Have You Hugged Your Kid Today?

Have you hugged your kid today?

Hugs can NEVER be overrated.

Hugs are powerful…oxytocin is released during a hug…it connects people, it calms the soul, and soothes troubled emotions. Hugs help children settle, it “slows down a racing engine”, it reduces pain. Hugging is part of spending time, showing you care, nurturing and loving another.

The benefits of hugs are well docoumented. In a recent article in the New York Times Sunday Review entitled, “A Poverty Solution that Starts with a Hug” talked about a study where hugging was an important component:

This organization sends nurses to visit poor, vulnerable women who are pregnant for the first time. The nurse warns against smoking and alcohol and drug abuse, and later encourages breast-feeding and good nutrition, while coaxing mothers to cuddle their children and read to them. This program continues until the child is 2.

At age 6, studies have found, these children are only one-third as likely to have behavioral or intellectual problems as others who weren’t enrolled. At age 15, the children are less than half as likely to have been arrested.

That’s powerful stuff. It’s helping moms make good choices. It’s providing caring support to women who may themselves not been nurtured, and having them learn and experience nurture.

It’s recognizing how important it is to help vulnerable women without a lot of resources to understand and practice a style of parenting that helps children feel secure, feel loved, and be able to experience regulation with a parents assistance.

Children who experience love and caring and calming can develop skills in being able to soothe themselves, in being able to self regulate, and ability to make good choices based on long term goals and not immediate gratification.

Hugs are powerful. Hugs improve relationships. Hugs change people.

Go…hug your kid today!