E095 · Participation, relationships & agency
Difficulty recognising and maintaining personal boundaries
What might be happening when a young person finds it difficult to recognise where their own or another person's interpersonal, physical or privacy boundaries lie, communicate those boundaries, or adjust when boundaries differ between relationships and contexts?
Phoenix Encyclopaedia
Overview
Boundaries help people negotiate:
- physical space
- touch
- privacy
- personal information
- possessions
- relationships
- communication
- digital contact
- emotional responsibility.
They are not fixed universal rules.
The amount of physical closeness appropriate with:
- a parent
- friend
- teacher
- partner
- stranger
may differ.
So may expectations across:
- families
- communities
- cultures
- ages
- situations.
This complexity means that “learn appropriate boundaries” can easily become shorthand for teaching conformity to one group's social expectations.
Phoenix needs a different starting point.
Useful boundary understanding helps a young person recognise:
What do I want?
What does the other person want?
What has been agreed?
What changes depending on the relationship or situation?
What do we do when those boundaries differ?
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What this might look like
A young person might:
- stand much closer than another person expects
- touch others without recognising discomfort
- disclose highly personal information in contexts where this creates vulnerability
- struggle to recognise when a conversation has become private
- allow other people to use their belongings without wanting them to
- find it difficult to communicate their own boundaries
- interpret relationship closeness differently from another person
- struggle with changing boundaries as relationships develop
- overshare online
- assume a rule about touch or privacy applies identically to everybody
- become confused when one person welcomes behaviour another person dislikes
- need explicit support to understand consent as ongoing and relational.
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Developmental expression
At this stage
Early childhood
Adults begin teaching body autonomy, privacy, permission and simple differences between relationships.
Early childhood
Adults begin teaching body autonomy, privacy, permission and simple differences between relationships.
Middle childhood
Friendship, shared spaces, changing rooms, digital interaction and growing independence create increasingly complex boundary situations.
Early adolescence
Peer, romantic, digital and bodily boundaries become much more nuanced. Social rules are frequently implicit and rapidly changing.
Later adolescence
Young people increasingly navigate intimate relationships, work, health services, independent living and online communities.
Choose each stage to see how the presentation and surrounding expectations may change over time.
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Strengths and differences
Different boundary preferences do not automatically represent poor boundary understanding.
A young person may prefer:
- less touch
- more solitude
- greater privacy
- highly explicit communication
- unusually close physical proximity within their own cultural context.
Phoenix should distinguish:
difference in boundary preference
from
difficulty recognising or negotiating boundaries safely and consensually.
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Top tips for support
- Teach boundaries as relational and negotiated, not simply as social rules to memorise.
- Include the young person's own boundaries.
- Teach consent as something that can change.
- Make privacy concepts explicit.
- Use concrete examples.
- Discuss online as well as physical boundaries.
- Teach how to notice another person's communication.
- Avoid vague rules such as “appropriate touch” without explaining what determines appropriateness.
- Teach what to do when somebody ignores a boundary.
- Model adults respecting boundaries themselves.
Phoenix Encyclopaedia
Things needing careful planning
The DfE's 2024 rapid evidence assessment identified boundaries, consent and privacy as a core domain of preventative relationships education and emphasised the role of wider school culture alongside direct teaching. (1)
The evidence literature for adolescents with intellectual disabilities also highlights safe boundaries, bodily autonomy, privacy, relationship negotiation and personal rights, while noting that provision remains inconsistent. (2)
Cross-cultural caution is essential.
Boundaries around:
- physical affection
- family privacy
- interpersonal distance
- eye contact
- authority
- collective versus individual decision-making
vary.
The universal Phoenix principle is therefore not one culturally determined boundary map.
It is:
people should have meaningful agency over their own bodies, information and relationships while recognising that other people have the same right.
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Practical support principles
Useful support may include:
- consent education
- visual relationship mapping
- explicit privacy teaching
- scenario-based discussion
- digital-safety education
- self-advocacy
- communication support
- recognising and communicating comfort/discomfort
- trusted adults
- repeated contextualised teaching rather than one-off rules.
From understanding to support
Phoenix Atlas connections
Often useful
- consent and relationships education
- self-advocacy
- social-communication support
- safeguarding education
- visual/contextual teaching
Worth considering
- specialist relationship/sexuality education
- communication support
- therapeutic work following boundary violations.
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Evidence and cautions
The DfE evidence assessment reviewed 86 studies and concluded that preventative relationships education needs to address consent, privacy and boundaries within a whole-school framework rather than rely only on isolated classroom messages. (1)
This fits our Phoenix intervention-formulation principle particularly well.
A boundary programme that successfully teaches a young person not to touch other people but does nothing to teach that other people must also respect their boundaries would be profoundly incomplete.
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Public evidence sources
- Teaching relationships education to prevent sexual abuse — government evidence review.
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Possible explanatory lenses
Relevant possibilities include:
- social communication
- language
- developmental experience
- learning difficulties
- relational history
- cultural expectations
- previous boundary violations
- sensory preferences
- impulsivity
- understanding of consent and privacy.
About this entry’s source
Open Beta · read the evidence notes and limitations
Source status describes the underlying material. The current site edition is Open Beta; the evidence notes and limitations remain part of the entry.
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