Hugs And Kisses: The Best Medicine For Your Children

With hugs, we are able to instill trust and to bring our love to our children. They are essential and will help them become psychologically strong and healthy people in the future.

Few things offer as much comfort and positive emotions as hugs and kisses.

Our best memories, the most intense , are often built around those moments in which we remained, for a few seconds, embraced by the people we love most.

The power of kisses and hugs on babies goes beyond the physical plane. They are gestures that help to grow, that strengthen self-esteem and the confidence with which one interacts with the world.

Hugging is good for health: it is a medicine that costs nothing and that we should “administer” every day to our loved ones, especially the little ones.

Hugs and kisses: a medicine for our brain

According to an article published in Scientific American, one of the most worrying aspects of orphanages or foster homes is the lack of caresses and affectionate gestures.

In these facilities, although children are well fed and treated correctly, interaction is often insufficient and deprives their brain development of that affective “spark” that helps them to grow up confidently.

Early childhood, a decisive stage

The newborn’s brain is greedy for experiences, stimuli and emotions thanks to which new connections are created between neurons, favoring a more voluminous and stronger brain structure.

• The greater the stress, fear or insecurity, the smaller the size of some brain structures, such as the hippocampus (linked to memory and emotions).
• It is known that children who grow up in a cold environment, lacking in affection and physical contact, can develop problems such as post-traumatic stress, hyperactivity and low self-esteem and, over time, even aggressive behavior.

• According to a study conducted in Romania and published in the journal Development and Psychopathology, many children who lived in an orphanage in the 1980s suffered from severe emotional stress. This stress had at the base a severe affective deficiency, very widespread in these structures, and caused spikes in cortisol in the blood, especially in the brain.

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This situation was particularly damaging to the children who spent the first eight months of life in the orphanage. If, on the other hand, after the first two to three months of life, the child was adopted by a loving family, the negative effect could be reversed.

This research has therefore shown that the child subjected to severe emotional stress in the first eight months of life typically develops a lower IQ and anxious behavior.

Hugs and kisses: a universal language

No gesture is as instinctive, powerful and healing as hugging a loved one. We have seen that in the case of the infant and child it is even necessary. There are several reasons:

• We know that positive and affectionate gestures such as stroking, kissing and hugging reduce stress and promote neuronal connections in the brains of very young children.

Plus, hugs create bonds.

• If you want to strengthen the bond with your children, start hugging them at a very young age. As they grow older, this habit is likely to become more difficult to carry on, but it is essential and will help you stick together.
• Experts say that the ideal, for example, would be to wake up and put our children to sleep with a kiss and a hug, at least until the age of 4 or 5. Nothing better than starting and ending the day with a gesture of affection.

• As children get older, hugs are good therapy for when they get angry, scared or worried. There shouldn’t necessarily be a concrete reason to hug them, however some situations require it more, because hugging conveys security.

Because we forget to give hugs and kisses

It is true, sometimes we are tired, being parents can be exhausting, especially when we also have a job and other duties; however, it is important not to neglect the “emotional care of children “.

Children don’t just need to eat, dress and go to school. They need encouragement, to be understood when they are afraid, when they are worried or have a tantrum. They ask us to be good stewards of their emotional world.

A child feels perfectly when a hug or a caress is sincere and when they are superficial. Dedicate the right time to these gestures.

No gesture of affection is as important as the one a father or mother directs to a child; we must learn to build those magical moments that will always remain alive in their mind.

And you, have you already hugged your children today? Don’t hesitate to do this, even if you are already teenagers.