Don’t know where you are from, but nowdays, in the Good Old U-S of A, if an adult – not a parent – were to initiate “affectionate physical contact”, such as a hug, there would most likely be screams of SEXUAL HARASSMENT, or maybe even SEXUAL ASSAULT, which would most likely lead to firing, quite possibly arrest, and most certainly a lawsuit.
I am from America, and it’s not like I meant it like my teachers hugged every one as they came into class and then as they’d leave at the end of the day.
Sometimes a kid just gets upset or worked up, sometimes they cry, sometimes all they need is a hug to help them feel better. Like me. My teachers, at least the female ones since they were all mothers themselves, when I got upset they would take me out of class, calm me down and sometimes they’d give me a hug. They knew I was a good kid, just shy and sensitive.
I’m not speaking for EVERYONE or of EVERY TEACHER, but sometimes a kid just needs a hug.
Agreed. When I was younger, teachers were not disciplined for hugging their students. I even knew a male teacher who hugged a male student when he got hurt during recess.
sorry to burst yo’ bubble of ignorance, but all through high school i hugged my teachers tons. my school had very tight knit groups where we got to really grow to (platonically) love our teachers. and no one found it weird, even people from other schools in our area
Nowadays we’re pretty hardcore not allowed/supposed to. (I’m a preservice teacher and substitute teacher.) When I was at the informational meeting for substitute teacher, the instructor said something like, “What should you be doing with your hands?” and the answer was, “Not touching the students.”
That said, if a young student comes up and hugs you, you’re not supposed to fight the child off either.
i remember the times you are probably talking about and it’s not so much that people were sane as that people took a more laissez faire attitude to child safety, and “scandals” were much more likely to be swept under the rug.
Isn’t there some level of middle ground between “we don’t care that kids get hurt” and “you literally laid a finger on them, you monster”?
Surely we can come up with something better than forbidding physical contact altogether. I mean, we had an entire course in college where a major point was that human beings need and crave physical contact and that doing without the touch of human skin was psychologically traumatizing.
We need it so much, we invent RITUALS to allow ourselves to touch each other without it being weird. Some of the rituals involve deliberate PAIN (Slug-Bug, anyone?).
And a lot of kids who need this kind of psychological reassurance come from households where the only kind of physical touch they get is abusive. They need a pattern for normal.
Our society (United States, at least) has gone so far over the edge that we can’t seem to separate touch (or nudity, for that matter) from sexuality, and that’s to the detriment of everyone who lives here.
“that we can’t seem to separate touch (or nudity, for that matter) from sexuality”
And yet we insist on children’s fashion that more closely resembles what a prostitute might wear than socially acceptable clothing. Ain’t double-standards grand? : /
“We” is such a hard word:) I am not part of the “we” and it seems like the rest of the people here are not. Yes, I am strictly opposed to slut clothing on children and I am sure we are going to eventually have discussions about it, my daughter and I. The point is that we will talk. That’s the “We” I am a part of and proud of it. I agree with everything that’s been said, including the limitations on teachers. I know three of them:( Sad job sometimes.
Clothing companies do tend to make girls clothing more revealing. But there’s the whole fact that girls can’t wear shorts,tank tops or anything to suit heat because somehow that’ll distract boys! -___-
I disagree. Same bad things that happen now happened then; the modern over protectiveness has done nothing to stop it and may be seriously damaging our children.
Yeah, sadly teachers aren’t allowed to give hugs. When I was doing my student teaching I had several awkward moments where students would straight up hug me or whatever and I couldn’t hug them back. I also had a couple of students that were going through some serious stuff and I wanted to comfort them. Teachers aren’t allowed to comfort the students, we’re not even supposed to let them open up to us. We’re supposed to send them to the counselors, which is dumb because the counselor doesn’t spend any time getting to know the child. It’s really very frustrating.
The only reason we can’t hug them is because the school is afraid of a sexual harassment suit. A handful of horrible people ruined everything for everyone.
Yeah, that’s a great idea, especially at school I attended where the counselor went to jail for repeated child molestation. Not of me, fortunately. After several accusations, the school system took action. Unfortunately, he had powerful friends, so the action was putting him in a high school where he wouldn’t have access to little boys.
