Bad and good touching

People touch each other often. Physical contact helps people feel safe. Touching someone can make you feel important and loved, for example, when your mom hugs you or when someone strokes your head. Parents or guardians touch their children for hygienic reasons – they wash them, clean up wounds, change their clothes. These types of touching are ‘good’.

‘Bad’ touching is unpleasant, sometimes painful and insulting. Examples of ‘bad’ touching are pushing each other, pulling someone’s ear, pushing them, kicking them and so on. ‘Bad’ touching also includes touching areas of your body which are covered by your underwear. Those areas should only be touched for hygiene reasons or for medical treatment.

Secrets

Children, just like adults, have secrets. Just as touching, secrets can be good or bad. An example of a ‘good’ secret is buying your mum a present and keeping it a surprise for her birthday. You and your parents decide to visit grandma but you decide to keep this a secret from grandma because you want to make her happy by surprising her.

A ‘bad’ secret can be something which you are ashamed to tell, or one that someone has strictly forbidden you to reveal, for example, your friend stole an object or some money, someone at school beat up someone else and you know about it, someone touched a part of your body that made you feel strange.

‘Bad’ secrets trouble and burden people. A ‘bad’ secret can be scary, harmful, and put the child in a dangerous position. You can avoid dangers by following safety rules.

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By Public Health Foundation of Georgia (PHF)