The importance of physical contact in the growth of a child

One of the biggest challenges that we face when we create our own family comes when we have children. We all know that children bring with them great responsibility, stress, joy and fulfillment, but in this blog, we are going to write about the privilege and responsibility parents have to teach, raise and nurture their children.

To be a parent is one of these things that we will never be ready enough for it. We have to try our best and learn as we go, and that might be the reason why you are reading this blog.

To parent means to protect and prepare a child to thrive in the world they are going to live in.

The are many types of parenting styles, some of the most common are referred to as active and reactive parenting. In the reactive style of parenting, the parent corrects the child when he/she misbehaves, while in the active style of parenting, the parent tries to meet the needs of the child so that he/she doesn’t even have the need to misbehave. We can easily see that the active parenting style is the better one as we help the child grow in a good environment. With the reactive style, the child might for example, misbehave by seeking attention in the wrong manner, the parent will then give the child the attention he/she needs. Unfortunately, this only strengthen in the child the idea that behaving in that erroneous way brings attention. As a parent we are now reinforcing a negative misconduct instead of creating a positive environment where the child’s needs are met, and the child has the best opportunities of growth.

Everyone in the world have specific needs that are necessary to function correctly. Children and teenagers have more needs than adult people and these needs are part of the responsibility of a parent.

One of the greatest needs of a child is the need of physical contact. In this case, Physical contact is also an important need among adults. Throughout history on of the most painful punishments was isolation. Isolation is so unbearable that, when someone is put in isolation due to serious criminal actions, anything that could be used to commit suicide is taken away from the criminal because of the amount of people that committed suicide after living like that for a while.

During the Covid-19 pandemic and all the quarantines in place, the isolation among college students drastically increased the amount of student with mental health illnesses and sadly, also the number of deaths by suicide.

Suffice to say, if physical contact and socialization is important among adults, it is essential among children who are growing and learning every day.

Physical contact is used to calm a child, show affection and to form a bond. Children needs to be held, cuddled, and hugged. Countless studies show that children that do not have these kinds of physical contacts are severely left behind in their physical, mental, and emotional growth.

If the child, or the teenager, is not able to have this need met in the family, he/she is most likely to try to meet this need by him/herself, often resulting in sexual abuses from people that take advantage of this situation.

Our role as parents is to teach give a great amount of physical contact in the first years of life and then continue to have meaningful physical and social interactions with our children, teaching them what are the boundaries that should be present at different times of life.

There are many other needs that our children will have. We should do our best to meet these needs and help them grow. You can find more information on these other blogs: https://thoughtsaboutfam.blogspot.com/p/out-blogs-of-my-classmates.html