By Volunteer Lathika Jain, FHI Chennai
TOUCH – It’s a feeling of love, care, and affection
But it can also be a feeling of fear, discomfort, and distress, thus it’s very insidious too. Before it turns harmful it’s essential for every child to be informed about the difference between good touch and bad touch.
A good touch is a physical touch with which the child is comfortable since there isn’t any inappropriate intention, like a pat on the head, a hug, or a peck on the cheek. Bad touch is a physical touch with which the child is not comfortable because the intention of the other person is not right, even if it’s a pat on the back. So the comfort zone of the child matters a lot. In general, the kids trust everyone around them so it’s necessary to make them know how to differentiate people and their intentions.
In today’s generation, it’s quite necessary to educate the children from a tender age, about the behavior of the other person towards them. The parents need to broach discussion about sexual behavior, correct and incorrect approaches, touch, and feel with their children. When we see the current scenario, there are countless cases of assaults, abuses, and harassment, just that some come out and many don’t.
Once the child is in the age and stage of beginning to understand the world, the parents need to guide them about their body parts and how the kind of touch reflects the intention behind. The idea is to make the child understand the concept and learn whether a person has good intentions or bad. And for this, they need to learn which touch is good and which is bad.
Children must know the parts of their body that are private and are not meant to be touched by anyone without their consent. The affinity between the kids and the parents should be such that if any person, whether known or unknown touches them inappropriately, they can open up about the same to their parents and get rid of the incident. It is very important to educate both the girls and the boys so that no one becomes the victim of such incidents.
When children, unfortunately, miss out on people who can educate them on their safety, they tend to trust blindly everyone which brings a higher risk to their safety. So being a volunteer we should make sure that we guide them in each step and make sure to build a good bond with them so they never have to think twice to come forth to us.
Image taken from: https://caringminds.co.in/workshops-for-schools/
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