Thou shalt not hug [your children]...

http://www.newstatesman.com/society/2008/06/vetting-adults-scheme-children

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The most regrettable outcome of the new child protection policies associated with vetting is the distancing of intergenerational relationships. They foster a climate where adults feel uneasy about acting on their healthy intuition and feel forced to weigh up whether, and how, to interact with a child. Such calculated behaviour alters the quality of that interaction. It no longer represents an act founded on doing what a mentor feels is right - it is an act influenced by calculations about how it will be interpreted by others, and by anxieties that it should not be misinterpreted.

In sport, the difference between a coach automatically reaching out to correct a child's position and a coach asking himself, "Is this all right?" before doing so is that the former is a spontaneous action based on a desire to improve the child's game, and the latter is a timid gesture, reflecting an uncertainty about authority that the child must surely sense. In a community group, the difference between giving a distressed child a hug and asking that child, "Would you like a hug?" is that the former is given as an unprompted expression of human compassion, and the latter is a transaction that requires a child's formal consent.

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