My kid poked his cousin in the butt!

Poking.

It used to be a thing on Facebook to let someone know you were thinking about them. (But that was so.long.ago that newsfeeds weren't even a thing yet!)

Now we’ve all grown up and poking is happening offline amongst kids. Maybe your kid is poking their sibling, or cousin, or their bff? It can easily be a way to get someone’s attention; but what happens when the pokes are in the genitals or the butt? Is poking acceptable behavior for kids to do to each other?

A mother reached out to me asking this question. She said that her son and his cousin were poking each other in the butt and then laughing about it. She told them to knock it off, but they didn’t stop and continued to poke one another. She wondered if she was overreacting to their made-up game.

Here’s the thing → when it comes to the genitals and butt, in my CSA (child sexual abuse) prevention world, there is NO game where those body parts are in play. This is a hard line for me. And I recommend to parents to make it a hard line in your home too. Here’s why: