Hugging teachers at secondary school

[elliejjtiny]

Ds5 is 11, about to leave primary school. He has autism and emotional development delay (last time he was tested he was 8 years behind his actual age emotionally). He has been on lots of visits to the secondary school with me and yesterday he went to visit with his primary school TA and other pupils.

Ds is a sensory seeker and loves hugs. We have worked on appropriate hugging with him and if he is not closely supervised he will hug anyone so we always give him one to one attention when out and remind him not to hug people he doesn't know, always ask if people want a hug etc. It's exhausting sometimes and I get jealous of parents who can sit and enjoy a coffee in peace while their 3/4 year old's play when I have to constantly watch my 11 year old but I think we are making progress.

When we visited the secondary school for open evening ds hugged all the teachers. Being used to grumpy hormonal teenagers they all said how lovely it was and one teacher told him he never gets hugs from students so now ds thinks he needs more hugs.

I let him but then as long as he asks first and reminded him that they are safe adults, mummy knows them and if they want to be hugged that's fine. He hugs the staff in primary school too, but not the children, he is a bit wary of the other children in his class. A few staff members at primary school have said they will miss him and his huge when he leaves.

He came home from school yesterday a bit miffed because he had been hugging the teachers and his class TA from primary school had told him off. He said to me he hadn't hugged anyone without asking first and he hadn't hugged anyone who wasn't staff, he was very proud of himself for remembering that.

I'm not sure how to deal with this. Should I be telling him not to hug anyone at secondary school? At the moment I think he is doing really well to recognise that he should only but certain people.

I agree @EnidSpyton that it is a shame that we need these policies. However having experienced and been witness to some issues in these areas, I think it is right that they exist.

It’s obviously your decision about where you work and whether your school has a policy like the ones described here. I personally wouldn’t be happy as a teacher or as a parent with the kinds of contact you describe.

I don’t agree btw that it’s not possible to build effective relationships without physical contact. I don’t work in a school now and I have effective relationships with my co-workers; I don’t think I have had any kind of physical contact with most of them. I have a close friend who I know does not want to hug me. We have a great and very very effective relationship. As a teacher I had good relationships with a lot of my students, based on lots of things but not hugging them.

I am not a cold person and I love to hug people to whom I am close and who want a hug. Mainly my family tbh.

You”re getting mixed messages here OP. However, I do think you need to err on the side of caution. I am in the ‘don’t touch’ category and I think I am a warm and empathetic teacher - but I can show that by eye contact, a low voice, clear facial expressions and by using my words. It”s nonsense to say touch is needed to create relationships, to reassure or to descalate.

Schools today are a tricky place to negotiate and anyone who has seen a colleague come up against an accusation of being inappropriate will, rightly, be cautious of physical touch. I can see the MN thread now ‘my DC’s teacher keeps touching him or hugging him - what should I do?’ The replies that this is inappropriate between teacher and pupil would be instantaneous.

I think this is unusual or at least your school sounds very unusual to me if this kind of physical contact is normal.

I'm bemused that you are concluding that a lack of physical touch means a teacher isn't warm or empathetic.

I don't know how long you've been teaching but if you were my colleague I'd be urging you to be cautious. You are making yourself vulnerable to allegation... not only the worst of all allegations (sexual harassment), but simply just intrusive contact. It just takes one student to say "Ms Spyton put her arm around me and I didn't like it" and the consequent investigations could be very distressing.

Far from not being warm and empathetic, I've had many dozens of students come and speak to me/disclose stuff to me over the years because they know I'll take the time to listen, understand, and take action to help solve problems.

Ruffling a student's hair does not necessarily speak "empathetic" to me.

I think it would be wrong to give op the message that any teachers who won't hug her son, don't care about his well being. It is possible to care about our students without wishing to touch them.

Edit for mucho typos

Great post @RobinHeartella

Yes I was a teacher whom students were happy to speak to, even tho I didn’t hug them (or yes, ruffle their hair? What?). You can be empathic without hugging.

I also agree that a teacher needs to be very sure physical contact is wanted. At least one of my DC would not have liked even an arm round their shoulders at school.

@RobinHeartella

I’ve been teaching for 15 years. I’ve never had a complaint when it comes to my behaviour towards my students.

