chca2
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AITJ For Leaving A Mess At My Mom's House?
2 years ago
Be really careful with the while forced love and affection thing she seems to be doing to your kids. it is really important that kids learn autonomy over their body and at a young age. They have every right to decline affection that makes them feel uncomfortable and if it continues to be forced you need to intervene. Because children who undergo forced affection from ppl, especially adults whom are supposed to be in roles they look up to and roles that should be showing love (parents & grandparents esp). It teaches kids that love is allowing someone who loves you to touch you however they want even if the feel uncomfortable because that is what love is and it i "rude" to turn down their advances. Its a real huge deal.
My foster kids often come with this type of damage. I work hard with them to empower them to make decisions about their body and personal space and thattit is never their responsiblity to sacrifice their comfort for the sake of "not hurting someone's feelings". And it is hard for them to get over that often. One tactic i teach them is if they are worried about being rude and hurting someones feelings, instead of saying no to hags and kisses and picking up etc, you can instead offer an alternative. For example they can say in a happy tone "how about a high five instead!" Or a fist bump or even "how about we make a sully face together instead" whatever is something they feel comfortable doing that can come across as a fun offer and not blowing someone off. And if after that the person refuses and still insists that they give them a hug, kiss, or even say "I love you", that is when they need to turn to an adult (you mainly , or if it is at school for example, a teacher) that they trust for help intervening and the adult needs to step in and shut it down. Someone blatantly refusing to respect someone's autonomy over their own body (especially a child) and forcing affection into and from them is EXTREMELY detrimental and inappropriate.
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