In my last blog, I talked about giving Hope opportunities to learn. This time I’m talking about the other side… boundaries. It’s important that kids have opportunities to learn but they also need boundaries. In particular, I want to talk about learning boundaries around who Hope can hug. (In honesty, I’ve had trouble trying to put my thoughts in words today so it’s short but hopefully this all makes sense.)  

Hope is a very loving young girl. Giving hugs is something she absolutely loves to do, and while this may seem really sweet, we need to protect her so we need to teach her boundaries. We have been told by various parents from daycare that Hope will give them a hug as they go to pick up their kids and on multiple occassions while we have been out at the park, or even at the shop, Hope will walk up to complete strangers and give them a hug. What do we do? Well we are still trying to figure that out. We need to teach Hope boundaries so she knows who she can and can’t hug but in all honesty, this is difficult. 

It may seem like an odd thing to be worried about. What’s the harm in a hug? Well in most cases, a hug is fine. But if we allow her to hug everybody now, she’ll continue to think this is ok as she gets older and one day she may just hug the wrong person. 

There’s a couple of reasons for setting the boundaries. Firstly, while hugs are a loving and kind gesture, not everyone likes hugs or is comfortable with physical touch. We need to teach Hope to respect other people’s personal space. It’ll help her to learn how to understand others feelings and realise that sometimes, it’s not ok to touch. 

Another reason is to keep Hope safe. An estimated 57% of women with disability experience sexual harrassment or violence and this is a scary thought. We need to do everything we can now to start to equip Hope so that she is not included in that statistic. Setting the boundaries now well help us to set a foundation for understanding consent. It’ll help set us up to teach her how to recognise not only others boundaries but also her own as she gets older.

It’s not just about her future though, it’s about the now. It doesn’t take long for someone to take a child and run off with them. While I hate to think that this could happen, it’s something we always need to think about. While Hope cannot speak fully, she can’t alert people if something is wrong making it easier for someone to take her without others realising what has happened. If we can teach her not to hug strangers, it’s just a small step to ensuring she is safe. 

There’s a lot more to it and as she gets older the boundaries and lessons will change, but that is where we are now. 

At the same time, we don’t want to stop her from being able to express her love for those around her. We don’t want her to think that hugging is bad. So how do we do that? Well that’s a work in progress and we’re still trying to figure it out. If Hope goes to hug someone she is not familiar with, we try to stop her before she gets there. We can then tell her to wave and say hi or where we do know a person, we can offer a high five. When she goes to give a hug to a family member or daycare educator, we will allow her to hug them as they are more familiar people. It’s hard to know how it’s working at the moment, but we hope that she will eventually start to understand who and where she can hug people. I also encourage a lot of hugs at home so when we do discourage it with others outside of the home, we hope that she learns that there are safe places and people. It’s a tricky one to try and get right and I’m sure it’ll be something we’ll be working on for quite some time. If you have any tips, we’re open to hearing them.