A Touchy Subject: Why we shouldn’t impose our concept of personal space on young children

I often see parents at the playground telling their toddlers approaching another child to give them space or not to touch or hug another child they have been playing with.

This generation of (new) parents (myself included) is determined to teach our children all about the importance of consent, the sensitivity to recognize and respect another person’s boundaries around physical touch and closeness, and the ability and courage to recognize and stand up for their own boundaries.

But I believe that interfering in young children’s natural attempts to touch each other inadvertently prevents them from learning these very lessons.

Children are born with a need for touch.

All mammals, but especially humans, suffer (and can even die) from a lack of touch. We really have evolved to be cultural marsupials; over our evolutionary history, the survival of babies and young children depended on being constantly held by another person. For example, babies sleeping or napping away from their parents or caretaker would have most certainly been eaten by a predator or frozen to death.

Touch also helps with digestion, temperature regulation, stress reduction, and is a natural pain killer.

Humans are also one of the most social species there is, and as such we thrive in connection, and suffer in isolation – which is why solitary confinement is considered one of the worst punishments, even in maximum security prisons.

Positive, loving physical touch makes children feel loved, connected, and safe.

Young children, and babies in particular, experience the world and the relationships with other people through their body, they are fully embodied beings. They can’t yet make sense of the world around them through language; they may use our tone of voice and facial and body expressions as cues, but the words we say only gain meaning over time.

But they understand touch from the first day. Loving touch from a caring adult (who is relaxed and radiates safety) is reassuring and comforting. It allows children to relax, and to feel safe and connected.

Because touch is so important for children, they also use it in relationship with each other. Children love all forms of physical touch – whether it is holding each other’s hand, giving each other a hug or kiss, or chasing or roughhousing with each other. And (especially younger) children also use touch to express their frustration – by shoving or even hitting each other.

Of course, I think it is important to stop children from hitting each other, but I think stopping any touch at all or telling them to ask the other child for consent first, has a negative effect on both children.

The child who is prevented from being touched is also prevented from the opportunity to notice what it feels like to be touched, and to feel in their bodies whether they like this particular touch or not. And this also means they are prevented the opportunity to express their like or dislike of it. If our hope is that one day, our children can confidently say ‘no’ to someone (such as a romantic partner or someone making an inappropriate advance) attempting to touch them in a way that makes them feel uncomfortable, we need to allow them to experience touch and what it feels like to them and to express for themselves if they don’t like it. And while children are still young, the ways in which they touch each other is still largely innocent (at least under normal conditions). And we can always help our child if we see that they are uncomfortable but have trouble expressing it by themselves.

The child who isn’t allowed to use physical touch with another child is also prevented to learn an important lesson: They don’t get direct feedback from the other child. They just learn that their parent or whoever interferes doesn’t allow for it, but they don’t see that touching another child sometimes is appreciated and reciprocated and sometimes is met with protest.

By not allowing children to make these experiences for themselves while they are young, we set them up for not knowing how to interact and demand their own and respect another’s boundaries when they are older, and when we are not around to protect them.

Touch is such an important aspect of any healthy relationship, and I think it is great that we (as a society) have become more aware of the importance of consent. But I also believe that we are often disconnected from our own bodies (in part because we grew up with much less physical touch with our own parents than what we have evolved to need), and we often hyper-sexualize touch – even among young children. And so we read our own discomfort and insecurities into their interactions.

When we look to hunter gather societies (the way we lived for most of human history), we see that they have a very different relationship to and idea about touch. Babies and young children are in constant physical contact with adults, children can touch each other freely with no adult interfering, and adults are also in friendships much more physical with each other (in a non-sexualized way). And children grow up to respect each other’s boundaries. Touch isn’t forced on others.

So instead of stopping children from touching each other altogether, we can simply help them state how they feel about it or recognize the other child’s feelings around it.

For example, if a child looks like they don’t like another child trying to hug them, we can say something like “You don’t want to be hugged? Tell her!” or we can help them express how they feel if they haven’t yet learned to do so by saying “It looks like Sam doesn’t want a kiss”.

And we can instead focus on being present and observe our children’s reactions.

So that this generation of children grows up to enjoy and freely engage in mutually desired physical touch and to recognize, express, and respect each other’s boundaries.