Children Need Your Hugs To Feel Part Of The World

When a child arrives in this world, one of the first things that he will feel is the skin and the heart of his mother giving him warmth, welcoming him to life, affections, emotions and the value of feeling loved.

We can offer a baby many things: that daily food, a good crib, the best clothes and a room full of adequate visual stimuli. However, there is something essential that will prodigiously favor his neuronal, physical and emotional maturation: it is hugs, caresses, voices calling him by name …

There is very disappointing data on raising babies in some orphanages around the world. Those children who do not receive hugs or caresses, makes their crying less frequent because they understand that they will not always be attended to.

Their development is usually slower, they are not so curious about what surrounds them because they do not have that security to explore, because they lack that bond with an affectionate adult who serves as a mediator in their search for stimuli, sensations …

It is vital that we take care of that physical contact with our children on a daily basis, hugs create neural connections, build sensations and sensations, thoughts, affections, fears, doubts, uncertainties dissolve … It does not matter that they have two days of life or 12 years. Bring them to your heart whenever you can (even if they are already at that age to resist).

Hugs will make our children grow up healthy

This intimate skin-to-skin closeness between mother and children during the first months of life provides sensory stimulation capable of not only promoting their growth, but also strengthening their immune system and regulating their temperature and respiration.

Despite the fact that parenting during those first months is almost always very intimate in terms of the mother-child relationship, the role of the parents is also vital, and an excellent way to further enhance the development and safety of the child.

Hugs build personality

If there is a father or a mother who does not give enough importance to hugs or caresses, all this ends up having an impact on the child’s own personality.

• Hugs are the most meaningful way to bond between parents and children.
• That gesture of affection makes the child feel loved. A loved child is a safe, calm child, who does not fear uncertainty, who feels recognized.
• Parents are the child’s first social contact with the world. If that first contact is cold, uneven, or even more aggressive, they will in turn distrust other social contexts as they grow up.
• Children need a secure and stable attachment during their childhood. Attachment strengthens the bond, and at the same time, makes them feel recognized.
• A child who feels recognized does not feel only part of his family, but also part of the world. This will make you more confident in yourself, have a good perception of yourself and your ability.

Hugs relax and invite you to see the world

Have you ever thought about it? Babies spend much of the day lying flat in their cribs. The moment an adult picks him up, hugging him and rocking him, they have the opportunity to see the world before them, and they do so in the best possible way: calm, feeling loved.

You will also share with us that there is nothing more reassuring and satisfying than a hug. If we adults need them to strengthen the bond, calm stress or quench doubts, in the case of children the need is even more relevant.

Crying in babies, for example, is never unjustified. And sometimes, their cries are not due to hunger, cold or a specific discomfort. They too demand affection, they too need your hugs to dissuade that universal fear in every creature: loneliness and abandonment. Do not economize on hugs in your day to day, they do not cost money and have the strength and intensity of an entire universe.

Images courtesy of Amélie Thiebaud, Pascal Campion, Claudia Tremblay