A teenager who offers a handshake instead of a hug has not necessarily rejected a friendship. An October 31 Asking Eric column describes a family disagreement over that distinction: a parent supported a 16-year-old’s refusal to embrace a family friend, while the girl’s grandmother regarded the refusal as rude.
The account is a reader’s letter, not an incident independently investigated by The Eastern Herald. But the question it raises has a clear counterpart in established pediatric guidance: children should not be forced or made to feel guilty about giving hugs and kisses, including to relatives.
R. Eric Thomas, the columnist behind Asking Eric, supported the teenager’s boundary. His advice placed responsibility for managing the next visit on the adults, rather than requiring the girl to accept unwanted contact to keep everyone else comfortable.
In the Washington Post column, the parent describes visiting the grandmother when her friend approached the daughter for a hug. The girl offered her hand, then stepped back and explained that she did not like hugging. The parent redirected the conversation. The disagreement continued afterward, when the grandmother criticised the refusal, according to the syndicated letter.
That sequence matters. The teenager had offered another greeting before declining the embrace. The conflict was therefore not simply whether to acknowledge a visitor, but whether an adult’s preferred form of affection should override the young person’s stated limit. The letter provides one family’s account; it does not establish the friend’s intentions beyond what the parent described.
The American Academy of Pediatrics addresses the broader principle directly in its guidance on body safety and boundaries. It tells parents not to force or guilt children into hugs or kisses and says refusing even a grandparent’s embrace can be acceptable. It recommends teaching other ways to express affection and respect, such as a high-five or thumbs-up.
The organisation calls control over one’s own body body autonomy. In the context of a greeting, the practical distinction is straightforward: showing consideration for another person does not require accepting every kind of physical contact that person prefers. A warm verbal greeting can communicate welcome without an embrace.
The cited pediatric page focuses on younger children, so it should not be presented as a clinical assessment of the teenager in the column. Its advice about avoiding forced affection nevertheless provides relevant background for the dispute. Nothing in the letter allows a diagnosis, a claim of lasting psychological harm or an assumption that the friend intended abuse.
Thomas’s response, available in the syndicated Asking Eric column carried by The Morning Call, recommends addressing the disagreement before another visit. He advises the parent to remind the grandmother of the boundary and make clear that the parents support it. The aim is to remove the recurring argument from the moment when the girl is being approached.
That advice separates two conversations that families can otherwise collapse into one. Adults can discuss the feelings stirred up by a changed greeting, including disappointment or unfamiliarity. Whether the child must submit to the contact is a different question. Thomas does not make the teenager responsible for persuading everyone to enjoy her decision before they respect it.
The parent also reported that the girl wanted to stay away during a future visit if the same pressure returned. That is her proposed response in this particular account, not evidence that avoiding relatives is the usual or necessary solution. Thomas instead focused on a conversation between the adults before the next encounter.
The pediatric guidance also asks adults to model respect for boundaries and revisit body-safety discussions as children grow. Applied to an ordinary greeting, that means alternatives should remain choices, not replacement obligations. Offering a handshake does not mean the child owes a high-five if she would rather say hello without touching.
There is an important limit to what this column can show. It contains no follow-up establishing whether the grandmother accepted the boundary or whether the next meeting went differently. Nor does a single published letter establish how common such disagreements are. The useful public information is the distinction between courtesy and compulsory affection, supported by guidance that predates this family’s dispute.
A family friend may prefer a hug, and a grandmother may associate it with good manners. Neither preference answers the teenager’s objection. The unresolved task for the adults in this account is arranging a visit in which a greeting can remain friendly without turning physical affection into the price of admission.
