, I want to be able to make dinner later, or I don’t want the kitchen disaster, because I need the clean surface to start making dinner. Just knowing those things about myself and being able to articulate it at times, too, it sounds like that may have been a more internal process for you, but I found there were times it was helpful for me to articulate that process of me getting to my underlying need, depending on the situation, because it helped them do the same.

So, it’s like, oh, I want to make this special treat for the dog, because I’m really excited about something with Toby. Okay. That we might be able to do in a different way. Or, no, it’s this specific recipe that I want to make. Then we’re having a conversation where more solutions and creativity can come in, versus just staying up here with, make the dog food, don’t make the dog food. So, I like that. But it is interesting to tie it into this willingness piece. Do you want to share the tool with that?

SARA: It’s really just the book, Are You Willing? if people are curious about, what does that even look like? Marion Rose, she laid it out, I thought, in a really beautiful way. What do you ask yourself? What do you sense? Where’s your tightness? Do you have a part at play? And how do you care for that? And then find either your willingness or you might actually arrive at, actually, no, I’m not willing and here’s why. And can we do it a different time? Or whatever, which is fine too.

ANNA: And that’s okay too.

SARA: Pam, I think this was something you mentioned, so I’ve been playing around with this. There are certain things that I know are going to happen where I can maybe do some willingness work upfront before the event. And I knew this thing with Ryan, he had already been like, I want to do it tomorrow. And I was like, okay, I’m feeling a little tight about that. So, I knew I would like to maybe do some internal willingness work here.

But I think where I do a lot of the verbal processing, like what you were talking about is when someone comes to me. It’s more like, I haven’t had that upfront prep but I’m noticing I’m feeling tight and I’ll be like, oh, I noticed I’m a little tight about that. Just give me a moment. I would like to figure out what’s happening for me. And it’s maybe just like a, give me a moment. If you could just give me a moment and then I do sometimes verbally go through, hey, I can’t do this for you now. Could I do it in 15 minutes? Because I’m trying to finish this thing. And so, it’s more like live action processing versus the upfront. So, I’ve been playing around with which ones feel best in the moment for me to try to pull out.

PAM: Yeah. It depends on the context. How much time ahead do I know? But yeah, that is one thing that my family has known for many years. It’s like, okay, mom will need a couple of minutes to process. And there were times when I said, if you need an answer right away, it’s no, because that’s what I’m feeling. But if you give me a couple minutes to think it through, five minutes, then we’ll see where I’m at.

And that was just the processing that you were talking about, Sara, like what is the context of this? How is this going to spiral out to the rest of the day if they want to run out and do this thing now? And I had a different plan in my head of how the day was unfolding. I do need that minute to just play it out in my head and see if anything is effective.

Like in the dog food situation, I might think, oh, I’m going to think of the dinner that I was thinking we’d have in a couple nights, which is so much easier to make. I’ll switch that up and I’ll make an easier dinner. It reminded me to think. While he’s making the dog food, I can weave in some prep, because I’ve thought a little bit ahead of time. I know my window is going to be a bit shorter or my energy is going to be a bit less, et cetera. So, I can play with things. It’s just so valuable to have that time just to think things through. And like you were saying, then we’re less snippy or however that energy comes out.

And for me, that is the energy of being unsure of how things are going to go. And when I take that time to process, if I decide I’m unwilling, now I know why. And I can go and talk to them and maybe we can come up with a plan that shifts my willingness. Because when I say I’m unwilling because of X, Y, and Z impact, and they’re like, oh, the creative juices get flowing. Because we know we’re all on a team. And it’s not like, no, don’t try to convince me otherwise. It’s like, no, I’m not feeling able or up for it because of this and this. There have been times when they say, well, you can have a long nap tomorrow. There’s nothing going on. And maybe that is a possibility, but everybody’s working together.

And even when they say things like that, that gives me a clue about how enthusiastic they are, how important this is to them. And I may have thought this was just an idea that they had. And the more they try to come up with more ways to make it work, that gives me more information that, ooh, for some reason this is more important to them today than it was last week when they wanted to do the same thing or all those pieces. So, it just brings just so much more information into the context of the whole choice and conversation.

