Your genuine Physical Intimacy might affect your Child's mind

Yesterday, as I stood in the balcony putting clothes out to dry, I saw a scene that got me worried and thinking. A boy not more than 7 years old was playing hide and seek with his 2-year-old neighbor. The initial chuckle of laughter on being found and caught was truly endearing. However, after a few rounds of hide and seek, the boy said he was tired and sat down on a piece of paver block. He then asked the little girl to sit by his side and before I knew it, he turned her face and tried to kiss her smack on her lips!

The mother in me kicked in and I screamed out loudly. The boy panicked and fled, while the girl looked up at me and smiled and then trotted off to her mother. I guess the girl did not know what happened and hence was not the least bit perturbed. The boy however has been avoiding me ever since.

That’s what got me thinking. The boy comes from a family that is not too educated and is a tenant living with a family of 7 members in a 1BHK. Private space is not available in that household and maybe parents or the other adult couples in the house share physical intimacy in front of the children.

While we Indian’s are not so much for Pubic Display of Affection, the new age parents do not shy from hugging or kissing/smooching in front of their children. While there is no harm in showing affection, overdoing it and exceeding permissible intimacy in front of children is not right. It harms the young child’s mind which is not mentally equipped or mature to understand the meaning of such actions.

In the above example, imagine the mayhem that would have been unleashed had the mother of the girl seen the act. Imagine what is going through the young boy’s mind? Imagine (God Forbid), the boy knew what he was doing and did more than just kiss!!

As a Child Psychologist, Parents Coach and a  Mother myself, I request parents to be discrete while displaying affection towards each other. Hugging is fine, a peck on the cheek or forehead is also permissible, but a full-blown smooch or feeling up your partner in front of your child is a BIG NO. exposing your child to an action that he is not mentally prepared to understand or emotionally ready to decipher is doing injustice to your child’s impressionable young mind.