Learning to socialize happens two ways: Trial and error, and role modeling. Especially role modeling. As kids, the trials often come with more errors, so we look to our grown-ups to sort it out and see where we might do better next time.
We do learn! And we often learn too late that our grown-ups don’t always have the answers at hand. But, as one mom shows, grown-ups can learn too.
We’ve all been there, in that forced obligation of showing our relatives some love even when we weren’t cool with it.
But we really shouldn’t have been forced into it.
In a column for Good Housekeeping , Miriam Foley shared an experience with her toddler that left her shaken and questioning her own reactions to some of the expectations placed on kids by family members.
The incident that got her thinking came during a trip to Spain to visit her husband’s relatives.
Miriam’s daughter was face-to-face with a great aunt who was demanding a kiss, a cultural gesture from “someone she has seen a few times sporadically in her young life.”
When her daughter didn’t relent, the aunt said “Go away then, I don’t love you.”
“The woman waved her hand in the air as she spoke, her words cutting me like a knife,” Miriam wrote.
“For her, though, and others in the Spanish village where my husband is from, this was no more than a throw-away remark said in jest. The comments like it, the hand waves, or the pretend crying, particularly from the older generation, all planted a swollen seed of unease in my stomach. Said or done innocently enough, it was emotional blackmail: Ingratiate yourself to me the way I want for me to like you. Kiss me to make me happy and make me love you.”
Miriam says that she saw it many times during that trip, and her daughter had been “bombarded with kiss requests.”
“I looked at her face each time, reading it to see if she was okay. Sometimes she looked bemused, other times perturbed, other times visibly distressed. The other person — usually a distant family member — reacted differently each time. They retorted with a comment, insisted until it was tiresome, and we awkwardly laughed it off, or they just grabbed her and gave her a kiss.”
Miriam felt “wracked with guilt and confusion” over the demands from her relatives and her inability to stop it all.
“I wanted everyone to stop kissing my daughter, so that I didn’t have to stop them myself,” she wrote. “If I struggled to assert myself on her behalf, how can I teach her to refuse those kisses when she’s old enough to say it herself?”
And so she consulted Brenna Merrill, who works with a sexual violence prevention project with a focus on consent education and bystander intervention.
Brenna reassured Miriam, saying that “Your kids are going to notice that you are trying to do right by them, even if it doesn’t always pan out.”
She also said that when it comes to sticking up for your kids or letting them stick up for themselves, a mix is best. “The goal is to encourage kids to have confidence in expressing their wants, needs, and limitations. With kids, modeling the act of respecting consent is crucial. Respecting consent means that caregivers listen when their kids communicate boundaries.”
That respect for boundaries extends to the playground as well as visits with relatives, Brenna says.
“It also means that we teach kids to honor the boundaries of their peers and to check in when they aren’t sure if someone wants to play with them, or if someone wants a hug. Creating a culture where consent is respected means caregivers talk to the other adults in a child’s life about how important it is to respect kids’ boundaries.”
For parents like Miriam, Brenna also offered up a few ideas to help kids communicate boundaries.
For one, talking with relatives before the visit or during adult time to make sure they know the deal up front. Also, trying alternatives to kissing and hugging that don’t involve touch, like waving hello.
And, when the age is right, talk with your kid about greeting with hugs and kisses and let them know they have the right to say yes or no, and that you’ll support them.