SARA: Yeah. And so, I think the next two were unwilling consent and coerced consent. And so, just really quickly, the unwilling consent was when I hope that by saying yes, you’ll stop bothering me. Or I think that if I say no, you’ll only keep trying to persuade me. I still find myself ever so often dipping my toe into this unwilling consent area. And I know I’ve done it, because I can sense that there’s a disconnect that’s happened.

And I guess, first, I just wanted to reiterate the importance to distinguish between this unwilling consent and consent, truly, it’s not what it looks like. It’s what it feels like. And I don’t know who said this, but I loved it so much. The difference is not necessarily one of action, but one of intention and agency.

So, when you’re in the first two categories, people feel like they have agency. The intention is, let’s keep our relationship. We want us all to be seen and heard. And then when you move down into unwilling consent, not all parties feel like they have agency. There’s a disconnect happening there, but that could look like anything or nothing at all. So, anyway, it’s not what it looks like. It’s what it feels like.

And so, where I tend to have little hangups is when I notice that I have an attachment of some kind, where I believe that there’s a better way or a right way, or someone should be thinking this way. And so, when I have this attachment, I’ve noticed that the stronger my attachment or expectation about something, the harder it is for me to gauge consent in the other person. The stronger I get like, this is the way it needs to be, I almost have blinders and I can’t actually tell if the other person is even consenting to the thing.

And so, this actually happened to me last week in consent in conversation, which was a new concept to me just a couple years ago. It’s like, wait, there’s consent in conversation? Because my husband revealed a gap in his knowledge and I was convinced that he needed to know this. Like, oh my gosh, you need to know this. And so, I proceeded to follow him through the house with all my talking. I even got out a book. I was like, it’s right here. Look, you need to know this.

And then the next day, I looked back on it and I was reflecting on that interaction and I was like, I have no clue if he actually was interested in anything that I just said there. And I very well could have gone over his consent to actually want to hear anything that I had to say. And in that instance, I went back to him and I said, I’m really sorry. I really thought you needed to know this. And I just realized that I didn’t even ask you if you were interested. I was like, how did that feel? Did you want to have that conversation? And then that was more like a repair, like, okay, I’m sorry.

But I go there sometimes and I get real sure that I’m right and by golly, I’m going to chase that person down. And I feel like this happens a lot with kids, where an adult will say, I have something and you need to hear it. And they just talk at the kid, which is like that Charlie Brown kind of wa wa thing. And so, I can still tend to do that, not so much with my kids, but I can trip into that with my husband at times and notice that I’m not looking for whether he’s really interested in this thing that I feel is really important.

And then the other piece that I wanted to throw in was the idea of self consent. Because I feel as though I have absorbed many cultural stories, ideas, beliefs, assumptions over the years that gave me a script for how I should or ought to act or behave, but didn’t actually ask me for my consent or willingness. And I’ve noticed that, as I’ve internalized some of these stories and I wasn’t aware of them, I would act in accordance with a story, but I was actually coercing myself into a choice that I didn’t think I had a choice.

And so, that’s where a willingness practice really comes in. And my red flags for that are when I start to say, oh, I have to do this, I ought to do this, I should do this. That’s my red flag that there may be a coercive story or some sort of limiting belief that I’m not aware of happening there for me under the surface and to really just keep peeling back and see where that leads for me.

And so, I just want to say the repair piece. I continue to notice at times where I’ll notice I’m pushing, and then on reflection I’ll be like, oh, I wasn’t sure if that person really wanted that for themselves. And that’s where the repair work comes in.

ANNA: Yeah. And the repair piece is so important. When you were talking about that, it reminded me, Pam, how we always talk about, if we have this tunnel vision to this outcome, that we miss so many signs. And I think you’re right. Some of those signs are the people going, wait a minute, we don’t want to be on the bullet train that you’re on that’s ending at this particular place. And so, I think that’s a really good reminder. And I think that self piece is interesting, too, because I would say that’s probably harder for me. I have a radar for pushing through people’s consent, but that piece of when the shoulds happen, I think the shoulds can tunnel us in.

