Our professional responsibilities and workload may reduce the time we have available to spend with our children and loved ones. Review your work hours, vacation time, and think critically about whether you need to dedicate more time to family life. Make time to bring up the subject of healthy relationships and gender equality at dinner time or whenever opportunities present themselves. Practice communication skills early and often in order to build a strong foundation to help you to discuss healthy relationships later on.

Recognize that you have a role to play in educating your son about gender equality and healthy relationships. These are not only “women’s issues” but issues that affect us all, including men and boys. The vast majority of violence against women and men is committed by men, therefore it is important for you to educate your son about this issue and model positive and healthy examples of male behaviour. 97% of men in Ontario believe they can personally make a difference in promoting healthy, respectful, non-violent relationships (White Ribbon, 2012).

Our professional responsibilities and workload may reduce the time we have available to spend with our children and loved ones. Review your work hours, vacation time, and think critically about whether you need to dedicate more time to family life. Make time to bring up the subject of healthy relationships and gender equality at dinner time or whenever opportunities present themselves. Practice communication skills early and often in order to build a strong foundation to help you to discuss healthy relationships later on.

Learn about violence and gender inequality by asking a woman who trusts you how violence has affected her life.  Then, if she feels comfortable to talk, sit back and listen.  Turn to your local women’s organizations.  They have a wealth of accumulated experience and knowledge.  Talk to them.  Read their publications.  Contribute financially.  Learn from them

Your son is exposed on a daily basis to many examples of sexist behaviour, homophobia, and objectification of women.  Culture is a powerful tool in reinforcing gender stereotypes both for women and men.  Recognize the impact of the media, video games, and popular culture on your son and as such share a new healthier view of masculinity, one that models respect and equality towards women, girls, and other men.  Not speaking up contributes to the silence around these issues, and helps to normalize gender inequality and homophobia.

Your language, behaviour, and interactions with the women and men in your life will have a significant impact on your son’s values and attitudes towards women and girls.  Sharing equally in family responsibilities and chores at home with your spouse, being open about your feelings with the women in your life, or publicly questioning negative depictions of women, are ways to demonstrate to them that you value women as equals and believe in healthy relationships.  Conversely, laughing at sexist jokes, sharing magazines that objectify women, or remaining silent about violence or injustices against women are behaviours and values that may well end up being adopted by your son.

Helping boys understand their own boundaries and how to assert them is an important step in helping them understand other people’s boundaries and how to respect them. When boys can connect the feelings they experience when they are bullied, teased, isolated or pushed outside of their comfortable, safe limits with the feelings other people have in similar circumstances this fosters empathy. Feeling empathy reduces the likelihood that a boy will disrespect somebody else’s boundaries whether they’re on the sports field, at home or in a relationship.

Talk with your children about how consent is created and why it’s so important. Consent is a voluntary, sober, imaginative, enthusiastic, creative, wanted, informed, mutual, honest, and verbal agreement. Consent is an active agreement: Consent cannot be coerced. Consent is a process, which must be asked for every step of the way. Consent is never implied and cannot be assumed, even in the context of a relationship. Just because you are in a relationship does not mean that you have permission to be sexual with your partner. A person who is intoxicated cannot legally give consent. 98% of men in Ontario believe that both partners in a relationship are free to say if they don’t want sex (White Ribbon, 2012).

Share with your son remarkable moments or stories in your life about examples of positive learning.  Share a story about a lesson you learned from your parents or family members about healthy relationships; talk about your early interest or empathy towards equality between men and women; or the lessons you learned from a mistake you made.  These are stories you can easily share at bed time, at the dinner table, or while driving to an extra-curricular activity.

Just like you have the capacity to be a positive role model in your son’s life, you can probably identify men and women that had an impact on your values regarding equality between men and women.   Share what these people represent to you, the reasons why they are important, and the values that you admire in them.   You can make a difference by generating further discussion about the benefits and qualities of healthy masculinities.  Point out to your son that they too have the potential to be good role models for others.

A father who denounces a violent act or sexist comment witnessed by his son can share with him the confidence, language, and skills for him to be able to do the same later on. Share your thoughts and feelings regarding what happened and talk about how that action was unhealthy or demeaning to women. On the other hand, remaining silent, or making excuses, helps to normalize sexist behaviour and violence against women. The vast majority (97%) of men in Ontario recognize they have an important role to play in ending violence against women (White Ribbon. 2012).

Model equality and healthy relationships by doing your share of house work and child care.   Send a powerful message to your sons and daughters by partaking equally in family responsibilities – cooking, cleaning, decision-making, child care, etc. – that men have an important role to play in family life, family responsibilities are important, and women should expect respectful and equal treatment at home and in society in general.

It’s okay to acknowledge that you don’t know all the answers, that you are not an expert in this topic, and freely admit when you make a mistake.  Let your son know that you will look for the right information, and will get back to him later on.   Check the links and resources sections of our campaign for additional information, or talk with others.  Acknowledging your feelings and weaknesses is a way to demonstrate how to act constructively in building healthy and equal relationships, and it will reduce the pressure on your son to be “perfect” all the time.