Sensitivity Training for Preschoolers

After losing a ridiculous amount of sleep and suffering much anxiety over this whole unwanted affection business, the day was coming when Vaughn would have to return to his preschool after my having "talked to him." I talked this thing to death with every friend and family member I could find, alienated one of them (The Analyst), and did hours of research on the Internet trying to find where someone else was having this problem with their child or where this was a normal "phase" for 3-year-olds to go through.

The Plan: After much ruminating, we decided we would focus on the issue of Vaughn not listening and doing as asked, rather than the actual hugging itself. I plotted a whole puppet show for him with some of his favorite puppets (why didn't Mr. Rogers ever address this?) as a way of introducing the subject. I don't really know how effective this was since every 2 minutes (of an overly long play. I get caught up) he would come over to the puppets and want to introduce them to another stuffed animal or talk to them about his Legos.

The Play: Porky, the porcupine, likes to give hugs, but Kitty, the kitty, doesn't like hugs. Teacher Ella, the elephant, explains to Porky that not everyone likes hugs, just like there are some things that Porky might not like. As it turns out, Porky is afraid of ghosts. Teacher Ella asks Porky how he would feel if someone dressed up as a ghost and was always scaring him (at which time Vaughn missed the whole point and proceeded to "Boo" Porky. Not boo, as in bad performance, but boo as in scare, although either probably would have applied). Porky agreed that he would not like this. Teacher Ella explained that some people think it's fun to scare other people, and how would Porky feel if he asked the person to stop scaring him, but the person continued because they were having fun? Porky said he would not like this, and he now understood why Kitty gets upset when he hugs her, and she doesn't like it.

I really think this has potential and could be made into a TV movie, or at the very least a corporate movie for sensitivity training. It's a thought.

In the end, I explained to him that he needed to ask the huggee if he could hug them first, and if they said no, he was to not hug them. If he didn't ask or hugged when asked not to hug, the teacher would put him on the time-out chair to help remind him. The look on his face crushed my heart, and when I was leaving him for preschool, I felt like I was handing my lamb over to the slaughter.

Needless to say, as with most things, I overblow and overanticipate the outcome. He was fine. He has now gone through two days of preschool without ever being on the time-out chair and asks to hug. I'm sure this will still require me to go through the whole "what-do-we-do-before-we-hug" speech, but he seems to be fine with the whole thing, and I have significantly calmed down over the whole issue. Another crisis averted.