While looking for something else recently, I stumbled across this good post Kristen did several months ago. It is a piece about talking to your kids about “good” touches and “bad” touches and how to talk to a child like her Bryce, or my BoyChild, who happen to be very intelligent, very literal and sometimes, o.k. in my case MOST of the time, very quirky children.

The GirlChild had always been in some kind of organized pre-school. There they seemed to spend a lot of time distinguishing between “good” touches and “good” people and “bad” touches and “bad” people.

While we’ve tried to keep the BoyChild in some sort of organized “school.” They didn’t seem to spend as much time talking about such things. Or it may have never made the impression upon him that it did upon her.

With the BoyChild, I honestly haven’t worried very much. He doesn’t like people he knows and likes touching him. He doesn’t do very well at following directions when he wants something, so he’s not going to do what some stranger tells him to do without a fight. Generally a loud fight involving lots of kicking and screaming and hitting.

Recently we were in Target. I was buying everyone new tooth brushes and the BoyChild was having difficulty deciding on just ONE. So when he said he wanted the other one, the one he had put back not five minutes ago, I said, “well, go get it.” I was watching him. He was doing a little dance just outside the aisle because some man and woman were blocking his way. And they were apparently oblivious to the little boy who needed the Thomas the Tank Engine singing toothbrush so I said to the BoyChild, “say, excuse me so you can get by.”

And the BoyChild looked at me with a straight face and said, “I’m not suppose to talk to strangers.” Uh. O.K. Good point there, son.

And that just illustrates Kirsten’s point. The BoyChild is super smart. But he is often literal. I want him to have sufficient information that he can make good choices but I don’t want him to be frightened. We talk about privacy but it’s not a concept he seems to fully grasp, unless he’s in trouble for something and wants me to go away. “Mom, I need my privacy” said while I’m holding his pills that he hasn’t yet taken and doesn’t want to take and probably won’t take if I don’t actually see them go into his mouth.

I tried to use the incident at Target as a learning experience. Tell him that it was o.k to say, “excuse me” to the man in the aisle but probably not o.k. to have a more indepth conversation with him. I don’t know if I made any progress, but it is a start.