What do you think of hugging bans being put in place and enforced at school (elementary, junior and senior high)

Oh, for the love of Pete. What is this world coming to, seriously? Why do we have to have rules and laws for every damn thing? Sheesh.

How hard is it to simply not allow kissing in school and leave it at that? People hug and touch and it’s good for them. We’re social creatures. I find the idea that you can’t hug your friends, especially during the time in a person’s life where they often feel insecure and wanting to belong, to be ludicrous.

@MissAnthrope I know! I have been trying to imagine how sterilized and machine-like the atmosphere must be where these bans are in place.

The reason behind this is fucking ridiculous.
I’ve hugged some people in high school and I didn’t wind up sticking it in their poopers in the middle of the fucking hallway.

Your happiness is hereby prohibited!

Don’t these professional dip shits have something better to do with their time than walk around banning stupid stuff.

It’s the war against love

Fun and Feelings Prohibited.
The fun police are at it again, Bastards.
How can people stand for this shit?

The absurd premise of Gilbert and Sullivan’s comic opera The Mikado is starting to sound realistic. The main character, Koko, has been imprisoned for the crime of flirting, and the town has got around the necessity of beheading him by appointing him to the post of Lord High Executioner so that no executions can take place until he has performed his own.

A few little changes to the lyrics, and The Mikado should enjoy a vogue in high school theatricals.

This is the justification I found on Edutopia:

Today’s students are an affectionate bunch, throwing their arms around each other with a casualness and frequency that has some school officials worried. Concerned with marathon hugging sessions that clog hallways, cause tardiness, and also raise administrators’ fears about sexual-harassment suits, some schools have set time limits on hugs (such as a three-second rule), while others have banned them altogether. Students have balked, arguing that such rules are unreasonable and infringe on their personal rights.

This article opens by saying:

The hugs were out of control at West Sylvan Middle School.

Students could not pass each other in the hallway without a hug, the principal said. The girls were hugging one another all the time. Kids were late to class because of the hugs.

There was some discussion of this in my daughter’s middle school. The girls were just hugging and hugging and not settling down for class, I guess. I don’t think there was a ban, but they did try to set some limits so that their education was not disrupted.

It sounds ridiculous when you just say, “let’s ban hugging.” But when you understand the behavior leading to it, it makes more sense. Sure, hugging is wonderful and kids these days probably don’t get enough touch, and it’s probably this teen-age bonding thing, especially with girls. I doubt if boys engage in these hug-ins in the hallways. Unless it’s with girls.

It’s interesting that it’s all over the country. I doubt if there’s anything planned about it, and it would be interesting to know if there’s anything that started it—like a TV show.

Zheesh!

HUGS ARE SO NICE, THIS IS OBNOXIOUS.

It’s the typical “few bad apples” spoiling the party. The bans probably started to counter-balance some of the highly publicized accounts of teachers getting involved sexually with students (like Mary Kay Laterno) and then there’s the usual fear (by adults) that kids will become sexually active simply if they allow friendly hugging. Certain kids will always become sexually active, they did so back in the day when none of this hugging was going on in the hallways. I had read about (and noticed) that the kids do seem a lot more huggy today than when I was in school, at least with regards to the boys. It’s nice to see boys hugging each other in a friendly manner. I think they are so much less homo-phobic than in days gone by. The huggers make it easier for everybody to be a little more accepting of everyone and it makes it easier for boys and girls to not see each other as so “mysterious.” There’s always the chance that if you openly allow kids to hug, that someone will jump in and cause problems with inappropriate touching, but that problem is a separate issue and needs to be dealt with immediately anyway.

If you teach kids all about love and sex and good friendly hugging and inappropriate touching and make sure they understand what is going on early in their lives, then everything should be ok.

this is what happens after thirty years of “hugs, not drugs”!!! :-)

this is as stupid as the little kid who got expelled for bringing a two inch army man to school, or the kindergartener that was suspended for kissing a classmate. Educators have lost the ability to reason.

What is most troubling about this for me is this is the exact opposite direction we want to go.

A quote from the article:

“Interpersonal touch is not inherently sexual, and to treat it as such is to make it so,” she wrote in a petition, adding, “… micromanaging merely infantilizes us.”

