Adults Hold Back Affectionate Touching : Child Abuse Fears Chill Relationships

Dennis Eisner is a young man employed as a staff member at a Sherman Oaks child care center. The children are playing in the exercise yard when a little girl runs up to him and asks joyfully, “Tickle me!” He thinks about it for a moment and tells her “no.”

Ellen Enochs is a veteran Westside teacher now employed at two nursery schools. She has found a new instructional technique: When she wants to compliment a child, she no longer adds a pat on the shoulder. Instead, she enthusiastically tells the girl or boy, “Give yourself a pat on the back” and illustrates by tapping her own shoulder with a palm.

An Eagle Rock father is in bed with his wife when their 5-year-old daughter comes to the door. She’s had a nightmare, and she’s scared. She wants to crawl into bed with them. The father makes a point of asking her to crawl in on mom’s side. He’s concerned about what the girl might say at her preschool or to “outsiders who would not understand.”

New-Found Concern

These vignettes point up society’s new-found concern with child sexual abuse and how it is changing traditional relationships between adults and children.

A surprising number of adults--worried that an innocent gesture of affection, friendship or courtesy might be misread as a sexual overture--are pulling back from youngsters, according to dozens of interviews with day-care workers, teachers, parents and child development specialists.

In many small but telling ways, grown-ups are increasingly on guard. The most cautious of them now regard a young child, once a sexually neutral object, as a walking time bomb: a potential accuser, steeped in public service advertisements and educational films that urge him or her to be wary of strangers, to report anything suspicious, to say “It’s my body,” to say “No!”

As a result of this atmosphere, some children appear to be receiving fewer affectionate “nurturing” touches than they used to get in day care centers, elementary school classes and youth groups.

Most psychologists regard the phenomenon as temporary, and it is far from universal. Southern California appears to be particularly affected because of ripples from the heavily publicized case of the McMartin Pre-School in Manhattan Beach.

Nevertheless, the change disturbs many people involved with child development because it clashes so directly with a decades-long consensus that an atmosphere of physical affection is critical to a child’s psychological growth.

Adult standoffishness is “the one clear, short-term loss” in the war against sexual abuse of children, said Dr. Michael Durfee, a child psychiatrist who coordinates the Los Angeles County Health Department’s child abuse prevention program.

Afraid to Hug

“People now, including grandparents, are afraid to hug and love a child,” complained Patricia Hansen, president of the state PTA’s 10th District, which includes most of Los Angeles. “My husband and I recently became grandparents for the seventh time, and he told me, ‘I’m afraid to go up and love ‘em.’ This has got to stop,” she said.

“Things that are common sense have gotten confused with sexual abuse,” said Dr. Edward Weiss, a Washington, D.C., child psychiatrist who frequently testifies in child custody cases involving allegations of molestation.

Added Lory Freeman, an Oregon author whose book “It’s My Body” counsels children on how to avoid molesters, “I think a lot of people are misinterpreting . . . and holding back. It has made me feel sad.” Freeman says that “to help keep things in perspective,” her next children’s book will be about “touching as a basic need, putting it in the same category as warmth and food.”

Several similar attempts have been made in Los Angeles:

Hansen’s PTA group this month published a child abuse pamphlet that, in contrast to much similar literature, began by stressing “the importance of affection throughout the developmental process. All children should receive adequate cuddling, kissing, hugging and closeness.”

Explained co-author Clara Rosenthal, the group’s director of parent and family-life education, “We didn’t want to scare parents off from nurturing.”

Asked to contribute to a recent county interagency report on child abuse and neglect, psychiatrist Durfee contributed an essay titled, “Keep On Touching.” It warned that a drop in affection would make children more susceptible to molestation. “They’re more apt to get hungry for it and to accept molestation blindly,” Durfee said in an interview.

Shayla Lever, director of the Los Angeles Unified School District’s child abuse office, routinely urges teachers to avoid becoming “an emotional refrigerator to the kids” in an effort to protect themselves from being falsely accused.

“To deprive children of warm, nurturing touches is just as abusive as intrusive touching,” Lever said during a recent lecture to a group of teachers who came to hear tips on identifying signs of abuse among students. “An arm around the shoulder, holding hands--that is not intrusive touching.” Besides, she added, “if you’re going to be (falsely) accused, you’re going to be accused whether you touched the child or not.”

