‘No touching’ rule goes in effect at Bahrain Base Elementary School

A strict “no touching ” rule that went into effect last week at Bahrain Elementary School has kept grade-schoolers from giving each other hugs and high-fives, prompting some parents to question the policy, Stars and Stripes reported. Some parents shared their frustrations online last week in an informal questionnaire that’s been sent to administrators.

But school officials insist that the temporary rule is a step towards developing a comprehensive policy that allows some forms of physical contact. Friction over the policy underscores a broader debate over several years in US schools regarding both children’s rights – a concept steeped in United Nations conventions that calls for children’s mental, physical and psychological security – and how children learn and develop through physical contact, the American military newspaper said.

“In Bahrain, the new rule banning things like games of tag and hand-holding and its punishment — brief timeouts — was outlined for students at an assembly on Jan 30. “It’s a response to frequent incidences with children touching, pushing and such to one another at recess,” an email sent to parents the same day said.

“For example, the game of tag often gets rough or children don’t realize how their tap is interpreted as a push,” Penelope Miller-Smith, who is in her first year as the school’s principal, said in the email, according to the newspaper. “While many of these incidences are not intentional, children are being hurt or feel like they are being hurt.”

Matt Hansen, the father of a fifth-grader, attended the assembly and said he understands why the No Body Contact, or NBC rule, came about.