An amazing statement, revealing an underlying issue for me – so what if it was inherently sexual. There is no need to separate out any behavior except “disruptive” behavior. Kids in school are learning to interact with authority figures as much as they are learning any subject. Concerns about “lateness” because of hugging in the hallways can be handled by a system that I’m sure most schools have punishing the lateness itself. If behavior gets too sexual for some reason, the administrators can address that issue in that school should be treated much as a professional environment in many ways.

The problem with this is two fold (at least) – (1) it is punishing behavior that I find thrilling to hear about – spontaneous displays of affection for fellow humans, and (2) it pushes sexuality back into the dark corner where it does the most damage.

Why do young people not report a lot of abuse? Because sex is shameful, because they aren’t taught to be sexually empowered, because they think there’s a moral problem with them not doing enough. If kids were as open talking about sex as they should be, I doubt there would be any concern with harassment issues, as no one would be able to tell the kid “this is our secret…”

I think it’s bullshit. I hate schools and alot of teachers for just that reason. They think they can play dictator and tell people not to even show affection to one another. I really tak advantage of every opportunity to yell at a teacher. Especially if I had them in high school. I hugged all the time in high school. I rarely hug anymore though because my personality changed quite drasticly because of some people. Schools have been taken over by stupid idiots!

This fits the 80/20 rule – we have 80% of the rules we have because 20% of the population is too stupid to self-police themselves.

That being said, I just read an article about touching of any kind being banned in schools because of the increase in harrassment and bullying lawsuits. Schools are going to a “no touching another student” policy. As hugging is touching, hugging has become a suspendible offense in many school systems.

But looking can lead to touching. Sensing they’re there in any way could lead to looking.

Shouldn’t we just vacu-seal them into cubicles? We can teach them through audio monitors in the cube. It will be like the drive in! ;-)

@iamthemob doesn’t it sometimes feel like that’s the way we’re going?

@tranquilsea – With these policies…sadly yes.

What I am thrilled about is that the kids are the ones that seem to be leading some of the charges here, telling the adults “calm the fudge down.”

@iamthemob That is nice. The girl in the story who was leading the charge seems to be very mature in the way she is handling it. She’ll do well in life.

This isn’t going far enough, I say. The kids should also wear unisex uniforms, have their heads shaved, and take a mood balancer with their morning breakfast.

We were never at war with Eastasia… we were always at war with Eurasia…

@iamthemob virtual universities = “vacusealed education”

It’s horrible to ban hugging!

It is patently ridiculous to ban children hugging. This world is full of people hating each other and we want to stop our kids expressing affection. Sheesh… we are a pretty screwed up species.

Such a sad necessity, I have done hundreds of hours of volunteer work with children and I hate to see this happen.

I agree with @Mz_Lizzy, kids showing affection in this manner (hugging) should be the least of our worries. Why are we so uptight about human contact? I believe that not allowing people to touch one another is an unhealthy rule. Obviously sexual contact is inappropriate in a learning enviroment like school but hugging for crying out loud?!

This is just absolutely absurd!! I swear there is a particularly uptight, twisted section of our society who are so repressed (or obsessed with thinking about sex) that they see it everywhere. Or the other side of the argument being that each hug is a lawsuit waiting to happen? what lawsuit? will people start to sue because A has hugged B but not C or D, leading to C and D’s feelings being hurt? God forbid that youngsters should in any way show a little affection! What’s next? banning toddlers from holding hands? or Mums and Dads from kissing or hugging their own babies? That’s no more stupid or bizzare than this is. You know what? I think maybe when they’re handing out innoculations for measles etc to kids in schools they should start handing out a good sized dose of common sense to any and all adults responsible for running the schools. I have heard some stupid, brain meltingly, unbelievably moronic things these past few years passing themselves off as “legislation” but OMG what the hell kind of harm can come from kids learning to hug each other instead of fighting, it wasn’t so long ago that you couldn’t switch on the news without hearing about knives being carried in schools. So many wars going on, so much hurt in the world, kids wanting to hug each other, being able to get along, should be what we, as a society, are aiming for. I don’t care what anyone says, a hug can brighten a day, and I shall remain a huggy rebel <throws extra hugs for her fellow jellies> xx

I’m a little surprised that you all think that kids should be allowed to use hugging as a way to delay or avoid instruction time. It sounds like they do it on a regular basis, too. This isn’t about Puritanism. It’s about education. If it were playing soccer in the hallways, would you have any trouble with banning that? It’s group hugs and everyone in the class hugging everyone else individually, and perhaps making a ritual of it between every class. Takes a lot of time for that to happen in classes with upwards of 30 kids. This is not what it sounds like. Read the articles I linked to in my prior answer.