When I’m in my head about that and then that tunnels me in, I feel like I’m probably missing things around me. And yes, the repair is, of course, so important and we all are going to make repairs. That’s a big piece of it, the trust.

PAM: Repairs are part of it. It’s not about having an expectation of ourselves that we will get good enough that we are never going to need to repair a connection ever again. That’s too much to put on ourselves. That’s not how human beings work, because we all are growing and changing. So, what does work in a relationship, in a connection, a way to engage with another person, what works for months then doesn’t work. And then we need to figure out a new way. Maybe it’s a new way to approach them, maybe it’s a new way to have conversations. Maybe they’re talking more in this season or now they’re not talking so much. So, I need to look more for clues in their behavior, clues in their reactions, all those different pieces.

So, repair is fully as important and valuable as the original act of connection itself. I did love the story of you chasing your husband down.

SARA: I’m a chaser.

PAM: So, there’s that understanding and that tunnel vision where we just can’t see, just because we’ve latched on to something. It was an enthusiastic yes for you to share this information, if we’re going to use this framework. Yet the processing piece to see, okay, so what is the impact for the people around me?

And then the self consent piece, that is such a great way to look at it, because, from growing up in the system, I can find myself saying, you should be able to do this. You have to do this. Why can’t you just get this bit done. And we can so often try to guilt ourselves or try to manipulate ourselves, coerce ourselves nicely, and it’s just for ourselves, to do these things.

But to take that moment to question, am I actually giving consent? Is this my inner voice or are these outer voices in my head that I’ve absorbed, that I’m using, totally bypassing my own consent and just thinking, I need to do this. I haven’t given myself a choice really. I’m just trying to find words in my head to convince myself to do this thing that I think I should do or should be able to do. So, yeah, to use that consent framework for ourselves is brilliant.

SARA: Yes. And the last category was the coerced consent. And I will say that, since we’ve moved to unschooling, this is not a place that I have gone, honestly. But for the first five years of my parenting journey, I was very steeped in the mainstream ideas of what it meant to be a parent and what that parent-child relationship should look like.

So, in the first five years, it might have looked something like, “If you don’t eat your vegetables, then you’re not going to get ice cream at the end of the dinner.” So, that kind of coercive way of managing that. And it was out of love for that child and believing that that was how to keep them healthy and safe. And so, my kids remember that.

They remember some of the coercion and so, when something like that comes up, usually they actually are teasing me about it. But I’ll just say, “You know, I’m really sorry that I did that to you. I was doing the best I could. I thought it was the right thing. I’m really sorry, because that just stunk.” And to apologize again and just repair and hear them, and then also to give myself a lot of grace, because I could beat myself up, which I do on occasion, but usually I was doing the best that I could with the information that I had, and I was an imperfect human and I’m still going to keep making mistakes. So, to really give myself a lot of grace for that time in my parenting journey where coerced consent was a part of our daily lives.

And I’m just really glad that it changed, because that was very disconnecting. Looking back, I can see how disconnecting that was. And I’m just so grateful for the path that we are on now, because it just feels so much better. Oh my gosh. It’s just so beautiful and amazing and I just am grateful every day for it. So, that was coerced consent.

ANNA: Right. And I think it is that piece, too, that if we find ourselves in that situation, you can change. At any moment, you can change and you can make those repairs and you can find that way and you can recognize, hey, is what I’m doing creating a disconnect? Is what I am doing really impacting this person?

And it happens even with the best intentions. Again, it’s not about beating anybody up. It is just that, wow. We can make those changes and I think it takes a lot to let go of those ideas. And so, I just really think that’s amazing that you were able to come from that place and just realize, no, this is not how I want to be with my kids. It’s beautiful.

SARA: I had some amazing guides. My kids. Well, I just wanted to say, though, with Anna, because sometimes I can feel a little pressured, because I’m like, oh, I didn’t quite do that as well as I would’ve liked to, in retrospect. But then realizing, the relationships I have with my kids are very resilient and they are so willing, if I’m honest about what happened and I’m honest about, hey, I really did make a mistake here and I have more information now and I don’t want to make that choice again, they really are so willing to be like, it’s okay, mom. And so, there’s really a resilience in that relationship that allows for these missteps and repairs. And I think it’s just that they see you wanting to repair and they see you hearing them.

