Banned body parts

[puzzlement]

How do you teach a toddler not to touch certain body parts of yours?

Specifically, my toddler needs to never touch my neck again. I'm one of those people (it's not uncommon) who is a bit panicky about any pressure on my neck, and the sequence of him snuggling into my neck (or trying to put his crawling weight on it) in bed and then me yelling and him screaming in fright needs to end.

For reference, he's 20 months old. He is not yet very verbal (vocab of 20 to 30 words, no sentences). We've been saying "no neck, no neck" to him and moving him for at least 14 months or so, ever since he started to crawl. Now that he's a lot heavier, unfortunately I go straight into a "ohmigod going to die" reaction and don't have a lot of access to "darling, Mama feels like she is going to die when you do that, please do not do it, thank you."

Comments

[evilsusan]

I think at that age they don't really understand that your body isn't their body (since it once was, and they still depend on parents for safety and comfort and such), so boundaries are hard.

I have no magic answers, but lots of "that hurts mummy" and "I like it when you cuddle me HERE instead," and introduce the idea of private parts. I think by that age, I was already telling my son that some body parts are private and other than me cleaning him or a doctor helping him, he gets to say who touches. And I have parts like that too, and I get to say no touching. Of course all of this is done in the calm moments when he's not crossing the boundaries. If he does it, go ahead and scream, then remind him it's private when you've calmed down.

[puzzlement]

Thanks, I will give this a try! I am bad at remembering to return to sources of conflict outside the heat of the moment.