The Hugging Minefield

A heartbreaking end to the working day today. I was sitting in my lab marking some mock exam papers. One of my students appeared and asked if we could talk. And then this tall, confident young man just broke down in tears. Events of the past few weeks, months, years even, caught up with him. Poor lad is terrified of not getting the grades he needs, and he's got an awful lot of mitigating circumstances affecting his chances of achieving this. I grabbed a handful of paper towels in the absence of tissues, and he clung to them for dear life as we spoke. We went over what it was getting to him in terms of workload, how he was feeling, whether he was anxious or depressed, and what action he felt able to take at this stage.

On balance, he was in a better state when we concluded than he was when he came in. He knows he can come back and talk to me. But above all that, he probably needed a hug. I really felt he did. But I didn't think I could. Why? Well, we have guidelines telling us to avoid unnecessary contact with students. I'm normally quite a touchy-feely person. I do hug and kiss my friends when I see them. A hand on the shoulder, a high-five, a fist bump, all feature in my normal friendly repertoire. But I've toned it right down for dealing with students.

If I am seen giving a student, especially a male student, a hug, then that would certainly start a rumour mill going - some of my colleagues have raised eyebrows at my close working relationships with male students (though it is usually because the male teachers have a tendency to be really hard on the male students, oddly enough), and I can do without a lot of gossip about me. Some of my female students have put an arm round me, and one of my BTEC boys decided he would grab my hand and kiss it directly underneath one of the CCTV cameras (doh!), but reciprocation is definitely frowned upon.

Finally, I am aware that I've got a rather insecure (though adult, he was definitely in a vulnerable emotional state) student pouring out his heart to me; I don't want him to think that our relationship is anything more than teacher/mentor and student. Students can become infatuated with their teachers, and though I don't think I'm much of a TILF, I've overheard students talking about the hotness of the most surprising colleagues. Positions of authority appear to be quite an aphrodisiac *boak*.

It was much more straightforward when my poor husband came into the lab half an hour later and also burst into tears. That I could deal with. Teaching is hard work. He had his awful class today. They stole his favourite pen. There is nothing in the guidelines that says I can't hug my own husband at work, and frankly if he thinks I'm a TILF then that's all good...

How do you lot approach comforting students? I imagine for the under-16s it's a no-brainer - no contact at all. But how do you comfort sixth-formers and adult learners? Is it still such a no-brainer? I wonder if it will be easier for me to dish out hugs when I get older. A colleague in her 50s had no qualms about hugging any and every student, but she was by that point easily old enough to be their mother - I'm still just about young enough to be a cougarish girlfriend.