By Katie Connolly
In the evolving landscape of parenting, the concept of body autonomy has become increasingly crucial. This can be a challenge, as many of us were raised with traditional notions of authority, control, and blurred boundaries. Now we are choosing to raise our children as their guide, through a lens of understanding and choice. We want to raise our children with a healthy sense of self, the ability to think critically, and be compassionate. This means as parents, we often have layers of systemic patterning to acknowledge and release, so we can consciously align with our parenting intentions. Let’s first get an understanding of what we’re talking about with boundaries and body autonomy.
What are Boundaries?
We have several types of boundaries: physical, emotional, and energetic being the most important in raising our children. Physical are our actual physical bodies and bodies in space. An example may be a child who does not want a hug, and yet the hug is still forced on them. Emotional boundaries are based around our capacity to take on others’ emotional concerns. Guilt can be a big one in parenting. Energetic boundaries are a combination of physical and emotional. Some people we are happy to have in our bubbles, and very close, while others we would prefer distance. This can vary depending on our day, our resilience, and how we feel about them at the moment.
We want to raise our children with a healthy sense of self, the ability to think critically, and be compassionate.
Curious, were you taught about your boundaries? Do you speak to your children about theirs?
What is Body Autonomy?
Body autonomy refers to the right of individuals to make decisions about their own bodies. This extends to a child’s right to control their own body and make choices about personal boundaries. While this concept may seem straightforward, the reality is that navigating the fine line between parental responsibility and allowing a child to assert their autonomy is a complex and ongoing process. This requires brave communication and being able to listen to our own bodies or intuition.
We are born into this world able to listen to our intuition, and with conditioning, demands, expectations, and being constantly pulled out of our bodies… we often lose touch with this. Furthermore, it often becomes overridden when our boundaries are crossed. An example may be when a child says it’s not cold, but we tell them it is – we are telling them their physical body is giving them incorrect cues. While this may seem like a trivial example, if this is a common habit (and trust me, it is for most parents, as this is how we were raised), then we are telling them their intuition is wrong. This is just one way a child slowly begins to disconnect from their innate body wisdom. In the next section, we see why it is so vitally important to empower our children to listen to their bodies and use their voice to express when something doesn’t feel right to them.
Body autonomy refers to the right of individuals to make decisions about their own bodies. This extends to a child’s right to control their own body and make choices about personal boundaries.
Why is Empowering Our Children with Healthy Boundaries & Body Autonomy Important?
Potential trigger warning: For a few years now I have been sharing Little Warriors statistics around sexual abuse in my Children’s Yoga Teacher Training, where I train parents, educators, and therapists with tools to empower children 1 to 15 years. According to their findings, 1 in 3 girls experienced sexual abuse of some form, and boys at a rate of 1 in 6 (Little Warriors, 2023). 95% of cases go unreported, and 95% of violations come from someone the child knows (Little Warriors, 2023). This highlights the increasing importance of empowering our children with the life skills of healthy boundaries, body autonomy, being able to listen to their intuition, and feel brave to use their voice. As Wanda Polzin, Clinical Director of Little Warriors Be Brave Ranch, and I discussed in the Summit I hosted Fall 2023, highly sensitive and neurodiverse children are even more vulnerable to these risks.
As Parents, What is Our First Step to Empowering Healthy Body Autonomy in Our Children?
Our first step as parents is to do our own work. This means understanding our parenting intentions. Why is this important? Because then we know why our boundaries and our ‘whys’ (don’t you get asked that a million times a day?!?) are important. We can articulate it clearly and consistently.