Like I said, that’s what we’re supposed to do. I didn’t say I agree with it. I absolutely disagree with it. They don’t want problems yet we’re supposed to send these children to strangers, to whom we expect them to ‘talk about their problems’ with while in a small room with blinds on all the windows. Great plan. So effective >.> I know as a kid I hated going to the counselor, they didn’t know me or understand my problems and rarely gave me anything more to work with beyond ‘it’ll get better’.
No, not really. A small minority of people who abuse students do NOT warrant a nationwide ban on hugging. In the first place, people who molest kids aren’t going to be stopped by a moratorium on hugging, they just get sneakier. Second off, the wrong kind of hugging is a signal to the surrounding people to keep an eye on that person to see if something is really off. It isn’t hard to tell the difference.
Outright banning of all forms of hugging is the lazy man’s way to feel like something is being done about the problem when it’s just being swept farther under the rug; the banning is actually creating more unjustified paranoia and making the situation worse.
There’s going to be a small percentage of deviants in any community. Blanket rules that punish everyone else isn’t the way to fix that. They are what they are, the public doesn’t have to be a bunch of stupid sheep who stampede in the direction of the latest idiot regulation that isn’t actually helping the problem.
“Supporters of zero tolerance policies say the rules enable school administrators to keep the peace without having to second guess decisions or show favoritism to particular students. ”
I translate that as “enables school administrators not to use reason.”
Teachers have to be very careful about that these days. If a kid hugs a teacher, the teacher can hug back, it’s usually okay, but a teacher really has to be careful about offering/giving a hug to a kid. Parents are very eager to sue these days.
I remember reading the news story about the warm-hearted lunch lady who worked at the elementary school. She hugged all the kids who’d let her; she was their favourite “auntie”. Then one little shit decided after the fact that he didn’t like it. So instead of putting up a hand and saying “no thanks, I’m good.” He told his parents a lady at school was touching him inappropriately. I remember she had to go to court, on charges of “child abuse”; I don’t remember that she was punished by the courts (most likely settled out of court) but she was instructed she absolutely MUST NOT hug any children. It broke her heart, and half the student population too. A lot of them had come to depend on her emotionally, and now she couldn’t even stand within arms reach of them.
Yet another example of laws supposedly designed to protect the vulnerable used almost exclusively to harm the undeserving.
There is a difference between “not supposed to” and actually not doing something… at least, I’m assuming, since I graduated fairly recently and certain teachers did hug students.
Back in my days (sheesh I feel old), they could, but never did. Most teachers at elementary school were very ‘reserved’ in getting even a little emotionally attached to us. Even though they would teach us for a school year every day, and mostly see us 8 years at the same school. Now with high school (or our equivalence) I can get why teachers are not allowed to hug students.
Especially around 4th grade of high school (don’t know the American/Canadian equivalence, sorry) where students are between 15 and 17 years of age, they mostly went through puberty already (some are still lingering there) and could get aroused by this affectionate display.
This is BTW usually the age where they develop crushes for their teachers, especially if they’re a bit younger. I know I have had a crush on my 30-something English teacher since I was 15, so I would probably do something really inappropriate if she were to hug me at that stage.
On grade equivalency: American schools run from a year of kindergarten at about age five, then 1 through 12. Usually figure grade by age minus five, give or take a year dependent on where you were born relative to the cutoff date.
At my children’s school kids can even get written up for hugging their friends.
I know the kindergarten teachers aren’t forbidden to give hugs but it’s not recommended and definitely frowned on in the higher grades.
I think it’s very sad. We’re becoming a nation of people who have very little physical contact with one another for any reason other than sex and I think it sometimes warps people’s views/interactions with one another. There have been numerous studies that show that physical contact with others, something as simple as a hug or a pat on the shoulder, has a huge impact on someone’s mental health yet because people are so afraid of being accused of inappropriate behavior our teachers can’t hug kids, nurses and caretakers aren’t supposed to hug our elderly and people who in other eras would have been fine now succumb to depression (and other forms of mental illness) as a result of the isolation they feel.
This is why I love the “Free Hugs” campaign. Such a small thing that can have such a big impact. We’re programmed to respond to physical contact with all sorts of positive health effects, including decreased blood pressure and overall stress level.
I recall an incident where a four-year-old (or so) got suspended because he kissed a classmate and they called it sexual harassment. I mean, come ON.
…the “Free Hugs” campaign? You mean, that thing creepy guys do at conventions to be able to grope girls?
