Have you ever felt completely touched out by the end of the day, but guilty for wanting your child to just stop touching you? I want you to know that needing physical space doesn't make you a bad parent, and setting limits around your body isn't harmful to your child.

In this episode of Educated Parent, I'm talking about why parenting boundaries around physical touch are not only okay, but important for our kids to learn. I'll explain why I don't believe children need unlimited access to our bodies in order to regulate, how setting limits teaches bodily autonomy and consent, and why respectful parenting means that your comfort and safety matter, too. I'm also sharing practical parenting tips you can use when your child climbs on you, pulls your hair, jumps on you, or keeps touching you after you've had enough.

In this episode, I cover:

• Why being touched out is a valid reason to set limits around how and when your child touches you
• How parenting boundaries teach your child about bodily autonomy, consent, personal space, and respecting other people's bodies
• How respectful parenting includes modeling that everyone, including parents, gets to decide how their body is touched
• My practical parenting tips for clearly explaining a boundary, offering your child an alternative, following through when they ignore the limit, and praising them when they respect it
• How setting limits when you're touched out can help your child learn other ways to regulate instead of always relying on another person's body
• Why practicing parenting boundaries at home can help kids understand personal space and physical safety with friends, teachers, and other people

You don't have to sacrifice your own physical comfort to be a loving parent. These parenting tips are about using respectful parenting to teach your child that their body matters, other people's bodies matter, and everyone deserves to have their boundaries respected. So if you're feeling touched out, remember that setting clear parenting boundaries can be good for you, good for your child, and good for your relationship.

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