ANNA: That’s what I was going to say, because I think you’re discounting yourself a little too much in that process. Because that piece of being able to apologize and recognize and make a repair, that is not easy for a lot of people, Sara.

And I don’t like to say that the parent did the best they could when it was this abusive thing for a long time. That doesn’t cut it, and, “Kids are resilient,” can also fall into that category that can feel bad. But they absolutely notice that authenticity of you coming back and saying, you know what? This didn’t feel good to me. And that’s what they’re recognizing. And that is you being able to say, hey, I bought into this and now I’m not. And so, I just want to give you kudos for that.

SARA: We’ve been homeschooling for eight years now and unschooling for six. And I’d say for that entire time it has been a very joyfully intense unpacking of all that I have absorbed all the years prior to that.

PAM: And I do think, too, like you just mentioned off the cuff a little bit ago about your kids being guides and this whole piece was a really big journey of untangling for me, because yes, I could watch my kids doing things and they were in a space where they could make a mistake and it was totally okay. I learned from them that it’s just like, oh, that didn’t work. Even if there was frustration involved, they went back to and they tried a different way. Whereas for me, it’s like, oh my gosh, if that was me, I would be embarrassed or if I wasn’t good at it, I’d want to quit, like, okay, I’m not good at this, after 20 minutes and just never try again because I wasn’t capable yet.

And to see that that’s not the only way. I just grew up feeling so judged and graded and, you need to get good grades and don’t let anybody see you do something that wouldn’t be a good grade, basically. You have to hide those pieces. So, looking at them and seeing that in action and yes, it’s that process you were mentioning, Anna, of getting to, it’s okay to do things and for them to not quite work out. I can still show up and try something else. I can still show up and repair. I can still show up and explain where my head was, but keep showing up. That’s the repair piece.

I think it’s like, if we have a disconnecting moment and maybe we do need a little bit of time to cool down, et cetera, but the coming back, the repair piece, without judgment even as much as I could, without shame. They taught me not to show up in that moment feeling shame for what happened, because what happened is what happened and we’re just going to figure out something from there and move forward.

And I do think it’s so valuable, too, for our kids to see us showing up in all the moments so they don’t feel like they need to hide the moments when things don’t go so well, because, oh, things only don’t go well for kids. Like, when I’m an adult, everything has to be perfect. You don’t want to be planting those kinds of seeds either. But every experience of us showing up to just say, oops, yeah, no, that didn’t feel good for me. And sometimes they say, I didn’t notice. There were lots of times where they say, I didn’t notice. Because I was the one feeling it, but I could share that.

It’s like, oh, okay, that’s another piece of information for me. It’s my reaction actually. It’s not about that situation, because what I felt from it is out of step with what the other people involved felt from it. So, that’s just more information for me to process, like, what was triggering that? So, it is so much about our work to do, to get to that spot, to that place where we can process and show up and repair, because that is not the message that many of us got growing up.

ANNA: I want to tie in one quick thing that has come up in the Network, too, about this enthusiastic yes. Because I think it would be helpful for people to think about when they’re going forward. Nora McDonald talked about it, but she was explaining some things about what was happening with her kids and recognizing that she was walking in a place of the willingness, but then when she saw the enthusiastic yes, it was like, oh, this is really different.

So, watching for that feel, because you talked about the feel earlier, Sara, I think it’s so important. Like, oh, this feels different. I think the conversation we had around it in the Network was about like, oh yeah, we could get them to the park day or to the co-op or to the thing. But it was hard and it felt challenging, but we got there and they had an okay time and it was fine.

But then when it was the enthusiastic yes, it was like they’re hopping in the car, they packed their snacks, they’re ready to go. And it’s like, oh, that’s what it can look like. So, for me, it’s about leaving space and slowing it down, because I do tend to be the go forward type, but slowing it down to give those enthusiastic yeses a chance to bubble up so that we can then act on those and find those and go, oh, there it is, versus my agenda or what I might be bringing to the moment or what I think we should be doing.