‘Cuz, see, that’s the only context I’ve ever heard that phrase in. Which just might be relevant, because the fact that some people use affection as a way of getting sneaky, nasty sexual thrills is probably a *small* part of why our culture is so insane about touch and touching.
While a small percentage of the guys who wear the shirts do the gropey thing, most of them are really trying to just give and receive hugs. Nothing more.
But on TV shows it’s always the creepy dudes who are getting way too handsy with their hugs, instead of showing just normal hugs. I think that’s a huge part of the problem too. Kids who have no pattern for normal physical contact look at the tv shows and believe that what they see is supposed to be part of the hug.
We spend so much time telling guys that they are creepy, some of them are bound to start doing creepy behavior because that’s what we’ve told them they’re supposed to be doing.
I am a total dork. But I also get lots of compliments on my looks, so I’m going to assume I’m attractive. I’ve received lots of hugs from lots of people, male and female. The only ones who ever got handsy with me during the hug were in a relationship with me at the time. I’ve only ever turned down hugs from two people, because they were town drunks who were definitely going to get handsy.
If that’s the case I’m thinking of, the media reported as exactly the way you stated it, based on what the boy’s mother said. When the girl’s mother spoke up, she pointed out that her daughter didn’t want this kid to touch her and he had already been told to keep his hands to himself before the incident that got him suspended. “Hands off unless you have permission” is a pretty crucial thing to learn as early as possible.
I think a part of this is that people are being encouraged to never touch anyone else, and kids aren’t required to get used to it. Where I come from (Southeast America), you HAVE to hug your family. It’s just a thing you do culturally. Otherwise you’re seen as antisocial. It’s a bit extreme in the other direction, and it dose have its edge cases (traumatized people will have issues here of course), but I think letting kids be super shy and grow up with no physical contact is really a bad thing.
Huh, how to tell I haven’t been in public elementary school awhile. I graduated high school in 09, college last November. I hugged several teachers in high school that I liked, same with college. None of em ever got in trouble, heck, a lot of teachers like my high school choir teacher got hugs from a ton of students after each class 5 days a week. Must be an elementary school thing
This is why I love Mina, though. She -wasn’t- intending to yell at Amanda… she recognized that something was hurting her and tried to help. I could have used more teachers like her as a kid.
And everyone saying “why is she calling out Amanda when Selkie was also acting up?” after the last strip has their answer. Selkie was being her normal self, Amanda’s anger had changed.
Now Amanda’s anger can have a finite point. I think this is ultimately a good thing. Anger is not good to always have. And Amanda’s been holding onto the anger for too long. If I know anything about anger however, it will flare up and get stronger before it weakens and goes away finally.
I really hope Todd remembers his meeting with Mina and doesn’t forget about it. I think it would be helpful to have an outsider to talk things over with.
I live in Canada and the teachers had no problem with hugging students. I know the no hugging rule is meant to protect kids from predators, but I think it’s going too far.
As Dave says, though: “heart to wall“… I don’t think Amanda wanted or would have accepted a hug offered right now. Look at her body language. She’s very closed in, very defensive. She doesn’t believe in the possibility of a benevolent adult. …Or, won’t let herself believe in it. Too big a risk.
All the same, perhaps Mina’s kind words meant more to Amanda than she’s willing to show. No instant flowering, but maybe a small seed was planted.
Happy to see all this outrage over the insanity of the system. Heh.
Also nice to see she’s being understanding. Good teacher. That’s how you handle outbursts.
The rule in my school was the kid had to initiate it (found that out in my last year). So if a kid came up and hugged a teacher that was fine. That seemed to work fine when I was growing up, got hugs when I wanted/needed them and left be when I didn’t.
Eh? A teacher not allowed to hug their students? Mine were able to through all 13 years!
Don’t know where you are from, but nowdays, in the Good Old U-S of A, if an adult – not a parent – were to initiate “affectionate physical contact”, such as a hug, there would most likely be screams of SEXUAL HARASSMENT, or maybe even SEXUAL ASSAULT, which would most likely lead to firing, quite possibly arrest, and most certainly a lawsuit.
Ain’t life wonderful.
I am from America, and it’s not like I meant it like my teachers hugged every one as they came into class and then as they’d leave at the end of the day.
Sometimes a kid just gets upset or worked up, sometimes they cry, sometimes all they need is a hug to help them feel better. Like me. My teachers, at least the female ones since they were all mothers themselves, when I got upset they would take me out of class, calm me down and sometimes they’d give me a hug. They knew I was a good kid, just shy and sensitive.
