No matter how hard you hug your money, it never hugs back. ~Quoted in P.S. I Love You, compiled by H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
How This Simple Act of Affection Yields Major Gains in the Child’s Health,
Disposition, and Overall Development
In a November 2005 issue of the “The Straits Times”, a leading Singapore
daily broadsheet, there is a report on Singaporean scientists’ ongoing efforts to
find a way to transmit ‘cyber hugs.’ “The team is thinking of a wireless pajama
suit for children,” says research director Adrian Cheok, “which would use the
Internet to adjust pressure and temperature to simulate the feeling of being
hugged. Parents in a similar suit could be ‘hugged back’ by their children.”
You may be wondering why science is showing keen interest in such an
everyday gesture. Indeed, while you’ve relied on it as a natural painkiller after
your little one has scraped his or her knee, hugging unwittingly has many other
positive side effects.
Various studies have shown the close association between the positive
emotions derived from this simple act of affection on the one hand and on overall
well-being on the other. Hugging and close physical contact have been
advocated by countless child experts as an invaluable element in child
development.
Hugs Build a Child’s Life Skills.
Children who are exposed to hugs are often very expressive and warm,
while those who aren’t hugged very much or aren’t shown affection by their
family usually grow up putting a distance between themselves and other people.
Hugging is a gesture of affirmation, appreciation, and acknowledgement.
A child who is hugged often acquires a positive self-concept, whereas a child
who is hug-starved or doesn’t receive any other form of affirmation at home will
start asking, “Am I loved here?”
The indispensability of hugging and physical contact in a child’s
development can be attributed to as early as the child’s fetal days, when the
warmth and snugness of the womb simulates the feeling of being hugged. The
skin of the baby is exposed to warm amniotic fluid the whole time.
Children in hugging households are equipped with emotional skills that
facilitate healthy interpersonal relationships. In fact, hugging and other forms of
touch therapy are employed by child experts to help abused children recuperate
from emotional trauma. Touch therapy is used a lot, especially with children who
have been sexually abused, studies show. It is used with great caution and at a
pace the child is comfortable with.
Hug therapy, if successful in these cases helps restore a child’s ability to
cope, to trust in people again, and to emotionally express him or herself – factors
necessary in forging healthy intimate relationships as an adult.
Hugs Build A Culture of Peace.
There are differences between ‘hugging’ countries and ‘hands-off’
countries. For instance, American babies are put in nurseries separate from their
parents’ rooms. For other cultures, this is not practiced and the babies are
immediately roomed in with their mothers. Hugging has been found to affect
cultural predispositions towards aggressive behavior. That is, this is said to be
why some cultures are more violent than others.