Sex Education Resources: Teaching Consent, Connection, and Healthy Relationships
An insightful conversation with Shafia Zaloom on comprehensive sexuality education, consent, and helping young people build authentic, healthy relationships.
Listen to the original interview: Beyond Sex Ed: Teaching Consent, Connection, and Healthy Relationships with Shafia Zaloom
Beyond Sex Ed: Why Consent and Connection Matter
What does it really mean to teach young people about consent? And how can educators and parents help them navigate relationships with confidence, empathy, and respect?
In this episode of the Learning Courage Podcast, Jamie Forbes sits down with Shafia Zaloom, a longtime health educator, author, and specialist in healthy sexuality and relationship education. Known by many as the “Consent Lady,” Shafia has spent more than 30 years working in schools and helping young people, educators, and families navigate the complexities of sexuality, intimacy, and relationships.
Drawing from her experience as a social worker, educator, and consultant, Shafia shares why teaching consent requires more than definitions and rules. It requires practical skills, meaningful conversations, and an understanding of how young people experience relationships in their everyday lives.
The conversation explores the challenges educators face, the importance of comprehensive sexuality education, and why shifting our focus from sex education alone toward love, connection, and healthy relationships can make a meaningful difference.
Meet Shafia Zaloom: A Career Dedicated to Healthy Relationships
Shafia began her career as a social worker before transitioning into education, where she could focus more on prevention rather than intervention.
For more than three decades, she has worked as a health educator specializing in healthy sexuality and relationship education. Her work has focused on preventing sexual violence, intimate partner violence, domestic violence, and sexual assault.
Over the years, she has worked with numerous schools, educators, parents, and students, helping them develop the knowledge and skills needed to navigate relationships.
Her books grew out of these experiences, particularly the questions she repeatedly encountered from young people and the adults responsible for supporting them.
Teaching Consent: Moving Beyond Definitions
One of the recurring challenges Shafia encountered in schools was that young people could often define consent but struggled to understand how to practice it in real relationships.
Students would tell her that their parents encouraged them to respect others and practice consent. But they still wanted to know:
What does consent actually look, sound, and feel like?
How do you communicate consent in an intimate situation?
How often do you need to ask?
How can you make these conversations feel natural rather than awkward?
How do you respect someone's boundaries while maintaining a genuine connection?
These questions revealed an important gap in consent education.
Knowing the definition of consent is not the same as knowing how to apply it in real life.
Young people need practical guidance on communicating, recognizing boundaries, understanding their feelings, and responding to the changing dynamics of relationships.
As Shafia explains, consent can become transactional when young people are taught the language without being given the skills to use it meaningfully.
The challenge is helping them understand how to communicate clearly and respectfully while creating interactions that feel natural, authentic, and comfortable.
Why Educators Need Sex Education Resources, Too
A significant part of Shafia's work involves supporting teachers and other adults who are expected to guide young people through complicated questions about sexuality and relationships.
Yet many educators never received this education themselves.
As Shafia describes it, graduate students and aspiring teachers would often tell her:
“We're expected to guide young people in all these positive ways. But we never had that education ourselves.”
Some would even describe the experience as being asked to teach calculus without ever learning basic arithmetic.
This highlights an important need: educators need accessible sex education resources, practical strategies, and opportunities to develop their own confidence.
Young people encounter questions about relationships, bodies, feelings, and boundaries at increasingly early ages. These questions arise in classrooms, hallways, locker rooms, playgrounds, and everyday interactions.
Educators need more than theoretical knowledge. They need concrete language and strategies they can use in these situations.
Shafia's books draw from real experiences shared by teachers, students, and parents. They provide examples of what young people encounter and offer practical approaches for responding in ways that promote connection, dignity, and respect.
Navigating the Challenges of Teaching Relationships
Teaching about sexuality and relationships has become increasingly complex.
Educators are navigating competing expectations, concerns about professional security, changing policies, and growing scrutiny over what they can teach and how they can discuss certain topics.
At the same time, young people are exposed to increasingly explicit media, digital content, and online messages about gender, sexuality, and relationships.
Shafia also discusses the influence of the manosphere and the challenges facing boys, girls, and young people whose identities fall outside traditional gender categories.
These cultural influences shape how young people understand themselves and their relationships with others.