Dealing With Groups

The most common change in the behavior of adults is found among those who deal professionally or socially with groups of young children. Believing that parents are hypersensitive to signs that their children may be in danger, and worried that the slightest odd remark by a child at home could trigger a furor, many of these professionals take calculated steps to “cover” themselves.

The action may be slight, like that employed by a male high school teacher who recently received a romantic note from a student. He gingerly resolved the problem by simply correcting the spelling and handing the letter back.

At day-care centers and nurseries, where concern over false accusation is by far the most intense, more esoteric strategies have arisen.

Consider the subject of diapers:

At one Southern California day-care center, the staff now changes diapers with the children standing up, rather than lying down, simply because it gives the appearance of less intimate contact.

Up to the Parents

And at Magic Years nursery school in Reseda, parents of newly enrolled children are formally advised that the staff will change a child’s soiled diaper--a procedure always taken for granted, but now spelled out to give parents the option of saying “no.”

“I feel very vulnerable in a way I’ve never felt, and I’ve been running this nursery for 20 years,” said the center’s operator, Mary Campbell. “Now, when I hold a child on my lap, I hold loosely. You can just visualize them going home and saying something.”

Frances Haywood, a vice president of United Teachers of Los Angeles, the union representing the majority of the Los Angeles school district’s 26,000 teachers, said she routinely advises teachers to withhold the pats, hugs and kisses long employed by many elementary school instructors.

“We tell our members, ‘Don’t touch. Stay away,’ ” she said.

Used to Be a ‘Hugger’

It is, Haywood admits, odd advice for her to be giving. Until a year and a half ago, the large, friendly woman was an elementary school teacher and self-confessed “hugger,” and was freely affectionate with her classes.

“I had a friend who said, ‘You weren’t much of a teacher. You just loved them to death and they learned,’ ” she said. But times have changed, she said. “Teachers are really getting scared” of being falsely accused. “There’s a great caution about any kind of physical contact.”

In interviews, some teachers talked about uncertainty over holding children on their laps, helping fasten stuck zippers or talking to students after school in a closed room. One male second-grade teacher said he returns children’s hugs so tentatively that “it’s not a natural exchange of warmth anymore.”

However, a number of veteran teachers insisted they have felt no such anxiety. “When one of my kids won the spelling bee, I gave her a hug and a kiss,” said Laurie Soskin, a fifth-grade teacher at Mitchell School, a placid campus in Canyon Country. “That’s just the way I am.”

Avoiding Gift-Giving

Soskin and several other Mitchell teachers were astounded when a reporter informed them that Lever of the Los Angeles school district advises teachers not to accept gifts from pupils, since it connotes favoritism that could be misinterpreted if a false allegation of molestation were later made.

“That’s real sad,” said Cheri Waldsron, a third-grade teacher.

Equally poignant are the adjustments being made by some adults in everyday life.

One Westside man in his early 50s says he simply “loves kids” and enjoys smiling and making faces at them in stores and restaurants.

Frowns From Parents

“Parents used to encourage it, tell their kids to ‘Say hi,’ ” he said. “But now, with rare exception, I get frowns from parents, who actively distract their kids. The result is I’ve pretty much stopped smiling at kids in public places, which is my loss and theirs. The new adult-kid ethic has taken a bit of happiness from me.”

Irwin Hyman, who heads the National Center for the Study of Corporal Punishment and Alternatives at Temple University in Philadelphia, has felt a similar self-imposed chill.

As he jogs in his neighborhood on weekday mornings, Hyman stops to chat with first- and second-graders who wait at a bus stop. These days, though, “I’m having second thoughts,” he said.

“It’s really something: I’ve been in this game for 27 years, I’m known nationally as a child advocate, and I’m wondering if one of these little girls is going to go back home and say, ‘This strange man is getting friendly with me.’ ”

False Accusations

Some parents appear far more conscious of making sure they will not be falsely accused of molesting their children, said Dolores Mead, head teacher at Placita de Ninos, an East Los Angeles day-care center. Often, she said, parents make a point of saying as they drop off their children in the morning, “Now, my child is here with a scratch, and I want to explain how it got there. . . .”

Numerous child and family psychologists say such reactions are a predictable consequence of several heavily publicized molestation cases, including the McMartin case, in which seven defendants are accused of 207 counts. Media coverage of this and a host of other molestation cases against defendants ranging from teachers to ministers to youth workers has fueled a nationwide campaign to make children and parents more vigilant.

Most often mentioned as inhibiting influences in California are 1984 news reports of two suspects who were cleared: a Fullerton principal who was suspended from his job and charged with molestation for cleaning up a 5-year-old girl who soiled herself, and a state Justice Department official charged with molesting a 9-year-old girl during his daughter’s birthday slumber party.