I’m not speaking for EVERYONE or of EVERY TEACHER, but sometimes a kid just needs a hug.
Agreed. When I was younger, teachers were not disciplined for hugging their students. I even knew a male teacher who hugged a male student when he got hurt during recess.
sorry to burst yo’ bubble of ignorance, but all through high school i hugged my teachers tons. my school had very tight knit groups where we got to really grow to (platonically) love our teachers. and no one found it weird, even people from other schools in our area
Nowadays we’re pretty hardcore not allowed/supposed to. (I’m a preservice teacher and substitute teacher.) When I was at the informational meeting for substitute teacher, the instructor said something like, “What should you be doing with your hands?” and the answer was, “Not touching the students.”
That said, if a young student comes up and hugs you, you’re not supposed to fight the child off either.
I don’t get this. My teachers were allowed to hug me. :/
You and I come from a time when people were sane.
i remember the times you are probably talking about and it’s not so much that people were sane as that people took a more laissez faire attitude to child safety, and “scandals” were much more likely to be swept under the rug.
Isn’t there some level of middle ground between “we don’t care that kids get hurt” and “you literally laid a finger on them, you monster”?
Surely we can come up with something better than forbidding physical contact altogether. I mean, we had an entire course in college where a major point was that human beings need and crave physical contact and that doing without the touch of human skin was psychologically traumatizing.
We need it so much, we invent RITUALS to allow ourselves to touch each other without it being weird. Some of the rituals involve deliberate PAIN (Slug-Bug, anyone?).
And a lot of kids who need this kind of psychological reassurance come from households where the only kind of physical touch they get is abusive. They need a pattern for normal.
Our society (United States, at least) has gone so far over the edge that we can’t seem to separate touch (or nudity, for that matter) from sexuality, and that’s to the detriment of everyone who lives here.
“that we can’t seem to separate touch (or nudity, for that matter) from sexuality”
And yet we insist on children’s fashion that more closely resembles what a prostitute might wear than socially acceptable clothing. Ain’t double-standards grand? : /
“We” is such a hard word:) I am not part of the “we” and it seems like the rest of the people here are not. Yes, I am strictly opposed to slut clothing on children and I am sure we are going to eventually have discussions about it, my daughter and I. The point is that we will talk. That’s the “We” I am a part of and proud of it. I agree with everything that’s been said, including the limitations on teachers. I know three of them:( Sad job sometimes.
“isn’t it horrible how we sexualize children!”
“yeah, they really shouldn’t wear clothes that show skin though, that’s slutty”
what
Clothing companies do tend to make girls clothing more revealing. But there’s the whole fact that girls can’t wear shorts,tank tops or anything to suit heat because somehow that’ll distract boys! -___-
I disagree. Same bad things that happen now happened then; the modern over protectiveness has done nothing to stop it and may be seriously damaging our children.
And if students did come in for a hug, the adult was required to do an “a-frame hug”, with only one arm with the child on the side of the adult.
Yeah, sadly teachers aren’t allowed to give hugs. When I was doing my student teaching I had several awkward moments where students would straight up hug me or whatever and I couldn’t hug them back. I also had a couple of students that were going through some serious stuff and I wanted to comfort them. Teachers aren’t allowed to comfort the students, we’re not even supposed to let them open up to us. We’re supposed to send them to the counselors, which is dumb because the counselor doesn’t spend any time getting to know the child. It’s really very frustrating.
The only reason we can’t hug them is because the school is afraid of a sexual harassment suit. A handful of horrible people ruined everything for everyone.
“Supposed to send them to the counselors”
Yeah, that’s a great idea, especially at school I attended where the counselor went to jail for repeated child molestation. Not of me, fortunately. After several accusations, the school system took action. Unfortunately, he had powerful friends, so the action was putting him in a high school where he wouldn’t have access to little boys.
Like I said, that’s what we’re supposed to do. I didn’t say I agree with it. I absolutely disagree with it. They don’t want problems yet we’re supposed to send these children to strangers, to whom we expect them to ‘talk about their problems’ with while in a small room with blinds on all the windows. Great plan. So effective >.> I know as a kid I hated going to the counselor, they didn’t know me or understand my problems and rarely gave me anything more to work with beyond ‘it’ll get better’.