I choose to work in schools with a relaxed and liberal ethos. I don’t do soulless state schools.

I know it is possible to care and to show you care without needing to touch. I haven’t said that. Nor have I said that you need to touch a child to show you are warm and empathetic. Another thing I have not said is that refusing to hug a child shows you don’t care about them. You’re twisting my words.

What I have said is that I find it unnatural to have ‘no touch’ policies in place in schools.

In my school, parents choose to send their children to us (private school) because we are so relaxed and have such warm and easygoing relationships between teachers and pupils. I love the fact I don’t have to be paranoid if I accidentally brush past a student or need to put a hand out to steady myself against them as I squeeze past in a tightly packed classroom. Thanks for your concern, but we are not the type of school where students would even think to complain about a teacher having physical contact with them. We just had our year 13 graduation ceremony and every single one of our 100 graduates hugged their form tutors, our head of sixth form, their classroom teachers - on stage in full view of their parents - as they received their diplomas from them. It’s just part of our school culture and for our parents, one of our key selling points.

Don’t get me wrong - I’m not constantly going around touching kids. But if a child is in floods of tears and asks for a hug, yes I will give them one. If a child has done brilliantly at something or wants to celebrate with me, I will give them a hug or high five. I know I don’t have to in order to show I care about them - but if a student wants me to, I will, and in my school, that is allowed and in fact actively encouraged.

And @clary , my colleagues and I are very well aware of students’ personal space and boundaries. Any physical contact we make is consensual and student led - if students ask for a hug they get one. But we would never initiate one. I don’t ruffle students’ hair, but some of the male teachers do to the boys, who love it for some reason. Physical contact such as a hand against the small of a back to squeeze past is absolutely fine in my school - we have tiny classrooms and honestly contact like that - which I know in some state schools is tantamount to gross misconduct - is genuinely impossible to avoid as we are not a purpose built school and sometimes getting through the corridors is akin to a rugby scrum. We have a common sense, human approach. It works for us. Every school is different.

@EnidSpyton you said I I don’t think we can build effective relationships without [touch]

So I don’t think anyone is twisting your words. I don’t agree with you but that’s ok, I don’t know you and my kids are not at your school. But I wonder to what extent you (can) check that a child is happy to have an arm round their shoulders- like I say, one if my DC would have hated that but would not have been able to articulate it.

There's meeting children's needs in education and then there's this.

You can't expect an adult at work in a school to have to hug, or be hugged by, a child.

Yes I don’t think we can build effective relationships without touch. But that doesn’t mean you need to touch someone to show you care.

We obviously have very different views and I totally respect your take. I’m a very tactile person and very chilled about this sort of thing. But I’m aware others are less so and more cautious. I completely understand the challenges and risks involved in interacting with young people and different environments call for different approaches. I’ve chosen to teach in the right environment for me.

I’m a complete outsider here. IMO I would not want my child to be hugging people that are not in there immediate family. I feel it’s inappropriate I understand about the sensory and diagnosed condition but you are almost enabling it by saying you just ask first. Primary schools are always a lot more intimate and everyone knows each other but secondary school I’d worry if peers saw this it would bring ALOT of negative attention which would be even more detrimental to him than explaining we do not hug. Growing up boundary’s need to be set. I would make it very clear that we do not do that anymore and if hugs are needed save them all for mummy/daddy once your home. If it was a different setting such as a specialist school then yes but not a main stream setting. Kids are horrible with any signs of difference are shown. Ensure he understand boundary’s and how other people may react.

Thank you. @EnidSpyton your school sounds amazing, I wish I could send ds there.

How do I get an OT referral? I've asked several times since his diagnosis 5 years ago and been told things like "oh yes, I'll chase that up" but he still hasn't seen one. He is going to secondary school for another visit this afternoon so we will see if he manages to not hug anyone. He gave me a big long hug this morning. It's difficult for him when all the secondary school teachers are saying things like "this is nice" and that it's lovely etc and then me and the primary school teaching assistant are telling him not to hug people.

In some areas, you can self refer to NHS OT services. If you can’t, the school or GP will be able to. However, not all ICBs commission sensory OT on the NHS. When they do, there is often a long wait.

