Why My Child Pulls Away From Hugs (And How We Handle It)
The first time my seven-year-old pulled away from me, I felt it like a small slap. He’d tripped over a backpack in the hallway and scraped his elbow. I reached out with both arms, the way any parent would, expecting to scoop him into a hug. Instead, he stepped backward, kept his arms at his sides, and said, “Don’t.” His face was crumpled, but it wasn’t a “hold me” crumple. It was a “get away” one.
I stood there with my arms in the air feeling rejected. Then I felt ridiculous for feeling rejected. He was a kid, hurt and upset. But I remember thinking, exactly what a parent should never think: Just let me hold you already.
For a while, I did try to hold him anyway. I figured he needed comfort more than he knew. That didn’t go well. He squirmed, pushed against my shoulder, and ended up more upset than he’d been before. We both sat on the floor, him crying and me guilty, the scrunched-up tissue between us.
It took me a while to realize this wasn’t a rejection of me. It was a rejection of touch itself.
Some kids are okay with being touched whenever it happens. They’ll let you wipe their face, wrestle them into a coat, squeeze their hand during a scary movie. My son is not one of those kids. He always has been particular. As a baby, he’d arch his back during diaper changes. As a toddler, he pressed his face into the sofa cushions, hiding, when a relative tried to lift him for a cuddle. I told myself he was shy. But that’s not exactly true. He’s not shy. He’s selective. He likes touch when he initiates it.
One summer evening, right after his bath, he climbed onto my lap and leaned back against my chest. It was one of those rare moments when he sits still. I didn’t move. I knew if I put my arms around him too quickly, he’d shift away. So I just stayed still and let him lean. After a minute or two, he took my hands and placed them around his own middle. Then he relaxed. I almost laughed, because the whole interaction felt like he was setting the rules of a very strict and very small democracy.
That became the pattern. He would reach for me when he was ready, and the contact was never what I would have chosen. No long embraces. No spontaneous kisses. Instead, he’d throw an arm over my shoulder while we walked past the old oak tree. He’d back up into me while playing with his cars, using my knees as a chair. Little offerings, always on his terms.
Later, I read somewhere that some people interpret touch differently. For some, a light brush on the shoulder is irritating, almost scratchy. Deep pressure is different—it’s calming, like a weighted blanket. That matched my son. He couldn’t handle a pat on the head, but he’d lie face down on the floor and ask for “the squish,” which was what we called rolling him up in a blanket and pressing gently. It also matched his tendency to shy away from touch when he was already overstimulated. After a birthday party with balloons and shouting and nine other kids, any hug felt like the last straw.
I started to change what I said before I touched him.
“Can I put sunscreen on the back of your neck?” became a question instead of a grab. “Would you like a hug, or are you all done with people?” became a real option rather than a pleasantry. And when he answered “all done with people,” I tried to mean it when I said “thank you for telling me.”
Not every adult in his life adjusted as easily. My mother-in-law is a firm believer in affectionate hugs. When she bends down to him, arms open, he finds a reason to be somewhere else. At a family dinner, she said, “He never lets me hug him,” and there was a heaviness in her tone. I felt the familiar urge to explain, to make it okay. Instead, I said, “He’s glad you came. He’s just not in the mood for hugs tonight.” Then I turned to him and said, “Think you can do a high five instead?” He did. My mother-in-law laughed, and somehow that small exchange was enough.
His second-grade teacher mentioned it at pickup maybe a month ago. She laughed as she told me that he’d flinch whenever she tapped a shoulder during circle time. She started giving him a thumbs-up from across the room instead, and that worked much better. It surprised me, how relieved I was. I’d never had to explain it to her. She just noticed, adjusted, and told me about it like it was no big deal.
The hardest part hasn’t been other adults. It’s been the part of me that expects motherhood to look like the movies—the sleepy toddler burrowed into your shoulder, the little hand in yours crossing the parking lot. My son is seven, and he crosses the parking lot with his hands in his pockets. He’s not a “hold hands for safety” kind of kid. We’ve adapted. He holds the strap of my backpack, and I keep a hand hovering near his shoulder. It’s not what I pictured. But it keeps both of us safe, which seems like an okay mother-son compromise.
One thing I’ve learned: asking first is not the same as giving up. For a long time, I thought good parents just knew what their kids needed. I thought if I had to ask “would you like a hug?” I was somehow failing at instinct. But my son is not a mystery to be solved. He’s a person with boundaries, and those boundaries are not personal. They’re a piece of his wiring, a part of the machinery of his body.
There are still days when he’s upset and I have no idea what he needs. I sit on the floor nearby, not touching him. I say “I’m here when you’re ready.” Sometimes he crawls into my lap. Sometimes he says “I want to be alone” and gestures toward the door of his room. I let him go. It feels wrong, at the end of a hard day, not to pull your child into your arms. It feels like bad parenting to let your kid walk away from comfort.
But I’ve come to see comfort as something we offer, not something we impose. His “no” is information. It’s not a rejection. It’s a boundary that he gets to set.
Last Friday, he woke up from a nightmare and padded into my room in the dark. He didn’t ask. He just climbed under the blanket, positioned himself across the foot of the bed like a strangely shaped anchor, and eventually fell asleep with his foot pressed against my hip. I lay there awake, counting his breaths, thinking how odd it is that he can accept the closeness of my body while his own arms stay folded.
We’re still learning each other. He’s still learning to say what he needs before he’s overwhelmed. I’m still learning to hear it without taking the distance personally. For now, that’s enough.
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