Hi, this is Janet Landsbury. Welcome to Unruffled. Today I'm discussing a very serious topic,

water safety. And I'm going to be offering a perspective that's less conventional and perhaps

controversial, which is how can we ensure water safety without causing our children emotional

distress and potential trauma. So I was motivated to speak to this topic today because I did receive a

note from a parent on Instagram and here's what she said. Hi Janet, I'm not sure if you'll get

this message. I've been listening and following and reading your information for a while. We just

started my 18 month old in swim classes and she cried the entire time the first two classes.

I struggle with giving her bodily autonomy and respect while forcing her to take swim classes for

her safety. I continuously tell her that we love her and she can cry as much as she wants,

but her father and I are doing this for her safety. Can you help me reconcile this?

Okay, so this parent is concerned about her daughter's feelings around bodily autonomy. And that is

a whole other issue that will be another podcast in the future. I imagine it's important that we

deliver this message to our children that we let them know through not only our words, but

even more importantly our actions and the way that we interact with our children that they do have

a right to personal boundaries around their body that they aren't just love objects for us to

enjoy and do whatever we want with nor should anybody else that they have a right to consent to

any kind of touch. And this can be confusing for parents because there are situations where we

are keeping our child safe or keeping them appropriate and we do need to touch them without their

permission. They may be saying no, I don't want that. These situations include buckling our

child into a car seat, changing a messy diaper or picking them up and carrying them out of a

situation that they are showing they're unable to leave on their own or stopping them from a behavior

that we can't let them do. So when parents are concerned about bodily autonomy and this has become

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