Stop Touching My Curls!!
Posted on July 20, 2016
My 3 Year Old’s Lesson on Protective Behaviours
There’s no doubt that my three year old daughter is particularly cute. I know I’m biased, but even so, this child has a way of winning hearts everywhere she goes. She’s cheeky, funny and exceptionally cute! Ever since she was very young people have been drawn to her partly due to her adorable cherub face, partly because she’s a born entertainer and partly due to her beautiful curly hair. I’ve lost count of how many times people have commented on and complimented her on her beautiful curls and how many times she’s been compared to Shirley Temple. Miss C loves all the attention and she knows how cute she is.
Some adults though, complete strangers, think that it’s OK to touch her curls as they comment on how beautiful they are, or they think it’s ok to stroke her arm or touch her tummy while they tell her how cute she is. When they do this Miss C pulls away from them and snuggles into me. We would never touch an adult stranger’s hair while we told them how lovely it looks, we’d never stroke their arm or touch their tummy to tell them that we love the way they look today, so why do people think it’s ok to do this to children?
I don’t want to be rude or offend these people nor do I want to put them off from talking to my very social outgoing little girl who clearly loves attention. I do however need them to understand that touching her without her permission is not ok. She might be three and she might look like a little doll (we’ve been told that too) but she’s also a real person!
My daughter is not shy, understandably though she doesn’t like to be touched by complete strangers.
I used this as an opportunity to teach my daughter that she has a voice, that she can take control of who can and can not touch her. I asked her “do you like it when people you don’t know touch your curls?” To which she answered a very definite “NO”, then I asked “do you like it when people you don’t know touch your arm or your tummy?” To which she again answered “NO”, so I asked her, “when someone touches you in a way that you don’t like what can you say to them”? This seemed to confuse her for a moment, she didn’t know it was ok to tell adults to “stop”!
Miss C and I practiced different ways that she could tell adults to stop touching her when she didn’t like it. We practiced being assertive, not aggressive, not rude but communicating clearly to people that touching her is not ok. A big smile went across her face as she felt empowered to speak up for herself, to have a voice in how she wanted to be treated by others.
As a teacher I know that in the early childhood years at school we teach kids to keep their arms and legs to themselves. We teach kids even as toddlers to say “stop, I don’t like it” if another child is doing something they don’t like, but what I learnt from my daughter was that this skill doesn’t automatically translate to when adults are doing something they don’t like.
I also realised that I’d spent a lot of time teaching protective behaviours to my son talking about what to do if someone tried to grab him, or if someone tried to force him to do something that he didn’t want to do, but I hadn’t spent much, if any, time telling him that he has a voice when it comes to adults who are seemingly being nice but doing things that make him uncomfortable.
We need to teach our kids that when it comes to adults they do have a voice and it is OK for them to say “stop doing that, I don’t like it”. Even if the behaviour is innocent and meant to be kind or friendly if our kids don’t like it, don’t feel comfortable or don’t feel safe, they need to know that they have a voice and that it’s ok to say “stop”.
We also need adults to understand that small people are people. They might be super adorable, cute and beautiful, they might have faces of cherubs or angels and we might want to just squish them but it’s important to get the child’s consent first. Simply asking “can I touch your curls” or “can I tickle your tummy” gives the child a voice and an opportunity to say “no” if they don’t want to be touched.
Learning this at age 3 means that as my daughter grows up she will know that it’s up to her who touches her body, when they touch her and how they touch her. She will know that it’s ok to tell someone to stop if she doesn’t like what they are doing. Having this control will empower my little girl as she grows up, I hope other children are taught that they too have a voice.
A final word from my beautiful, confident Miss C