Girl Scouts warn parents about forcing kids to hug relatives for the holidays

originally posted by: TinySickTears

when i see my nephews after not seeing them for a long ass time or on a holiday i dont want a hug. i dont need a hug. i dont expect a hug and honestly the sooner i can get away from them the better. the less they talk to me the better. the further away from me they are the better. dealing with them is a small nightmare but to be fair its the same for most people.

right?

Many treat a quick hug as a form of greeting that is a little deeper than a handshake. Many of my friends both male and female give me the old quick hug in greeting when we haven't seen each other in a while. For men, it's the man hug thing...
Hell if you go to France/Italy etc get ready for a man/woman cheek kiss if you have any connection with the person past working professional level. Go to Japan and you will have people bowing all over the place...it would be very rude for a kid not to bow...I don't think any of this damages their growth.

I like your news source, this seems to be a factual story not taken out of context. I also feel like this is going a bit too far. Maybe I'll change my mind if I learn more about the subject.

originally posted by: Nyiah
If anyone has been doubting if we've hit Stupidity Critical Mass in the US yet, doubt no more.

Girl Scouts warn parents about forcing kids to hug relatives for the holidays

Girl Scouts of the USA issued a warning to parents this holiday season, asking them to think twice before forcing their daughters to hug relatives at gatherings.

“Think of it this way, telling your child that she owes someone a hug either just because she hasn’t seen this person in a while or because they gave her a gift can set the stage for her questioning whether she ‘owes’ another person any type of physical affection when they have bought her dinner or done something else seemingly nice for her later in life,” reads the post on the Girl Scouts’ website.

Are you fooking kidding me? "Nyiah, be polite and give Great-Grandma G a big hug, it's Christmas morning" was a line I was fed in my early childhood. Great-Grandma G had early-onset Alzheimer's from her 30's onward, she was a very awkward person to be around at any given point in the year my entire life.
But being forced/strongly encouraged to give who I perceived to be a super-creepy old person who yelled at random inanimate objects and called people by innumerable wrong names did NOT make me feel obligated later in life to "owe" anyone else anything. It was simple manners, and I'm glad I was not taught to shun a medically & mentally frail person just because they were weird to me. IMO, the Girl Scouts' "advice" is self-sabotage. There's a huge difference between being cognizant of a legitimate fear your child has regarding a person, and simple ignorance-based fear. They're advocating making no distinctions and teaching no distinctions, and that's a massive cog in a kid's life wheel to skip teaching.

On the bright side, at least one psychiatrist is reminding people to use their noggins.

Dr. Janet Taylor, a psychiatrist based in New York City and Sarasota, Fla., said parents should be careful to not create "a mass hysteria about physical contact with loved ones," especially during the holiday season.

"As parents, we have to use common sense and also realize that it’s never too early to start a conversation about good touch and bad touch," said Taylor. "But also we don’t want to overstep our boundaries so our children are not afraid of who they should not be afraid of."

abcnews.go.com...

Bubble-wrapped childhoods, now endorsed by the Girl Scouts! So much for teaching life skills & independence.

Agreed. These people are fooking mad. The world isn't what i remember, it's much much worse. The overspill onto the civillian population has begun. In ten years, unless people stand up and speak out, will be nothing short of 1984esque.

Wow this whole society is down right depressing. Take me back to the 80s please

a reply to: circuitsports

Nobody said anything about forcing kids to hug their doctors. Reading comprehension is helpful.

Kids are all different and the age of the kid makes a difference too, so as wonderful as it is to hug the kids in the family, if they're shy or not into it, the adults should back off. We can teach kids to be polite without forcing them to hug or kiss if they don't want to. On the other side of the spectrum , kids need to learn to be polite and respect adults boundaries too ( with help from their folks ) this widely varies depending on the situation, but an example might be the precocious kid who wants to grab an adults hand and insist they play board games in their bedroom ! LOL....now I like kids and I'll hang with a game or two of " Hungry Hippo " , but if I'm at a family event I don't want to amuse my cousin's kids all evening either !

I'm not sure if an organization that pips out it's kids to sell cookies is really the best place for kids to learn about Family dynamics, especially because all families are different !