I read an article this morning on MSN ( http://health.msn.com/health-topics/articlepage.aspx?cp-documentid=100234082&page=2 )
about a little girl who was raised almost completely without touch. They're calling her a "feral child".
But Dani is lucky.
Human beings need touch. It's part of our hardwiring. It starts when we're infants, and without it, we suffer and can fail to learn how to love, to empathize, to relate...we can even die.
I know from watching children, including my own, that this intense need for touch doesn't go away once a child is out of infancy. And my teenage son is now craving a whole new kind of touch...one that he can't find at home. It's part of his biological imperative; it's part of the continuation of the species; it's part of what causes a child to leave their birth family and go create another.
I'm an adult, and I crave touch, too. Different kinds of touch from different kinds of people...but touch, all the same. If I was kept behind glass and couldn't hold my children or caress my husband or hold my mother's hand, I'm not sure I'd keep my sanity. I'm fairly sure I'd lose it.
So is touch sacred?
about a little girl who was raised almost completely without touch. They're calling her a "feral child".
Children like Dani often have symptoms that can look like autism: rocking their body, avoiding eye contact, and experiencing great difficulties when learning to speak.
[...]
Other symptoms that are similar to those seen in autism—like language problems, poor social skills and difficulty understanding the thoughts and feelings of others—result from lack of exposure to the early experiences on which behaviors like empathy are based.
But Dani is lucky.
But if babies don't receive consistent, physical affection from the same people repeatedly, they don't learn to love and trust. In fact, without individualized care, about one-third of babies raised in orphanages will die.
Human beings need touch. It's part of our hardwiring. It starts when we're infants, and without it, we suffer and can fail to learn how to love, to empathize, to relate...we can even die.
I know from watching children, including my own, that this intense need for touch doesn't go away once a child is out of infancy. And my teenage son is now craving a whole new kind of touch...one that he can't find at home. It's part of his biological imperative; it's part of the continuation of the species; it's part of what causes a child to leave their birth family and go create another.
I'm an adult, and I crave touch, too. Different kinds of touch from different kinds of people...but touch, all the same. If I was kept behind glass and couldn't hold my children or caress my husband or hold my mother's hand, I'm not sure I'd keep my sanity. I'm fairly sure I'd lose it.
So is touch sacred?