Family therapist Virgina Satir once said, “We need four hugs a day for survival. We need eight hugs a day for maintenance. We need twelve hugs a day for growth.” How many hugs do you give your child each day? How many are you getting? I think that too few of us are getting the amount of hugs we truly need on a daily basis. Satir wasn’t just spouting fluffy words. According to scientists, the benefits go far beyond a warm and fuzzy feeling. Here are a some ways hugs are magical:

  1. Hugs reduce stress. Hugging results in a decrease of the stress hormone cortisol, says Matt Hertenstein, an experimental psychologist at DePauw University in Indiana. "Having this friendly touch, just somebody simply touching our arm and holding it, buffers the physiological consequences of this stressful response," Hertenstein says. 
  2. Hugs boost the “cuddle hormone.” In addition to decreasing cortisol, hugs increase the release of oxytocin, a neuropeptide that promotes feelings of devotion, trust, and bonding. "It really lays the biological foundation and structure for connecting to other people," Hertenstein says.
  3. Hugs ward off illness. In a study led by Sheldon Cohen, the Robert E. Doherty University Professor of Psychology in CMU's Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences, researchers tested whether hugs act as a form of social support, protecting stressed people from getting sick. Their findings were published in Psychological Science, which found that greater social support and more frequent hugs protected people from the increased susceptibility to infection associated with being stressed and resulted in less severe illness symptoms.
  4. Hugs facilitate growth and development. Children need sensory stimulation for their brains to grow and develop properly. Studies looking at infants in orphanages who were rarely held found they had severe cognitive impairments, but when they were held for just 20 minutes per day for 10 weeks, they scored higher on brain development assessments. Researchers have also revealed that children who get more hugs have more developed brains. 
  5. Hugs help children regulate their emotions. In a process called co-regulation, hugging helps tantruming or upset children calm down quicker. Cognitive neuroscientist Caroline Leaf, PhD days, “As you co-regulate with someone, the mirror neurons in their brain are activated, and this enables the person in the deregulated state to literally ‘mirror’ your calmness.”

Being Your Child’s Safe Place

Dr. Deborah MacNamara, Director of Kids’ Best Bet and author of Rest, Play, Grow, says, “The greatest gift we have to offer our child is an invitation to rest in our care. This isn’t the type of rest that comes from sleeping, but from an enduring invitation for contact and closeness, a sense of significance and mattering as well as a sense of belonging and being known by the people a child is most attached to. To be a safe space for them.”

Providing lots of hugs is a great way to build that foundation of attachment and connection so that your child can experience emotional rest. Remember, hugging releases oxytocin which facilitates bonding. Here are a few more ways to build that bond and assure you are your child’s safe place.

  1. Validate their emotions. Many parents and caregivers are uncomfortable with big emotions, particularly anger and sadness. We want our children to be happy, of course, but anger, sadness, disappointment, frustration, and the whole range of human emotions are just part of this experience on earth. We can build resilience and emotional intelligence by allowing our children to feel all of their emotions, not requiring that they stuff them down for our own comfort, and discussing with them how to recognize, name, and move through big feelings. 
  2. Respond with empathy. When our children open up and tell us things, particularly if they divulge trouble they’re in or something they did wrong, it can be difficult not to jump to judgment and lecturing, but this shuts down communication and makes children feel unsafe. Even when children make poor choices, if we can respond calmly and with empathy, we keep communication open and strengthen our relationship, securing our spot as their safe place. 
  3. Use positive discipline. Some common discipline methods cause separation between parent and child, and they require that the child “work” to get back into our good graces. For example, “Go to your room and don’t come out until you can behave,” tells the child that we do not want to be with them unless they can “be good.” Yet, from a developmental standpoint, children aren’t always capable of controlling their emotions, impulses, and behaviors, and when they are having a hard time doing so, this is the time when they need us by their side the most. Swap separation-based discipline such as time-outs for time-ins. Here’s how.

Remember, messy rooms will one day be empty. A bad report card won’t matter in 5 years. Tantrums end. Your relationship with your child is what will last a lifetime. Build it strong and nurture it daily.