Charges Dropped

Prosecutors dropped charges against the principal shortly before his trial began, but he was subsequently demoted to a teaching position. The state official, 38-year-old Brian Taugher, a special assistant attorney general in Sacramento, was acquitted by a jury in January.

In the wake of the acquittal, Taugher said he has had dozens of conversations with other men who spoke of their fears.

“In six or eight cases, the fathers told me that around evening time the night of their own daughter’s slumber party they got nervous and told their wives, ‘ You’re going to handle this thing. I’m going to a friend’s house to spend the night,’ ” Taugher said.

People who are that inhibited “haven’t been able to discriminate between what the public feels is sexual abuse versus what is acceptable contact,” said Dr. Allen Gottfried, director of the Infant and Child Study Center at California State University, Fullerton. “Eventually, I think people will recalibrate.”

Giving Affection

And many teachers and child care workers say that while they are more conscious about how their innocent gestures toward children may look to outsiders, they are determined not to cut back on the affection they give.

Most agreed that the additional anxiety is an acceptable price to pay in the campaign against child abuse, but some expressed resentment.

“I’m not rewarded for what I do, I’m feared for what I do,” said day care teacher Meade, 37. “I’m out there busting my chops--I’m warm and loving and I stay afterwards and talk to the parents--and then somebody can look at me and accuse me and I haven’t done anything.”

Many child care professionals and other adults blame part of their anxiety on the burgeoning wave of news, entertainment and school programs designed to educate children about the dangers of sexual abuse. They worry that in some cases, it is breeding paranoia and misinterpretation.

Considered Superficial

“Some of the school programs are simplistic, superficial,” said Joel Milner, a clinical psychologist specializing in physical child abuse at Western Carolina University. “My general feeling is it’s a bit crude. We’re going willy-nilly.” Dr. Hershel K. Swinger, director of the state-funded Southern California Child Abuse Prevention Center at California State University, Los Angeles, tells a story about a pair of child care professionals who offer a “good touch/bad touch” program for children.

Swinger said the couple, who are husband and wife, presented the same program privately to their 5-year-old son. Later that night, when it was time for the child to take his bath, he began to cry.

“They asked why, and finally he said he didn’t want to take a bath because the Spanish-speaking lady who had taken care of him since he was an infant would have to touch him. He had taken the message very literally,” Swinger said.

Right Context Needed

Milner said he is troubled by the thought of school child abuse prevention programs being implemented in cities or states that have resisted sex education programs.

“To go into a deviant area with no context is like saying, ‘I’m going to teach you about part of calculus but I’m not going to teach you about 2 plus 2,’ ” he said.

There appears to be no conclusive research yet on how young children digest sexual abuse training. John Conte, an assistant professor at the University of Chicago and one of the few researchers to have examined the question, said unpublished research raises questions about comprehension.

One-shot programs probably will not work because children do not retain enough information, he said. In one instance, after three three-hour sessions, a group of children had learned only 50% of the sexual-abuse prevention information presented. “That’s probably not enough knowledge to keep kids safe.” Conte said.

“Everybody’s got a new book, a new film,” he said. “There’s been no evaluation of which book or film is better. Everybody is getting into the business. I’m generally supportive of these programs, but it’s important for communities to realize they are experimental. Most are not proven.”

Planning Their Programs

In the Los Angeles school district, school administrators are allowed to plan their own programs. A 5-year-old program run by Lever has created child abuse prevention “teams” at 36 schools by training teachers and other staff members.

Students in these schools are exposed to several presentations on sexual abuse prevention, including a 13-minute film hosted by television personality Stephanie Edwards. The film shows children being approached by an ill-intentioned stranger and later by a neighbor who attempts to remove a little girl’s clothes after inviting her in for a lemonade.

The film encourages children to say “no” and to run away, but it also acknowledges that some touching and hugging is good and tells children that “most grown-ups are good people . . . most of you will never run into an adult who will try to hurt you.”

Psychiatrist Weiss said he has been encountering a disturbing number of cases involving false claims of sexual abuse and said today’s emotionally charged environment requires that greater scrutiny be paid to stories children tell.

“It’s hard to know what a child understands,” he said. “I feel funny saying this because back in 1970, when I started, I was yelling at people to believe kids. Now I’m a little aghast at the roller coaster. The pendulum is going too far the other way.”