You can thank the small minority of teachers who like to sexually abuse their students for that.
No, not really. A small minority of people who abuse students do NOT warrant a nationwide ban on hugging. In the first place, people who molest kids aren’t going to be stopped by a moratorium on hugging, they just get sneakier. Second off, the wrong kind of hugging is a signal to the surrounding people to keep an eye on that person to see if something is really off. It isn’t hard to tell the difference.
Outright banning of all forms of hugging is the lazy man’s way to feel like something is being done about the problem when it’s just being swept farther under the rug; the banning is actually creating more unjustified paranoia and making the situation worse.
There’s going to be a small percentage of deviants in any community. Blanket rules that punish everyone else isn’t the way to fix that. They are what they are, the public doesn’t have to be a bunch of stupid sheep who stampede in the direction of the latest idiot regulation that isn’t actually helping the problem.
Hah, kids can’t even hug each OTHER nowadays without it being a suspension for sexual assault.
https://stateimpact.npr.org/florida/2011/11/07/suspended-for-a-hug/
From your link:
“Supporters of zero tolerance policies say the rules enable school administrators to keep the peace without having to second guess decisions or show favoritism to particular students. ”
I translate that as “enables school administrators not to use reason.”
Teachers have to be very careful about that these days. If a kid hugs a teacher, the teacher can hug back, it’s usually okay, but a teacher really has to be careful about offering/giving a hug to a kid. Parents are very eager to sue these days.
I remember reading the news story about the warm-hearted lunch lady who worked at the elementary school. She hugged all the kids who’d let her; she was their favourite “auntie”. Then one little shit decided after the fact that he didn’t like it. So instead of putting up a hand and saying “no thanks, I’m good.” He told his parents a lady at school was touching him inappropriately. I remember she had to go to court, on charges of “child abuse”; I don’t remember that she was punished by the courts (most likely settled out of court) but she was instructed she absolutely MUST NOT hug any children. It broke her heart, and half the student population too. A lot of them had come to depend on her emotionally, and now she couldn’t even stand within arms reach of them.
Yet another example of laws supposedly designed to protect the vulnerable used almost exclusively to harm the undeserving.
Aint been allowed ta do that since before I was a bairn here, and I’m 32 now.
Huh. Teachers at my school could hug me. Even my high school teachers. Is this a recent thing?
There is a difference between “not supposed to” and actually not doing something… at least, I’m assuming, since I graduated fairly recently and certain teachers did hug students.
Back in my days (sheesh I feel old), they could, but never did. Most teachers at elementary school were very ‘reserved’ in getting even a little emotionally attached to us. Even though they would teach us for a school year every day, and mostly see us 8 years at the same school. Now with high school (or our equivalence) I can get why teachers are not allowed to hug students.
Especially around 4th grade of high school (don’t know the American/Canadian equivalence, sorry) where students are between 15 and 17 years of age, they mostly went through puberty already (some are still lingering there) and could get aroused by this affectionate display.
This is BTW usually the age where they develop crushes for their teachers, especially if they’re a bit younger. I know I have had a crush on my 30-something English teacher since I was 15, so I would probably do something really inappropriate if she were to hug me at that stage.
On grade equivalency: American schools run from a year of kindergarten at about age five, then 1 through 12. Usually figure grade by age minus five, give or take a year dependent on where you were born relative to the cutoff date.
At my children’s school kids can even get written up for hugging their friends.
I know the kindergarten teachers aren’t forbidden to give hugs but it’s not recommended and definitely frowned on in the higher grades.
I think it’s very sad. We’re becoming a nation of people who have very little physical contact with one another for any reason other than sex and I think it sometimes warps people’s views/interactions with one another. There have been numerous studies that show that physical contact with others, something as simple as a hug or a pat on the shoulder, has a huge impact on someone’s mental health yet because people are so afraid of being accused of inappropriate behavior our teachers can’t hug kids, nurses and caretakers aren’t supposed to hug our elderly and people who in other eras would have been fine now succumb to depression (and other forms of mental illness) as a result of the isolation they feel.
Sorry for the rant. Hopping off the soap box now.
This is why I love the “Free Hugs” campaign. Such a small thing that can have such a big impact. We’re programmed to respond to physical contact with all sorts of positive health effects, including decreased blood pressure and overall stress level.
I recall an incident where a four-year-old (or so) got suspended because he kissed a classmate and they called it sexual harassment. I mean, come ON.
