Children Must Be Free to Say ‘No,’ With No Regrets

Hidden within the campaign against child sexual abuse is an emerging ethic that has the potential to create further anxiety for parents and family members.

It centers on instilling in children a quality that virtually all experts believe is critical: the ability to say “no” to a potential molester.

But to properly teach that skill, the theory goes, young children have to be allowed to resist any adult authority--parents and relatives as well as strangers--when they don’t want to be touched.

Explains Joel Milner, a child abuse specialist at Western Carolina University: “The root is doing something against your will. If the adult can demand physical affection, he’s teaching the child that he must give in physically and emotionally. We have to give our children the freedom to say ‘no’ to us. We have to allow children to have integrity and make decisions about their own emotions.”

Suppose, then, that a family is leaving Uncle Ed’s home after dinner, and mom and dad tell 5-year-old Maria to “give Uncle Ed a hug and a kiss!” But Maria doesn’t want to. What should the parents do?

The consensus of numerous child development experts: No hug. No kiss. And no regrets.

Suppose Uncle Ed’s feelings are hurt?

“Tough,” Milner said. “Let the kids decide when they want to be affectionate.”

“Uncle Ed’s a big boy,” said Shayla Lever, director of the Los Angeles school district’s child abuse office. “He’ll get over it.”

Lory Freeman, author of “It’s My Body,” a book that teaches children about sexual abuse, adds, “A hug can be an invasion of a child’s personal bubble.”

Being occasionally rejected by your child “is what a healthy person has to expect,” Milner said. “You can’t expect them always to be affectionate when you want affection.”

Milner and others acknowledge that letting the child make the decision--as opposed to nudging her into an unwanted hug--represents a major change in the level of authority many parents exercise over their children.

“A lot of parents have that nice old-fashioned idea about having complete authority over the child. They don’t accept this (new approach) as easily as we do,” said Sharon Sackin, a staff psychologist at the Julia Ann Singer Center, a West Los Angeles school for emotionally disturbed children.

While the new ethic is well-motivated, it is “a tremendous intrusion” into some traditional family relationships, said Dr. Hershel K. Swinger, director of the Southern California Child Abuse Prevention Center at California State University, Los Angeles.

Swinger said he is bothered by the notion primarily because it illustrates that society is putting too much responsibility on children to cope with potential abusers. There should be more programs to teach parenting skills. That would reduce child abuse and improve communication between children and adults, he said.