You could request OT input via the next AR process for the EHCP. Although the LA may not agree or may agree to an assessment but not include any detailed, specified and quantified provision in F. Following the AR, you will get the right of appeal. You could appeal and seek an independent assessment - make sure whoever you use is a sensory integration OT and has SENDIST experience. You could request a reassessment of needs but, personally, I wouldn’t go down that route because there is no guarantee the LA’s report would be good and you might end up appealing anyway but have wasted time.

You could also ask the school if they would fund an assessment. The answer may well be no, but occasionally schools agree.

In practice we had to go private for OT until we got a special school place. We are in a very difficult county for this.

Thank you. I did a sensory course run by the OT's years ago for my now 17 year old when he was 8. I'm sure they had suggestions of equipment for sensory seekers so I will dig out the paperwork from that. I'm also going to email the senco at the secondary school, ask her about his hugging and suggest some alternative equipment.

Just to update that between me and his current class TA we have managed to get into his head "no hugging at secondary school". Also in recent times we have been telling him it's too hot for hugs. He went on his 2nd transition visit and managed to hug only one person which was progress. Then we had the SEN transition evening which is a chance for the old parents and the new parents to get together and eat cake, chat etc. The senco did a speech about how it's the start of a new journey and there will be hugs and tears along the way etc and ds thought that meant he could hug whoever he wanted. So i spent most of the evening stopping him hugging people and we are back to square 1 again. Transition visit 3 is today so we will see how that has gone later. He has had about 5 hours sleep which won't have helped, although he often doesn't sleep that well.

The first part of your update was so positive, sorry it was undone by a later part.
Hope today has gone well.

@elliejjtiny don’t know if it’s helpful but I’ve always had ‘magic’ exploding fist pumps with my huggy students. Each one is different so they feel it’s still special. They still do it in year 13 !

It's not acceptable to impose hugs on people to meet his own needs.
In primary schools the ks1 (girls especially) want to hug all the female staff, and quite honestly nobody WANTS them. Saying that a hug is nice is being polite.

Similarly mixed transition experience here @elliejjtiny . What a rollercoaster.

Hopefully the progress you'd made won't be completely lost. You'll get back there quicker next time.

I would worry that the hugging will also single him out to the other children.
I have two ND childrena d their quirks definitely make them stand out but they are quite feisty and will come back to any bullying with a shut down or take down approach so they tend to get something said to them by another student about acting a bit odd and are then able to stop it in its tracks with a quick verbal come back.
If your son is not eqipped to deal with that then I would be discussing with the senco at secondary about exactly how they can manage this need for hugging. Maybe hug tokens he can give to a teacher or something like that (one of my sons has talk tokens to stop him shouting out for example).
Fingerd crossed for a smooth transition op x

No ! Don’t hug teachers. We have to do a CPOMS referral every time.

I work in a special school with students with severe learning disabilities. It is impossible to work in Special Ed without touch. The students may need help dressing and undressing for pe, toileting etc. Whilst from a safeguarding perspective staff don't actively hug, there are definitely huggers. All staff are aware of the huggers and don't reject them as we are talking about young people who are emotionally delayed by many years. Certain pupils often require a hug to feel grounded, prevent escalation and so on. We do encourage an arm round the shoulder, handshakes and high fives where possible, which work well with some students but not others. The huggers often ambush you but hugging always takes place with other staff and students present due to staffing. We also have pupils who will tell you that they love you multiple times a day. We acknowledge that by saying "Thank you" but never return the sentiment. It is different in special ed. We constantly have safeguarding refresher training and where possible, hugging etc needs discouraging if possible because these are incredibly vulnerable children and young people whose openness to hugging could be targeted by certain individuals in the wider world.

What's a CPOMS referral?

@Bbq1 I think specialist knowledge like this is exactly why OP fought so hard for a special school.

OP I wonder if your SENCo could call on a local special school contact or SENCo for advice. They may be able to share written resources even so your mainstream school doesn't have to start from scratch.

Where we keep a record of things that need monitoring. For example safeguarding issues, bullying. It helps create a big picture, I might put something small on about a child that seems out of character or strange and the dsl will watch because maybe 4 other teachers will record other issues and then us put together that something needs reporting further or investigating. Helps protect us too, if your child hugged me I would log it so that if someone else had seen it and reported they would see that I wasn’t hiding something.

Safeguarding tracking system is cpoms.