Parents whose children attend St Patrick’s Geelong West Primary have been informed that hugging is now banned. Geelong West Primary principal John Grant reported as saying, “In this current day and age we are really conscious about protecting kids and teaching them from a young age that you have to be cautious.”
According to the Herald Sun,
“He [Principle Grant] said he had spoken to teachers about his decision to ban hugging and then the teachers had spoken to classes, instructing the children on different methods of showing affection. He had not sent any correspondence home to parents but said there would now be a letter going home on Monday.”
Plainly, I immediately thought this approach was all wrong. I agree that we should teach children the importance of boundaries, but I’m afraid the psychological impact of banning hugs may have more of a negative impact. Children may begin to believe that affection is something that should be avoided, instead of a positive way to reinforce, love and express gratitude. Yes, I teach my children that their bodies belong to them. So no one has the right to harm their bodies or touch their bodies if they don’t want, that includes spanking, hitting, or hugging.
I find banning physical affection like hugging, to be disempowering to children. It teaches them they aren’t intelligent enough to understand boundaries. I’ve told my children if someone tries to touch them in any way and they don’t want to be touched, politely say, “thank you, but I don’t want to be touched right now”. And if that person doesn’t listen to you, they are being aggressive, they are wrong, they are not being respectful of your property, your body. And when that happens you need to walk away from the person, ask for help and finally defend yourself. We’ve even role played situations to help them build confidence and character.
Children need to feel confident enough to set boundaries for themselves. Parents set boundaries with their families all the time: don’t go into someone’s room without knocking, for example. Interrogating children, forcing hugs, denying a child’s feelings, putting your child against their other parent, pressuring a shy or sensitive child to talk are all ways an adult or parent may violate a child’s boundaries. We could all use a little more empathy when dealing with each other. Instead of forcing your shy child to talk, why not instead honor your child with their own opinions, feelings and rights. Try understanding that they are the type of person who takes time warming up to people before talking to them and that is completely fine. When a child’s boundaries are disrespected, they are more likely to have unhealthy boundaries as adults. Either too loose, which makes them prone to abuse and feel uncomfortable saying no to others, or too rigid, where they build walls and fear intimacy.
Recently I saw a video of Republican Presidential candidate Ted Cruz forcing a hug with his teenage daughter. Most people found this uncomfortable to watch, and with good reason. He was violating her personal space, and we need to understand that no matter the age we should never force any interactions. This is where my philosophy of voluntaryism comes in. All interactions between people should be voluntary.
Touch is something that is completely natural and almost unavoidable when interacting with others. All you have to do is walk into a highly congested area to see how people touch. Pushing, shoving, firmly shaking hands, as well as completely avoiding touch all together. Some people go days without being touched. In fact there is something called skin hunger where people can suffer physically from not being touched. Think about it, while you’re at work how often have you touched one of your colleagues? Apart from shaking hands, most of us were taught to shake firmly while staring directly into the other person’s eyes. To appear “dominant”, “confident” and not like a “push over”. That type of physical touch is not only acceptable, it’s encouraged culturally through our upbringing. So it saddens me to see that some children won’t be allowed to sympathetically embrace another child when they are hurt or sad. Or hug their teachers and caregivers when they feel alone or scared. An innocent goodbye hug before a long departure. It’s because humans need to be socialized, mentally, emotionally and physically from birth. Children naturally understand this need. Adults compartmentalize and ignore this need. You know that sense of happiness when you see two little children hugging one another, and everyone wants to take pictures. Let’s not forget what we can learn from these little people. Touch is important and gives us a sense of belonging to our human family.
This article “Banning Affection and the Importance of Boundaries” is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Ashley Williams and emancipatedhuman.com.
