On Children's Day, our thoughts reflexively turn to the love linking mother and child. It is a special bond, an extraordinarily strong, almost biological-feeling force that equips us with all the emotional "tools" we use in adult life. Without this unconditional love we would not have survived as infants, and certainly would not have been able to live fully. We build closeness, relationships through touch. Touch is the first sense a baby develops during foetal life. Physical proximity plays a big role in the mother-child relationship: just after birth, lying on the belly, close to Mummy's heart, the baby can calm down. 

Cuddling or other types of touch make it easier for him to get to know Mama and other loved ones. Stroking or kissing the little one, giving him gentle massages, is a beautiful way of showing love. There are so many ways to show affection!

A deficit of proximity and sensory stimuli can have serious consequences. It leads to abnormalities in the child's social functioning and can also interfere with the normal course of basic life processes such as breathing and digestion. Lack of touch can also increase an infant's nervousness and lower their resistance to stress.

There is a lot of research among children raised in orphanages saying that a person deprived of closeness and affectionate touch in infancy suffers from emotional deficits and has problems concentrating or remembering.

Touch, the hand, is a symbol of bonding, relationship building and the flow of emotions. Let's nurture the power of touch in ourselves as Adult Children too.

"With a child it's like a box - it's hard to take out something you didn't put in. "*.

#GiveMeYourHands

* A. Richman 'War Bride'. 

** M. Tulli "Noise"