No touch policy at school?

My DD’s lower secondary had a policy like that. I thought it was ridiculous, then she actually attended and I understood what a school filled with 12 year olds is like. Never once did I hear of the teachers stopping someone in distress from getting a hug. It’s one of those rules they can pull out when necessary.

I prefer more precise rules, but also understand reality. This is one where unless your child actually gets in trouble for a ridiculous infraction, you just ignore that it exists and expect your child to behave like a good citizen.

That is insane and unhealthy to blanket ban eachother form touching eachother.

Maybe they'll ban all talking next in case someone says something inappropriate.

Kids don't learn this from their parents. They learn it from each other.

If the parenting was so successful schools wouldn't feel the need to introduce the rules.

You can teach them anything you like but when they become teenagers it's a totally different ball game and they have to work it out with their peers. If you're lucky they'll carry the values you taught them into this stage of their lives, but the actual behaviours are something they work out with their peers. The idea that adults helicopter them to the extent that they can't hug each other when they want to is extraordinarily disempowering and infantilising. It's not going to result in confident kids who understand what's appropriate and what isn't.

If I'm wrong I'll be happy to come back in 10 years and admit it but I bet the micro-management of young people's everyday behavior like this, does not reduce the rates of anxiety and bad mental health in young people.

I hope I'm wrong. If these sorts of rules become the norm, I'll be delighted if I am.

That’s not really appropriate at school is it?

Such a shame. Ds and his mates were always draped over each other , I used to come in and there were teenage arms and legs everywhere 😂

I’m not sure when you were last in secondary school but it’s mainly a feral wasteland. They can do what they like out of school. It’s not like a pandemic. Do you repeatedly need to touch people at work?

I’m a teacher and we have the same. It avoids confusion with things like ‘play’ fighting; kids trying to walk down busy corridors with their arms around each other/ linking etc; it basically takes ambiguity away. It takes away us trying to establish whether all parts of a touching situation are happy to take part. They don’t need to bloody touch each other all the time.

My son’s school had this policy. Inner city boys school. It stopped play fights turning into proper fights.

its very sad really that schools think they can make rules banning natural, normal human behaviour.
It might work but at what cost to the kids. Didn’t Covid teach us how highly humans value and need human touch.

Yeah, and the sexual assaults on girls will be more obvious too.

My secondary introduced this rule.

admittedly it was during Covid. It was kept because there were so many, not fights, just incidents where one teenage boy jumped on another teenage boy as. “A joke” and then bones got broken

it was just easier to police.

This is just basic parenting, from toddler age. Parents should teach their kid about consent, bodily autonomy and to not touch anyone, as a baseline.
It's vital, and very bare minimum safeguarding.

It was introduced when I was in Yr9, still there when I left Yr11.
No one was actually that bothered by the rule.

Parents should bring their children up to know this by this age and if they (like many) haven't, then those who have the misfortune to teach them or have to be in the same class as them suffer the consequences.

Well he got a message from me to say I wasn't happy, I know the other parents wernt either but I don't know if they complained.
I would say it was more because the kids didn't adhere to it. Why would they, it's going against a natural human interaction.

I remember this rule being introduced when I was at school, we found it hilarious and stupid.

However it got rid of all the problems about teachers having to separate boyfriends and gurlfriends etc.

Way back in the 1960s our headmaster introduced the 6 inch rule. Cue everyone going around carrying rulers and extravagant messing around especially as the corridors were packed at lesson changeover as I suspect they are in modern schools. The ridicule meant it was quietly dropped

I do not know how kids are going to learn what touch is OK and what touch isn't, if they aren't allowed to make mistakes at school.

We are apes. We are not designed never to touch each other. This is profoundly unhealthy.

And yes I know lots of people don't like being touched and there are all sorts of advantages to these policies, but overall the fact that people feel we need them is the sign of a deeply unhealthy culture.

They don't learn boundaries by being told they can't ever touch. They learn them by making mistakes and finding out what touch is OK and what isn't. If they are not allowed to learn those boundaries at school, they will not have learned them when they leave school.

Totally impossible to police. Lads in particular grab each other all the time.

They did this at my sons primary school, i only found out when he told me he wasn't allowed to play tag anymore, his favourite playtime game.

I messaged the head teacher to ask why they had created such a policy without letting any of the parents know, he then sent a message out about it.

I feel it promotes an unrealistic, socially distanced society. They will feel awkward hugging a friend, comforting someone who is upset or simply brushing past someone, I certainly don't want my child to grow up like this.

Funnily enough they decided it was still OK for them to touch whilst playing football 🙄🙄🙄

It sharp got cancelled, another one of the headteachers ridiculous ideas.

True! And for boys (like my three) who don’t like that this rule would be a blessing.

Same in my son’s school. Seems to work ok from what I hear (or rather don’t hear any complaints about it).