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Safe, Unsafe, and Safe but Unwanted Touch

Read the definitions and examples for safe, unsafe, and unwanted touch.

Though the lines for safe versus unsafe touch may seem very clear, knowing when touch is wanted or unwanted can be much more difficult to determine and will change for each individual depending on who the other person is and the circumstance. Providing families with information about safe, unsafe, and safe but unwanted touch will help them understand and communicate what types of touch are appropriate in the school setting.

Permission to Touch

Has someone, who intended no harm, ever touched you in a way that made you feel uncomfortable? Maybe it was a casual acquaintance who unexpectedly hugged you or someone who tapped you on your shoulder to get your attention. While these actions are not meant to make you uncomfortable, everyone has different levels of comfort with touching. When you ask permission to touch someone, you communicate that you are considering what the other person feels and are responsive to their preferences. Permission to touch can prevent all kinds of unwanted touch, including those that are sexual behavior challenges.

Reading and Responding to Cues

First, you should know that children cannot legally consent to sexual behavior, even if they willingly participate in an interaction. While children cannot legally consent, it’s important to be familiar with the laws in your area regarding the age of consent for older adolescents, since this can be complicated and vary depending on where you live.

All people use cues to communicate. A cue is an expression, action, symbol, or words that help you know what a person is thinking or feeling or communicates a message. Responding to an individual’s cues lets them know that their thoughts and feelings matter. Environmental cues help young students learn which spaces in school are private vs public and when it is okay to enter a private space such as a restroom.

For example, crying is a cue that infants use to let caregivers know they need something. As children grow from infants to toddlers and expand the ways in which they communicate, children need to learn to read and respond to others’ cues, including those of peers. Read the scenarios below and reflect on how the students in the examples use cues to communicate their preferences on touch.

All of the above scenarios are examples of what can happen when individuals do not ask permission to touch or do not respond to others’ cues. Notice how the educators in the examples used these opportunities to teach the children or adolescents that touching without permission affects how others feel. Teaching all students to first ask permission to touch helps them learn boundaries and can prevent many sexual behavior challenges. For example, if Olivia (the 7-year-old) does not learn to ask permission to touch when playing doctor, how will she know that it’s not OK to touch another child’s private parts when in the bathroom?

Culturally and Developmentally Appropriate Modeling

Some children and adolescents, such as Nicolas in the example above, may need adults to help others interpret their communication. It is particularly important that you read and interpret the cues of children and youth with emerging expressive communication and those with speech, language, and social delays. Desi’s teacher will need to model how to ask Nicholas permission to touch so she has the opportunity to develop this skill. Her teacher models this each morning when Desi and the other students arrive at school. The teacher asks Desi “how would you like to be greeted today?,” giving Desi the opportunity to choose and give permission for a safe touch. Desi can choose to be greeted with a hug, handshake, high-five, fist-bump, or verbal greeting. Offering students the opportunity to choose their greeting aligns with a trauma-informed approach. A trauma-informed approach helps students feel safe and secure in your program setting and provides opportunities for students to rebuild a sense of control and empowerment.

While your school should have clear rules and expectations on touch, as with most things, family and cultural norms will be diverse. For example, in some cultures it is customary to kiss on the cheek when greeting friends, family, and acquaintances. In other cultures, touching another person’s head, even a child’s, is disrespectful. Though you are primarily learning about permission to touch to prevent sexual behavior challenges in children and adolescents, it is also important that you are aware of your own behaviors. For example, many educators may not think twice about affectionately giving a young student a gentle pat on the head. But if you did that to a student who comes from a family that considers this disrespectful, what effect might that have? Read the examples below and notice how the caregivers modeled developmentally-appropriate permission to touch.

Although it may be natural to pull the sticker off Bella’s back or to immediately reach out and assist Steven, by asking permission, you are modeling an important skill for students. In these situations, students are given the choice to allow a safe touch or to decline and can assert their physical boundaries with others.

Becoming Digital Citizens

With recent advances in technology, students are connecting on the internet and through social media in new ways. There are a multitude of important decisions that students make regarding which information to share online or with their peers through social media. Students need to learn and practice decision-making skills. While it’s important for students to learn what not to do online for safety purposes, it’s just as important to teach students how to use and interact on social media in positive and safe ways. For example, instead of focusing only on “don’ts” think about how to also teach “dos”:

Discussions about digital citizenship, or how to responsibly use the internet or social media, can shape a student’s experiences with technology and potentially prevent situations involving sexual behavior challenges. Digital citizenship involves a wide range of online behaviors, some of which include: how to use privacy settings, how to report cyberbullying, how to determine which information is safe or unsafe to share online, how to create secure passwords, and how to communicate respectfully online (Weinstein & Mendoza, 2019).

