WHO YOU CAN TOUCH, WHEN AND WHERE
Judith Lesner
- Learning appropriate social skills is part of growing up. There are lots of rules to be learned and situations to be mastered. These are different depending on your culture, gender, class, age and other factors. Some of the rules appear to be "universal" and some are more specific to a particular time and place.
- Many of these skills are learned by seeing what the people around you are doing and how others react to them. As parents of children who are unable to do this, we need to provide this information to them verbally.
- We have definite rules about who may touch us, where and how. Learning these rules is part of developing appropriate social skills. We start to learn these rules as young children and do so gradually. Who may touch us, where and how is determined initially by both our age and the age of the "toucher".
- For some of us parents, it is easier to talk about good manners at the table than about touching and sexual norms. It is essential that we do both. If we are not comfortable talking about touching and about sex, our children perceive this and will not come to us with questions. They then will go to their peers and hear their versions of the rules or make up their own.
- There are many societal penalties for not behaving appropriately. They range from being avoided/ignored to being rebuked to being seen as a victim or perpetrator.
- We want to protect our children from being perceived either as a potential victim or potential predator.
- Some things for parents of children with visual impairments to remember:
- Use correct names for all body parts
- Describe social situations you are seeing to your child.
- Describe your reaction and the reactions of people around you to these situations. Be sure to include both positive and negative occurrences.
- Accept the fact that as our children age, their sexual development changes. They need to learn the appropriate behavior and dress for their age.
Judith Lesner