@wundayatta

“I’m a little surprised that you all think that kids should be allowed to use hugging as a way to delay or avoid instruction time. It sounds like they do it on a regular basis, too. This isn’t about Puritanism. It’s about education.”

Not assuming that’s directed at me, I’ll say that for me, if it’s not about hugging, why is the policy making it about hugging.

Scenario 1 – The bell rings. Kids start heading into class. A bunch are in the hallway, hugging, and disrupting people from getting to class.

Teacher response? “Guys – break it up and get to class.” If they don’t, there are consequences.

Scenario 2 – The bell rings. Kids start heading into class. A bunch are in the hallway, shoving each other, and disrupting people from getting to class.

Teacher response? “Guys – break it up and get to class.” If they don’t, there are consequences.

Kids will always find ways to delay. We don’t need new policies each time they find a new way. So, when they make it about physical contact, it does indicate a Puritanical element.

@iamthemob Good point. I think we see this a lot, where people want to have a rule instead of just handling things themselves. Maybe it is because people are having trouble arguing with kids who say, “But it’s hugging. What’s wrong with hugging?” Teachers have a rule and they can say, “It’s against the rule.”

Maybe it’s a CYA kind of thing. Ammunition when talking to the parents. Maybe it’s just a PR thing—school districts educating folks that it’s becoming a problem. But certainly teachers can break these things up on their own. I think.

@wundayatta – It’s a bit of CYA mixed with a mix of “sex is bad” and a dash of “kids aren’t sexual beings!” (BS of course – kids are the ultimate hedonistic creatures, and the reason for preventing them from behaving sexually is simply that they are not mature enough to account for risk and other long-term concerns).

I agree with @iamthemob‘s objection: “If it’s not about hugging, why is the policy making it about hugging?”

To me this seems to be an instance of a larger societal delusion that is already tying us in knots. My husband puts it this way: “If you make enough rules, nothing can go wrong.”

I think it’s crazy to try to make a rule for every situation. Instead we should be interested in the principle at work—in this case, allowing for the free flow of traffic in the halls and getting to class on time—and not trying to enumerate every possible obstacle and legislate a ban on it. Isn’t there still a rule in schools about loitering in the hallway? Shouldn’t that be enough?

I would look to some Risk Management committee for the answer. Somewhere someone is asking: Is this a liability for us? Are we open to a lawsuit for x, y, and z? If so, let’s make sure we have a policy in place against it so if something happens, we can’t be held responsible.

There is also crippling mindset that has been creeping on us for a number of years now, a legalistic one that says we need to be guided and authorized by a specific rule or policy to back us up on every action. We see this illustrated constantly in fluther with the endless questions framed as “Is it okay if—?” and “What does it mean when—?”

The appetite for having everything by the book and having a book for everything to be by is alarming to me. It sets us up to accept far more limitations on our freedom of action and intrusions into our lives than we in the U.S. have already come to think of as normal, thanks to the Unabomber and 9/11.

@Jeruba – Totally right. I believe that’s why the Constitution is written to express principles, and not enumerate how each situation should play out.

Lord…imagine how the size of that thing….

@iamthemob, but then we have Congress, all the state legislatures, and all the courts to supply the rest. The object of the game seems to be to cover every possible situation with a rule.

I’m sorry to say that I think individual responsibility has gone out of fashion. It used to be that if a neighbor slipped on a wet leaf on the sidewalk in front of my house, he would pick himself up and go on his way. If he hurt himself, he would see his doctor. Now I’d better have enough insurance to make sure that wet leaf doesn’t cost me my house.

I have my opinions on that – but the basic laws are meant to cover many situations. If we get too far into that I fear derailing.

Let’s just hug this one out. ;-)

At my school, students aren’t allowed to touch each other. Our number one rule is the hands off policy, but when teachers see students hugging they don’t say anything about it unless they’re going to be late to class. I don’t think my teachers agree with the rule either. I’ve hugged my friends around teachers before and no one’s said or done anything.

In fact, I’ve hugged a teacher before.

its a hug who cares, if ppl were making out or feeling eachother up in the halls i could understand them banning it but a hug is a hug and can man nothing more then friendship :)