For educators, the challenge is finding ways to support students while navigating professional responsibilities and institutional boundaries.
Shafia emphasizes the importance of recognizing that relationships and intimacy education are not optional extras. They are fundamental to young people's well-being and development.
The Evidence Behind Comprehensive Sexuality Education
Comprehensive sexuality education goes beyond teaching about sexual health or defining consent.
According to Shafia, decades of research demonstrate that comprehensive sexuality education can support young people's well-being, strengthen their sense of connection, and help protect against experiences such as isolation, anxiety, depression, suicidal ideation, and disordered eating.
It can also support students in becoming more engaged and receptive to learning.
Contrary to common misconceptions, providing young people with accurate information about sexuality does not encourage them to engage in sexual activity earlier.
Research instead indicates that comprehensive sexuality education can help young people delay sexual activity and, when they choose to engage in it, make more informed and responsible decisions.
This includes greater awareness of contraception, protection, personal readiness, and safer sexual practices.
For Shafia, the goal is not simply to provide information. It is to help young people develop the skills and confidence to make decisions grounded in responsibility, mutual care, and respect.
Comprehensive Sexuality Education: More Than Sex Ed
One of the most important distinctions Shafia makes in the conversation is between sex education and comprehensive sexuality education.
Sex education provides an essential foundation. It includes medically accurate information about sexual health, safe sexuality practices, and consent.
Consent education is also fundamental to protecting human dignity and respecting people's rights.
But these foundations are not the whole picture.
Comprehensive sexuality education includes the skills needed to apply information in real relationships. It helps young people learn how to communicate, connect with others, build healthy relationships, and develop emotional and relational capacities.
These skills are relevant to every kind of relationship, including friendships, family relationships, connections with adults, and romantic or sexual relationships.
As Shafia explains, adolescence is a developmental period in which young people begin learning how to form healthy, intimate relationships that they can sustain over time.
Ultimately, this is about connection.
Moving from Sex Ed to Love and Connection
A central theme of Shafia's work is the importance of shifting our focus from sex education alone toward love and connection.
This does not mean abandoning sex education. Rather, it means recognizing that sexual health information is only one part of a much broader conversation about human relationships.
Young people need opportunities to understand what intimacy really means.
Intimacy is not limited to romantic or sexual relationships. It is about being close to other people, feeling seen and heard, and experiencing meaningful connection.
A person can be surrounded by others and still feel lonely if they do not experience genuine connection.
When young people feel grounded in relationships characterized by trust, care, and empathy, they are better able to engage with their learning environments and navigate challenges.
Shafia also emphasizes that loving and caring for others does not necessarily mean being romantically in love.
We can build relationships rooted in respect and dignity even when we are not friends with everyone.
This broader understanding of connection helps young people recognize the value of community, mutual care, and the ways our behavior affects others.
From Transactional Thinking to Relational Thinking
Jamie and Shafia explore the difference between transactional thinking and relational thinking.
Transactional thinking often focuses on individual achievement, performance, and what we can gain from interactions.
Relational thinking, on the other hand, considers how our actions affect others and how we contribute to the communities we belong to.
Shafia observes that many educational environments place enormous pressure on achievement and individual success. While achievement matters, this emphasis can sometimes work against the development of community and meaningful relationships.
Young people may learn to say and do what adults expect without necessarily developing an understanding of why relationships, care, and community matter.
Comprehensive sexuality education creates opportunities to develop that understanding.
It encourages young people to consider their needs, recognize the impact of their behavior, and find ways to meet those needs without harming themselves or others.
The goal is to cultivate our capacity to love and be loved in all the different ways that human connection can take shape.
Practical Strategies for Educators: Making Consent Part of Everyday Life
How can educators bring these ideas into their classrooms?
Shafia emphasizes the importance of responding to situations in context rather than relying on one universal approach.
When something happens in a classroom, hallway, or other learning environment, educators may need to consider:
What is happening, and who is involved?
Is it appropriate to address the situation individually or as a group?
What might the young people be feeling?
What needs are influencing their behavior?
How is their behavior affecting themselves, others, and the community?
What alternative behaviors could help them meet their needs more constructively?
Sometimes, simply saying something to the group or the students involved can make a meaningful difference.
Silence also communicates a message. When adults witness something and do nothing, young people may interpret that silence through the cultural messages and experiences they already carry.