Which again, I have good ideas, but if I’m tunneling in, I’m missing some of that. And so, I think that was just one of the pieces of this whole framework that you’ve shared with us that I wanted to pull out, how it applies in our day-to-day life, too, and watching for those enthusiastic yeses from our kids.

PAM: Yeah. I think that energy makes such a big difference. And especially when we’re first coming to unschooling, for me anyway, I had these great plans. Oh, we’ll be able to do this and this and this because we’re not going to school anymore. And getting that willingness. “Yeah. Okay, we’ll go here. Okay, we’ll go here.”

But yes, recognizing all of a sudden when you hit on something where they finally suggested something and it’s like, wow, what a difference. And to give more space for those things to bubble up versus always trying to keep us busy so that it looks good on the outside to other people in our family who don’t really understand what we’re doing, but if I could list off that we went to these five places over the last seven days, they would be placated.

So, peeling back for myself as to why I was wanting to do these things where I was only getting some basic willingness to participate and they came along. But what that did was short circuit a lot of our chance for the more enthusiastic yes, because nobody had the time or the brain space to actually figure out what they really wanted to do.

ANNA: And there’s so much learning in the enthusiastic yes. Because if it’s a willingness, they’re coming along with my ideas, it’s really more about me. And even if they’re happily, willingly coming along, it’s still my idea. And so, it is short circuiting me learning about the person in front of me as well. Because when they’re guided by their enthusiastic yes, I’m learning what lights them up. And I felt like there are times when my excitement doesn’t leave space for that. And so, I think that was just a really interesting point around that.

PAM: All right, Sara, did we get all your stories today?

SARA: Yes. I just wanted to share one more resource. I won’t go into it in depth. I just wanted to mention it in case folks wanted to read more about consent. It was one more tool and it was Betty Martin’s Wheel of Consent. And I guess I can hold it up a little bit here for people on YouTube. Can you see that?

ANNA: Yep. Serve, take, accept, allow.

SARA: So, basically it’s a wheel broken into four quadrants that show the different relational experiences that we might have, falling into four categories of serve, take, allow and accept. And again, Betty Martin was focused on physical touch, but I have just found at times it’s so helpful, especially when I’m having a hangup in a certain area, to come back to this graphic and be like, oh, I’m having trouble in the allowing quadrant.

And it really helps me focus on that. And so, Betty Martin wrote a book called The Art of Receiving and Giving that really goes into the Wheel of Consent in depth. And then it’s also available online. And I just wanted to point to that, because it’s just been another framework that I’ve looked at and there have been a-ha moments just speckled throughout just by seeing this one graphic. So, I wanted to share that as well, but not go into any more depth on it.

ANNA: Thank you. And we’ll put all the resources in the show notes so that people can link to these different authors and these different concepts, because it is really fun to dig into all of it.

PAM: Yeah, it is. It’s so, so interesting just to take one lens and look at things through that framework. So, thank you so much for joining us, Sara. And to our listeners, we hope you enjoyed our conversation and maybe even picked up a nugget or two that will help you on your unschooling journey, and in your relationships, and just using that consent lens in all sorts of aspects.

I love so much that the resources you’ve been sharing, Sara, were actually written in more of the sexual framework of consent. Yet, it really works in the relationship framework. And it really works for all ages. All our relationships, our adult relationships.

ANNA: I have one more quick thing. Because that’s the thing that’s so important about consent. If we are not learning about it when we’re young, if we’re not experiencing this with relationships, if we’re not understanding these pieces, why do we think that, at 18, these young men, women, and people are going to get it and then be able to have relationships that have consent? No.

It starts so much earlier than that. And so, that’s why it’s such a passion area for me, because I think it really is the seed of what creates these healthy relationships in adulthood.

SARA: For sure.

PAM: All right! If you enjoy these kinds of conversations, I think you would love the Living Joyfully Network. It is such an amazing group of people, connecting and having thoughtful conversations just like this, all about the things that we encounter in our unschooling lives. And you can learn more at livingjoyfully.ca/network. We hope to meet you there. Thank you very much for listening, and we’ll see you next time.

SARA AND ANNA: Bye!