I’m surprised no one mentioned teaching consent. You can’t teach it in the moment but you can rely on it then. We talk about consent all day with my super touchy 4 year old. This looks like lots of talk about bodies ... eg “only you can know if you are still hungry, it’s your body.” Or “I see you are trying to help your sister over the stair, that is really thoughtful but she is in charge of her own body and id she needs help she will ask.” No shame and no blaming. When she says no hugs or no kisses we stop. Her dad and I do “tickle hugs” which she thinks are hilarious... he comes in and hugs me all sweet and then tickles me. Sometimes I let him. Sometimes I say no before he starts. Sometimes he starts and I then ask him to stop. We normalize boundaries for all bodies. All this to say, when she gets up in my space sometimes now I can say calmly and without incident either “hey I know you’ve been working hard on paying attention to your body” or “sweetheart I’d like you to stop touching my face right now.” If she gets grumpy about it and I am ok with the touching I might say “you can’t put your hands in my armpit right now but can I put my arm around you instead?”
We also bought her a weighted blanket which helps at story time/bedtime.
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