website<\/a><\/p>\nReminder: She doesn\u2019t owe anyone a hug. Not even on the Holidays<\/p>\n
Holidays and family get-togethers are a time for yummy food, sweet traditions, funny stories, and lots and lots of love. But they could, without you even realizing it, also be a time when your daughter gets the wrong idea about consent and physical affection.<\/p>\n
Have you ever insisted, \u201cUncle just got here\u2014go give him a big hug!\u201d or \u201cAuntie gave you that nice toy, go give her a kiss,\u201d when you were worried your child might not offer affection on her own? If yes, you might want to reconsider the urge to do that in the future.<\/p>\n
Think of it this way, telling your child that she owes someone a hug either just because she hasn\u2019t seen this person in a while or because they gave her a gift can set the stage for her questioning whether she \u201cowes\u201d another person any type of physical affection when they\u2019ve bought her dinner or done something else seemingly nice for her later in life.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe notion of consent may seem very grown-up and like something that doesn\u2019t pertain to children,\u201d says Girl Scouts\u2019 developmental psychologist Dr. Andrea Bastiani Archibald, \u201cbut the lessons girls learn when they\u2019re young about setting physical boundaries and expecting them to be respected last a lifetime, and can influence how she feels about herself and her body as she gets older. Plus, sadly, we know that some adults prey on children, and teaching your daughter about consent early on can help her understand her rights, know when lines are being crossed, and when to go to you for help.\u201d<\/p>\n
Give your girl the space to decide when and how she wants to show affection. Of course, many children may naturally want to hug and kiss family members, friends, and neighbors, and that\u2019s lovely\u2014but if your daughter is reticent, consider letting her choose what to do. Of course, this doesn\u2019t give her license to be rude! There are many other ways to show appreciation, thankfulness, and love that don\u2019t require physical contact. Saying how much she\u2019s missed someone or thank you with a smile, a high-five, or even an air kiss are all ways she can express herself, and it\u2019s important that she knows she gets to choose which feels most comfortable to her. <\/i><\/p>\n
I am not a hugger unless I know the person I am hugging and I know that the hug will be accepted\/appreciated. For the most part I let others initiate that sort of contact according to their comfort level. I am a big believer in personal space and I try not to invade that space allowing for each person to feel comfortable around me. For some that seems to make me a little stand-off-ish but that\u2019s me.<\/p>\n
I hadn\u2019t though of the consent angle and how we can help girls feel that contact is their choice rather than a social construct that they have been taught to follow.<\/p>\n
So I do accept hugs but would like others to initiate contact.<\/p>\n
Not everyone in a family or extended family get along. I am one of the lucky ones that my family gets along with each other and I love both my blood relatives and my family by choice. And this is the time of year I am reminded how lucky I am.<\/p>\n
There are people who have cut various relatives out of their lives for various reasons. There are other relatives, especially between Thanksgiving and New Years, trying to get everyone back together for family harmony. I have been reading on social media people struggling with this issue. My personal opinion, toxic people do not get the 100th chance to prove that they are not toxic. If you need to cut ties for your mental and physical well being, do it. I really dislike families that blackmail their relatives into joining a celebration that they do not feel part of for whatever reason.<\/p>\n
Some people do not get along with their blood relatives for whatever reason and have assembled a family by choice. And that\u2019s fine too.<\/p>\n
We need to stop forcing people to \u2018like\u2019 each other. Because there are people that are just not going to get along no matter what. D\u00e9tente may be reached but there are still landmines that everyone has to step over. Even within one\u2019s friends group, not everyone is going to get along. I know I have friends that I never put together because I know it would be a bad idea for various reasons.<\/p>\n
I want people to be comfortable around me. I let them give me an indication of what they are comfortable with. I hope I relate to others what I am comfortable with. <\/p>\n
I am grateful that I do get along with my family and extended family.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
We have a week before the travel weekend for those of us going elsewhere for Christmas and other holidays. There are a lot of holiday parties for various reasons that we find ourselves attending. I want to talk about two things related to all this interaction with people. The first came from a notification I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6336","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kathwp.malibulist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6336","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kathwp.malibulist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kathwp.malibulist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kathwp.malibulist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kathwp.malibulist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6336"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kathwp.malibulist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6336\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6337,"href":"https:\/\/kathwp.malibulist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6336\/revisions\/6337"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kathwp.malibulist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6336"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kathwp.malibulist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6336"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kathwp.malibulist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6336"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}