…the “Free Hugs” campaign? You mean, that thing creepy guys do at conventions to be able to grope girls?
‘Cuz, see, that’s the only context I’ve ever heard that phrase in. Which just might be relevant, because the fact that some people use affection as a way of getting sneaky, nasty sexual thrills is probably a *small* part of why our culture is so insane about touch and touching.
Some girls wear the shirts too.
While a small percentage of the guys who wear the shirts do the gropey thing, most of them are really trying to just give and receive hugs. Nothing more.
But on TV shows it’s always the creepy dudes who are getting way too handsy with their hugs, instead of showing just normal hugs. I think that’s a huge part of the problem too. Kids who have no pattern for normal physical contact look at the tv shows and believe that what they see is supposed to be part of the hug.
We spend so much time telling guys that they are creepy, some of them are bound to start doing creepy behavior because that’s what we’ve told them they’re supposed to be doing.
I am a total dork. But I also get lots of compliments on my looks, so I’m going to assume I’m attractive. I’ve received lots of hugs from lots of people, male and female. The only ones who ever got handsy with me during the hug were in a relationship with me at the time. I’ve only ever turned down hugs from two people, because they were town drunks who were definitely going to get handsy.
There’s a guy with Down syndrome who runs a restaurant. He has free hugs as an item on the menu.
I know that story and Kilyle what ever happed to that boy.
If that’s the case I’m thinking of, the media reported as exactly the way you stated it, based on what the boy’s mother said. When the girl’s mother spoke up, she pointed out that her daughter didn’t want this kid to touch her and he had already been told to keep his hands to himself before the incident that got him suspended. “Hands off unless you have permission” is a pretty crucial thing to learn as early as possible.
I think a part of this is that people are being encouraged to never touch anyone else, and kids aren’t required to get used to it. Where I come from (Southeast America), you HAVE to hug your family. It’s just a thing you do culturally. Otherwise you’re seen as antisocial. It’s a bit extreme in the other direction, and it dose have its edge cases (traumatized people will have issues here of course), but I think letting kids be super shy and grow up with no physical contact is really a bad thing.
Huh, how to tell I haven’t been in public elementary school awhile. I graduated high school in 09, college last November. I hugged several teachers in high school that I liked, same with college. None of em ever got in trouble, heck, a lot of teachers like my high school choir teacher got hugs from a ton of students after each class 5 days a week. Must be an elementary school thing
This is a different thing, though.
You were giving the hugs. This is about teachers initiating the hugs.
This is why I love Mina, though. She -wasn’t- intending to yell at Amanda… she recognized that something was hurting her and tried to help. I could have used more teachers like her as a kid.
And everyone saying “why is she calling out Amanda when Selkie was also acting up?” after the last strip has their answer. Selkie was being her normal self, Amanda’s anger had changed.
Now Amanda’s anger can have a finite point. I think this is ultimately a good thing. Anger is not good to always have. And Amanda’s been holding onto the anger for too long. If I know anything about anger however, it will flare up and get stronger before it weakens and goes away finally.
TTTHHHIIIIIISSS!
So much feels for Mina.
Hugs for the whole world.
I really hope Todd remembers his meeting with Mina and doesn’t forget about it. I think it would be helpful to have an outsider to talk things over with.
Is it just me or does it seem like Mina’s looking at the reader when she says that last comment?
Couldn’t tell if she were praying or lookin’ at the public address system/Big Brother…
I live in Canada and the teachers had no problem with hugging students. I know the no hugging rule is meant to protect kids from predators, but I think it’s going too far.
As Dave says, though: “heart to wall“… I don’t think Amanda wanted or would have accepted a hug offered right now. Look at her body language. She’s very closed in, very defensive. She doesn’t believe in the possibility of a benevolent adult. …Or, won’t let herself believe in it. Too big a risk.
All the same, perhaps Mina’s kind words meant more to Amanda than she’s willing to show. No instant flowering, but maybe a small seed was planted.
What the shit? You can’t even hug someone? Fucking insanity.
Happy to see all this outrage over the insanity of the system. Heh.
Also nice to see she’s being understanding. Good teacher. That’s how you handle outbursts.
The rule in my school was the kid had to initiate it (found that out in my last year). So if a kid came up and hugged a teacher that was fine. That seemed to work fine when I was growing up, got hugs when I wanted/needed them and left be when I didn’t.