Across the Same Words collection
Body boundaries
15 prepared situations from 3 family areas. Choose the moment that is closest to yours.
An aunt reaches for a hug and they go stiffTheir Own Body · Who may touchA small child at a family gathering is surrounded by people who love them and whom they have met four times.→"Give Grandma a kiss" — and everyone is watchingTheir Own Body · Who may touchThis one is harder than it looks because there are two people to protect.→Tickling that went past funnyTheir Own Body · Who may touchLaughing while being tickled is a reflex, not an opinion.→"Stop" gets ignored in the middle of rough playTheir Own Body · Who may touchWrestling, chasing and piling on are how a lot of children this age make friends, and the research on early peer relationships is not against it.→Someone scoops them up without askingTheir Own Body · Who may touchBeing lifted off the ground by surprise is a total loss of position, applied to somebody who cannot see it coming and cannot get down.→Hugs children who are backing awayTheir Own Body · Who may touchSome children are affectionate at full volume, and it is genuinely meant.→Somebody at daycare wipes and changes themTheir Own Body · When someone has toYou have spent months on who may touch, and for eight hours a day the answer is a person you did not brief.→Will not close the bathroom doorTheir Own Body · Private and not privatePrivacy is not a feeling a child arrives with.→Walks in on you in the bathroom or the bedroomTheir Own Body · Private and not privateSmall children follow.→Hands down their pants on the living room floorTheir Own Body · Private and not privateThis is one of the most common things young children do and one of the least often discussed, which leaves a lot of parents privately worried about something the research puts squarely in the ordinary column.→Public restrooms — who goes in, and who waits whereTheir Own Body · Private and not privateA public restroom collides with every rule you have built: a room about private parts, full of strangers, and your child may still need help in it.→The rules about doors are different at their cousin's houseTheir Own Body · Private and not privateFamilies run bodies differently.→You walk in on two of them playing doctorTheir Own Body · Private and not privateAlmost every parent meets this and almost none of them mention it to another parent, which leaves a very ordinary thing feeling like a private emergency.→Personal space, theirs and other people'sBig Skills · With other childrenSmall children stand too close, hug strangers, climb on visitors and push their face into another child's face.→A stranger comments in the supermarketEvery Grown-Up · Other people’s eyesA public comment lands harder than private criticism because it arrives with an audience and no right of reply.→