The late Virginia Satir, a therapist and author known for her work with family-centred therapy and self-esteem, said, ?We need four hugs a day for survival. We need eight hugs a day for maintenance. We need 12 hugs a day for growth.? While science may not be able to confirm those exact numbers, other studies have shown that physical touch provides significant physical, emotional and relational benefits. The more hugs and physical touch we receive, it seems, the healthier and more well-connected we are.
When I first read this, I felt like a parenting failure. Especially when I considered my teenagers (ages 13 and 16), who are increasingly rushing in and out of the house or holing up in their bedrooms. I felt overwhelmed by the responsibility of meeting this high need for hugs. Do I even come close to hugging my kids enough" I wondered. And what even counts as ?hugging? anyway" A squeeze on the shoulder" A high-five" Calculating hugs with my youngest, a first-grader, was relatively easy. She likes a hug when she wakes, and when I drop her off and pick her up from school; she wants to snuggle when we watch TV and when she gets tucked in. No problem. When my teens were younger, it was the same. But now hugs with my older kids are few and far between, mostly because we?re rarely in the same room together.
While it?s normal for teens to pull back from their parents and become more independent as they get older, they still, like all humans, require physical tou...