The Value of Hugs

In an interview with Very Well Family, Robyn Reyna talked about the value hugs provide for a child's mental and emotional development. Check out the snippet below or read the full article here.

"Children’s brains are strongly affected by their environment and the people close to them. As such, connection to a parent through touch and hugging can have valuable emotional impacts, Rausch describes. One component of this is a psychological term called co-regulation, which is when one body uses mirror neurons to 'sync up' to another human's body.

'If a calm and safe adult ‘syncs up’ to a child in distress, the child's brain begins to learn how to calm down and manage emotions in a healthy way,' [Reyna] explains. 'But just like anything else, it takes consistent repetition of this co-regulated experience for their brain to learn how to do it independently.' "

Read the rest of the article at Very Well Family.