“Come on, come give auntie a kiss,” one relative stretched out her arms upon seeing seven-year-old Matas with his parents. The child stopped, hugged his mother’s leg, and quietly shook his head.
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“Hello,” he murmured, but didn’t want to hug or kiss. “How rude! Is this how children are raised nowadays?” sighed one aunt.
“At least tell us about yourself. What grade will you be in? What do you like to do? What are your grades?” the uncle insisted.
Matas just shrugged and turned away. “What a character… You can’t get a word out of him. He doesn’t even know how to greet properly,” someone else from the relatives remarked.
After this comment, an awkward silence briefly fell in the yard. Matas’s parents exchanged glances. Both felt cornered. They didn’t want to disappoint relatives who were used to different family traditions, but even more, they didn’t want to force their son to do something that clearly made him uncomfortable.
The longer the remarks continued, the stronger the urge grew to just ask Matas to hug the aunt “for peace’s sake” and finish everything as quickly as possible. But both understood that then they would betray what they had been trying to teach him—that he has the right to decide who can cross his personal boundaries.
Mom remembered that before the trip they had agreed: if Matas didn’t want hugs, it would be enough to say “hello” and wave.
She took a deep breath and decided: “Matas doesn’t want hugs today. He already greeted. He feels more comfortable that way.”
“Oh, kids are so sensitive nowadays. In our days, no one asked if you wanted to or not. You have to respect your elders,” the older relative shook her head.
Dad briefly doubted whether they should give in, but still added:
“We understand that it was different before. We are simply teaching Matas that he can decide how to greet and still be polite.”
The topic simmered among the adults for a while longer, but soon was overshadowed by the smell of shashlik and conversations about the garden.
After half an hour, Matas was already playing football with his cousins. Later he approached one uncle himself to show how he had learned to kick the ball, and in the evening, when saying goodbye, he extended his hand to some relatives himself. And he unexpectedly hugged the man he was playing football with—not because he was prompted, but because he wanted to.
Such stories are still quite common at many family gatherings. According to Gita Argustaitė-Zailskienė, PhD, psychotherapist and associate professor at the Lithuanian University of Health Sciences (LSMU), when we meet among relatives, the tone and traditions are usually dictated by the elders.
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“It is customary, this is how respect is usually expressed in our culture. There are families where any deviation from what is proper is understood as rudeness, even insolence. A kiss and a hug can then be a given thing, refusing which is tantamount to insulting the elder or appearing overly self-important,” the associate professor said.
According to her, many adults probably greet aunts, uncles, and other older relatives without even thinking, but for children, especially younger ones, the moment of meeting can be unexpectedly unpleasant.
“A child may feel shy around relatives—they may be seen less often, and some may be completely unfamiliar. When relatives start demanding a child to hug or kiss while greeting, it can be especially unpleasant, even scary.
You can only imagine the child’s feelings when a big older uncle or a barely known aunt invades their personal space and kisses them tightly,” the interviewee said.
How should parents act?
According to Assoc. Prof. G. Argustaitė-Zailskienė, a child who does not want to hug or kiss relatives should not be forced to comply—this is not a mandatory expression of politeness.
In such cases, the parents’ task is to steer the situation so that the child feels safe and not forced to ignore their discomfort.
“It is worth reacting calmly, without apologizing: ‘She doesn’t want to hug today,’ ‘He will greet differently today.’ You can discuss with the child in advance how it would be nice to greet when meeting relatives: maybe smile and wave? Or say ‘hello’ or shake hands? The child should not be forced to justify or explain in front of others. If you want, it’s better to do it yourself, alone with the relative, and a simple explanation will suffice: ‘The child is shy because they barely know you’ or something similar. It will be easier for parents to defend the child’s interests if they think ahead and discuss what to say and how to act,” she said, adding:
“It’s not surprising that parents may find it difficult to contradict older relatives or disappoint them. Many, when meeting family members, seem to regress into a child’s role and suddenly start feeling or acting not like an adult, but as if they were small again. Moreover, there is a fear that the child will be considered ill-mannered. Sometimes parents want to leave an uncomfortable situation as soon as possible, and it’s easier to do so by pressuring the child to comply than to withstand the relatives’ dissatisfaction.”
According to the specialist, it is important to remind yourself that an adult can easily cope with the fact that a child did not hug or kiss them, but the unpleasant feeling for the child may last a long time.
When such situations happen often and children are forced to greet in ways they dislike, it is as if they are told that their own body is unimportant, and they must ignore their feelings and desires for the sake of another person’s comfort.
“This does not mean that a child should be taught to ignore other people or always act only as they want at the moment. Politeness can be taught without sacrificing bodily boundaries: greeting verbally, looking at the person, waving, thanking for a gift, or showing attention in another acceptable way. An important message to the child is ‘you can choose how to let others touch you and at the same time learn to communicate respectfully.’
The relative’s dissatisfaction will fade, and the child, who was not forced into unwanted closeness, will learn that it is possible to trust their feelings and say ‘no’ to others who want to cross boundaries,” explained the LSMU associate professor.
