“But I can’t hug you when teachers are around, they might report it to the principal,” said my female best friend to me, a male teen. I was having a terribly rough day, and was almost in tears. But that state continued all day long, because words weren’t enough for me. And I was helpless, as fear had conquered my even the closest of my friends.
Yes, the schools have succeeded. Yes, the no-touch policy adopted by the schools to prevent bad-touch has achieved its goal of creating fear in minds of ‘most boys who take advantage of girls’.
But it also has prevented good touch.
The health benefits of human touch are well-known, from stress relief to lowered blood pressure. But in school, the main benefit of touch is to build friendships and human connections, whether it is brushing one another’s hair, roughhousing playfully or giving quick comforting hugs.
Like adults, children touch to say hello and goodbye, to express affection, to test their strength, and to give and receive comfort.
But our schools chose to ban touch altogether. The only solution to this problems seems to be lifting this ban on touch.
Young children need to touch each other — we all need human contact — and they need to slowly figure out what’s appropriate and what’s not.
Consider this example from Canada, where innocent young teen girls planned a ‘hug in’, to protest against No-touch policy – https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2012/06/07/brampton_students_fight_for_the_right_to_hug.html
I would also like to highlight upon another issue – hugs involving people of the opposite sexes are discouraged. Some random observations in my school premises-
- Most male friends of mine hug each other only on their birthdays.
- Most female friends of mine hug each other 20 times a day.
- There is hardly any hugs involving males and females. Those rare cases always attract the eyes of hundreds of observers. They are asked if they were dating, or are just given an awkward eye movement in response.
Why is this so? Why is the ideology of this majority shaped this way? Why do we discourage hugs, when we know how important they are? And seriously, how does what one has between their legs determine if they deserve an act of comfort/love/happiness?
Consider reading this to get to know a more scientific viewpoint of this belief- http://www.collective-evolution.com/2015/12/03/the-chemistry-of-hugging-11-benefits-of-hugging/
I have a recommendation. A big, radical one. It might be a shocker, as it was to my own school administration.
MOVE ON. IT’S TIME YOU FINALLY DO. Get done with this policy and promote love more than hatred. You could also launch a Free Hugs Campaign, and combat the belief that hugs are sexual and all touch is undesirable.
This is just an article to promote thinking, so I suggest you think and ask your inner self, if you relate to anything mentioned here, as to why that belief exists, and whether it is logical or not.
Thank you for reading. Have a great day!
P.S. If more details on the Free Hugs Campaign are required by anyone of the readers, please feel free to mail me and ask for the document, since I have one prepared that is suitable at school level. It has all recommendations in detail.
(yatharthv2001@gmail.com)