Educators can help students develop emotional literacy by asking strategic questions that encourage them to identify their feelings, understand their needs, and reflect on their actions.
Rather than making young people dependent on adult advice, the aim is to empower them to make thoughtful decisions and develop the skills to navigate relationships independently.
Teaching Consent Across Developmental Stages
One of the most powerful examples Shafia shares is how consent and relationship skills can develop across different stages of childhood and adolescence.
These skills begin long before young people enter romantic or sexual relationships.
For example:
In kindergarten:
A child might say, “I'm not into hugs.”
An adult can help them communicate their boundary while offering another way to connect:
“Do you want to go play Legos or on the monkey bars instead?”
In middle school:
A student might say, “I really have to study for my test, so I can't bake cookies with you right now for the bake sale.”
They can also offer an alternative:
“But tomorrow, let's ride bikes together to school.”
In high school:
A young person might communicate a boundary in a romantic situation:
“I'm not down for that. Let's stay like this, and I'll let you know if I want to go further.”
As a young adult:
Someone might establish a professional boundary by saying:
“I like to keep my professional relationships platonic. Please don't put your hand on my lower back. Let's talk about our initiative for the project we're working on together.”
These examples demonstrate how the skills of communicating boundaries, respecting others, and maintaining connection can evolve throughout life.
The underlying principle remains the same: people should be empowered to communicate what they need, change their minds, and navigate relationships with respect and dignity.
Why Context Matters in Consent Education
Consent is not static.
Our feelings, needs, and comfort levels can change in an instant. A situation that feels comfortable at one moment may feel different moments later.
This is why young people need to understand that consent includes the fundamental right to change their minds.
Shafia emphasizes that educators must help young people recognize context, understand how situations evolve, and respond with flexibility.
Developing these skills requires practice.
Educators can use real-life scenarios and tabletop discussions with students, colleagues, and other adults to explore how different situations might be handled.
These discussions create opportunities to practice language, consider different responses, and understand how to apply relationship skills in changing circumstances.
Preparation and practice help adults become more confident while empowering young people to become more emotionally literate and relationally grounded.
Shafia Zaloom's Book: A Practical Resource for Educators and Parents
Throughout the conversation, Shafia explains how her books are rooted in real-life experiences from teachers, parents, and students.
Her work brings together scenarios from kindergarten through twelfth grade, addressing situations involving:
Young people's bodies, feelings, and boundaries
Gender and sexuality diversity
Connection, communication, and consent
Love, intimacy, and relationships
Safety and community
Challenges educators face in responding to these situations
The scenarios demonstrate that these issues arise across different schools and communities, regardless of local policies or educational environments.
Shafia also provides concrete language strategies, practical options for responding, research-backed guidance, and additional resources.
The books are designed to affirm the experiences of educators and caretaking adults while helping them understand what young people are navigating.
They also offer opportunities for reflection and practice, allowing adults to prepare for situations they may encounter in their work with children.
For educators, parents, and other adults who want to support young people, these resources provide a valuable starting point for developing greater confidence and understanding.
Final Thoughts: It's Never Too Late to Start
Toward the end of the conversation, Shafia shares an important reminder for all adults who care about young people.
Most of us did not receive comprehensive sexuality or relationship education ourselves.
And that's okay.
It's never too late to start learning.
Regardless of our own experiences or educational backgrounds, we have something valuable to offer young people when they are navigating questions about their bodies, feelings, relationships, and identities.
We can respond with care, affirmation, and love rather than defaulting to fear, shame, or avoidance.
We can honor differences while finding common ground in our shared desire to support young people.
And we can recognize that helping children develop healthy relationships benefits not only them but also the communities we all belong to.
As Shafia reminds us, ultimately, this work is about coming together, caring for young people, and creating communities where everyone can experience greater connection, dignity, and respect.
Listen to the Full Conversation
To hear more about Shafia Zaloom's work and her approach to teaching consent, connection, and healthy relationships, listen to the original Learning Courage Podcast episode.
Listen to Beyond Sex Ed: Teaching Consent, Connection, and Healthy Relationships with Shafia Zaloom
Hosted by Jamie Forbes, in conversation with Shafia Zaloom. Produced and edited by Andrick Sigmund for Learning Courage.
Together, we can create safer communities for everyone.