How to explain to my three students with ASD that they can't hug me?

    This year I have three students with ASD and I admit that I love working with them.

    That sincere and direct way they express their emotions and feelings makes them very special. In addition, they have a very different way of treating the teacher, they see him as a true guide, as someone who must be fully trusted because they know that he is there to help them.

    In my workplace, students should not be hugged, firstly because there is a law that prohibits it and secondly because there is a preventive health measure that advises against it (healthy distance).

    The thing is that one of my students with ASD, every time he faces a new challenge and I help him achieve the expected achievement, he tries to respond with a hug. He does not understand laws or health measures or pandemics, he just expresses what he feels because I have helped him overcome the challenge.

    It is a very difficult situation to have to reject his shows of affection with the impotence that he does not understand why he is being rejected.