This activity helps children understand the importance of physical boundaries and a person's personal space. Purchase or borrow several plastic play hoops and lay them on the floor. Allow students to take turns standing inside the plastic play hoop. Explain to your students the hoop represents their own personal space and they need to decide who is allowed to be that close. Talk to your students about who they would allow to enter the "personal circle" -- examples include parents, teachers, doctors and close friends. Have the students hold the hoops at their waists and walk around the room to demonstrate how to respect a person's physical boundaries in the real world.
Write down a list of topics that people generally talk about with others, such as the weather, food or homework. Write down topics people would only discuss with close people, such as religion, private body parts or your phone number. Draw two circles on the chalkboard and label them Safe and Unsafe. Have your students decide which topics are appropriate and safe to discuss with a person they would just meet. Have students then decide what topics should only be discussed with close family and friends. Talk to the students about the importance of only sharing personal information and topics with people they trust to avoid putting themselves in an unsafe situation.
This activity helps children to understand who is close to them and how they should interact with those people. Have the children draw a small circle in the middle of a piece of paper. Draw a larger circle around the first, and a still larger circle around the second. Draw one last circle around the third one for a total of four circles; there should be some blank area around the corners of the last circle. Label the innermost circle "Family," the second "Best Friends," the third "Friends," the fourth "People I Meet" and the blank areas around the circles "Strangers." Talk to the children about who should be in each circle and how they would interact with each person. For example, a child would hug and kiss a family member, but not talk to a stranger. A child would share a secret with a best friend, but only play a game with a friend. Expand this activity by having the children draw or paste pictures of people in the circles for further representation.
Role-play is another way to teach children about boundaries. Select groups or pairs of students to act out situations where the children would need to define, respect or utilize appropriate boundaries. Some examples include a stranger approaching you in the park, visiting the doctor's office, being the new student at school or having a secret to tell a friend. Have the students play different roles and scenarios, which will help them understand how boundaries function in real-life situations.