​Welcome back! How did you get on with helping children express their feelings last week?

This week, we are supporting kids to tell us about unwanted touching.
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A couple of weeks ago, we talked about the kinds of touch that might give us a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’ feeling. In that post, we helped children understand that some kinds of touch can give us a ‘yes’ feeling, like patting a friendly cat, or having a gentle hand massage. Other kinds of touch can give us a ‘no’ feeling, like hitting, punching, biting, or being hugged when you don’t want it.
​Some touch might even start out as a ‘yes’ feeling and then change to a ‘no’ feeling, like when you swing too high on a swing, or when a nice massage gets too hard.
Kids need to know what to do if they get a ‘no’ feeling or a ‘yes and no’ feeling about any touch. This can help prevent abuse, but can also help with bullying or other kinds of negative experiences.
While you are using the ‘yes’ feeling and ‘no’ feeling language, ask your child what they think they could do if they get a ‘no’ feeling about any touch. Make sure that they know the three steps they should follow:

1. Say ‘Stop it, I don’t like it!’
2. Walk away
3. Tell a safe grown up.

Remind them that you would like to know about any touch that gives them a no feeling or a mixture of ‘yes and no’ feelings. Make sure they also know that you need to know about touch that someone asks them to keep a secret.
This week’s activity:

• Practice the three steps to follow for ‘no’ feelings
  • Apply these steps to any touching they do not like including hitting, biting etc.
• Give stickers to each member of the family and ask everyone to put stickers on the places on their body that they are ok with someone else touching.
  • Help kids see that each person has slightly different places they are ok with people touching (e.g. some people don’t like others touching their feet or head).
  • Remind the family about the three touching rules for private parts (it’s ok to touch your own, not ok to touch someone else’s and it is not ok for someone else to touch yours).

Borrow or buy the ‘Exceptional Children’s Guide to Touch’ and read it out loud to your child. Link in your three steps and touching rules to remind them of what they can do.

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