Active Supervision

The school environment is a public space and should not have any areas where educators cannot provide active supervision. Active supervision occurs when school staff are able to engagingly observe and monitor student behavior and conversation. Active supervision is one way that educators can keep students safe and prevent a range of challenging behaviors.

Sometimes, through student’s activities and ideas, the environment changes in ways that prevent staff from providing active supervision. For example, notice how the rolling number board in this classroom is pushed in the corner. This placement creates an unobservable space, where a student might easily be able to hide. You will want to set-up your classroom so you have line-of-sight supervision, and be conscious of large moveable items.   

Read this example of how the teacher below ensured that she could actively supervise the students while still encouraging them to engage in their original idea.

You might need to increase how closely you provide active supervision for students who may have sexual behaviors, even if they are normative. For example, some of the seventh-grade students find it humorous to sneak up behind each other and slap peers’ backsides. Staff can prevent this behavior from happening by providing closer active supervision where the behavior tends to occur. For this example, the students may need an additional staff member to provide active supervision when in the gym in addition to a reminder cue: “Please respect your peers, including their personal space and bodies.”

When you first think of active supervision, you may think specifically about the ability to observe students’ behaviors visually. However, listening to students can be another critical way of monitoring behaviors. For example, in a tenth-grade science class as the teacher walks around the room during lab, he overhears a group of students laughing and making sexually explicit jokes. For this example, think back to the “responding to sexual behavior in the moment” graphic from Lesson Two, which outlines the process as: pause, redirect, listen, and teach. Here, the teacher may redirect the student’s behaviors by reminding them of what they need to be working on during class time and checking in with specific students after class regarding their inappropriate behavior. During this check-in the teacher can listen to the student’s point of view and teach, by communicating the expectations for class time.

The physical layout of a school is an important factor for active supervision. Perhaps there are places in the hallway that are not easily visible, or the classroom doors don’t have windows. Awareness of places and spaces on your campus that are not easily monitored can be crucial in preventing sexual behavior challenges. Take a moment and consider the following spaces on your campus that may present active supervision challenges or may be more complicated to supervise during transition times:

• Computer labs
• Cafeteria
• Playground
• Library
• Gyms
• Closets
• Bleachers
• Auditoriums

For older children and adolescents, spaces such as the locker room or restroom can pose unique challenges, since adult supervision in these environments may not be always be appropriate. Use positive guidance to remind students of appropriate behavior and expectations before entering these spaces. For example, Coach Herman reminds her seventh-grade class about appropriate behaviors and expectations for students while in the locker rooms every day before students change for PE.

See

To prevent sexual behavior challenges you will actively supervise students, teach rules and boundaries, consider student development, and promote digital citizenship. As you view the videos describing prevention strategies, think about which strategies you already use in your school and if there are practices that can be improved upon.

Do

Asking, Accepting, and Declining Permission

You will need to teach children and adolescents how to ask, accept, and decline permission to touch. Encourage children and adolescents to be respectful but firm. Remember that communication is more than words, and it may be helpful for students with emerging language to learn and recognize gestures as well. Review the suggestions below and think about how you can use these ideas when working with children and adolescents.

• Model and teach students a gesture for “stop.” Extending your arm and hand (palm facing the other person) is a universal and often intuitive gesture. You can model this when you observe a student initiate unwanted touch. For example, Kori, a kindergartner, puts her hands on Jack’s face. Based on Jack’s facial expression, educator Simon recognizes that this is unwanted touch. Simon models the “stop” gesture to communicate to Kori, explaining that Jack says, “No thank you.”
• Help students learn to read cues by using reflective questions and narration. “What do you think it means when someone pulls away from you?” “He has a sad face.”
• Have students practice asking for, accepting, and declining various forms of safe touch (e.g., high-fives, holding hands). “Can I have a high-five?” “Sure!” “No, thank you.” “Not right now.”
• Teach children and adolescents that they are “the boss” or “in charge” of their bodies and that they decide (except when an adult must help them) when they participate in safe touch and when they don’t.
• Help children and adolescents understand that you can decline a safe touch and still be that person’s friend.
• Teach young students phrases and concepts such as, “You’re in my bubble” so they know when they are unintentionally invading personal space or engaging in unwanted touch. Teach older students what “personal space” means.
• Use specific, positive feedback when you observe students asking, accepting, and declining permission to touch. “Liam, thank you for asking to give Isabel a hug.”
• Respect children’s and adolescent’s decision to decline (optional) safe touch. Avoid begging or teasing when they decline. For example, a first-grader refuses to give their parent a kiss at drop-off, begging from an adult might sound like, “Oh, come on, Daddy really wants a kiss. Please give me a kiss before I leave.” The teacher can support the child and parent in this situation by voicing the child’s intention, “It looks like he is not ready for a kiss right now. Maybe things will be different at the end of the day and you could ask for a kiss then?”