Touch as we all know means to feel something. But whenever we talk about touch, we generalise it to being a physical touch. But why do we not discuss the emotional touch? Thanks to my son who made me realise how important it is to talk about the emotional touch as well. So it is one of those conversations with my kid that stunned me and forced me to give it a thought. One day, I was explaining him about good touch and bad touch. As we all know, it is a very serious topic and you need to talk about it with your kids as soon as they start going to school and develop a little understanding.  So I was explaining him that there is a difference in the way people might touch. 

I told him that there will be some touch which will not bother him, or which will make him feel secured and there might be some touch which he will not like or which will make him feel insecure. I also told him what touching in different parts of the body means and how he should react to situations where he feels uncomfortable or insecure.

The good part is he was able to understand what I was trying to explain him but then came his question. He asked “Mumma, I understood the good and bad touch which people can do physically but what if people tell me good about myself or say something which I don’t like ? How should I behave then?”  This question left me in surprise and I told him that I will explain him about this as well. I could not answer him immediately as even I was not sure what should I tell him. This question has been wrangling in my head since and I could feel how important it was to give him an appropriate answer for the same. 

In our life, we don’t even understand what matters to us emotionally. How we react to things, what steps are taken and also the sufferings that people go through just because of bad emotional touch. There has been cases of depression, frustration, irritation etc. which people suffer just because of the inadequate emotional touch. People are either not able to express their feelings or they do so in a weird way. Taking its deep rooted impact into account this is such an important thing to be considered and I should actually explain him this with a clear and better understanding of the same. So to explain him I gathered all my personal experiences and gave it a good thought to understand the root cause and how a person can deal with the good and bad touch emotionally. 

One clear difference between the physical and the emotional touch is , that it is easy to define the boundaries of physical touch thus much easier to explain especially to the kids, but that does not hold true for the emotional touch at all. I say so because people have very varied emotional range and no two people react to the same situation in a similar fashion. Some find it OK to listen to people’s harsh words and might not get hurt easily while others might get offended or deeply hurt by harsh words with each person having a different threshold. And people who are used to such language may not find it wrong or may not think it to be inappropriate. So you see, defining boundaries becomes very difficult.

From our childhood, we have been taught to be good to people, never hurt anyone, be kind, be polite and learn to forgive. But we are never taught what to do when we are not treated properly, we are never taught what to do when we encounter someone who talks to us badly or make us feel small for anything we say or do. I understand that we need to raise our children to be kind, helpful and overall a good human. With this, my understanding  says that one should never initiate anything wrong from one’s end and never try to hurt anyone. But then, it also happens the other way round. It does happens that we get hurt emotionally by people’s behaviour, it does happen that people bully us or make fun of us. It also happens that people intentionally say words that can hurt us or pull us down, lower our confidence and also make us feel bad about ourselves. What should we do then? Is it not a parent’s duty to make their daughters and sons strong enough to speak for themselves? How can we expect them to be kind and loving in every situation? And if we think that we should ask them to forgive all the time and be kind, are we not pushing them towards depression, anxiety issues and frustration. 

How can we expect them to be forgiving forever while the other side has no respect for the forgiveness and keep breaching the trust. A friend of mine had a very apt saying to describe and explain this, that if we keep on exhaling without inhaling any oxygen, at some point of time we will get exhausted and a time will come where we actually need to sit and inhale properly. So isn’t it a similar case with emotions? If we are the elder we are expected to forgive while if you are the younger one expectation is to listen irrespective of whether it is making sense or not. Why? Why we cannot teach and expect ourself and our kids to just do right thing or stand for the right irrespective of the relation, power, position etc.

Putting all these pieces together in my head, it was time to explain my son that it does not matter whether it is a physical touch or an emotional touch, he should always stand for himself and speak out loud whatever he feels is inappropriate. He should take a stand for what’s right, it does not matter  who is on the other side, family, friend or a stranger. Stand for the right principle and “Always raise your voice against what hurts you” and “Believe in yourself”.

And as a parent I promised him that I will make sure that I stand for him and never ask him to tolerate the wrong doings of others because they are family members or friends. We cannot change anyone’s behaviour towards us, but one thing that we can do is make ourselves strong. Focus on becoming stronger and believe that such people are there to take out the dead cells from our body. So never expect any kind of change from them but make ourselves so strong that we do not give the key of our happiness to anyone else. No body should have the power to hurt us and for that we need to make ourselves strong. We need to be physically strong to protect ourselves physically and mentally strong so that we are not affected by anyone.

I am saying “family and friends” because as per studies, most of the cases of inappropriate touch and molestation has been done by family members or friends and similarly the maximum emotional wounds that can be inflicted on you, is from your family members or friends. Any person be it within your family or outside your family does not has the right to destroy or hurt your self respect and if you want to give respect to others, you first need to respect yourself.

Few very common scenarios of good and bad emotional touch and our response to them that we can keep in our back pocket:

• Stop them immediately, when you see people comparing your kid with others and even ask your kids to do that. Every kid is unique and their uniqueness should be respected. 
• Never allow anyone to body shame your kids. Doesn’t matter if they are thin or chubby. Always keep in mind, that what matters is your kid should be healthy and active.
• Do not let others super impose their impression on your kid about whether they are shy or too outgoing.
• It is ABSOLUTELY FINE to stop people from commenting on your kid which can have a negative impact on their mind.

So I end my blog with a very important note that “Mahaan nahi Insaan bano” i.e. Don’t try to be Great, just try to be Human. And for doing so one needs to understand what Being Human means (just making it clear that not talking about the brand Being Human nor this blog was sponsored by them). Just do right, stand by right and teach your kids to do the same.

Lokah samastah sukhino bhavantu..