Truth About Teaching and Touching, The

Back in the 1970s, teachers were told that "Teaching is to touch a life forever." Now, because of liability concerns, the National Education Association has recommended educators "teach, but don't touch" (Colt, 1997). Many U.S. teachers refrain from hugging, patting, or touching their students because they are afraid they will be charged with child abuse. Is this an accurate perception? Does touching enhance or impede children's growth? It is time to tell the truth about teaching and touching.

Touching is the most intense channel of nonverbal communication and the one most people are reluctant to discuss. In Maslow's hierarchy of needs, giving and receiving love and affection is a foundation element. It is like the sun in the midst of the solar system-everything else revolves around it. Touch is one manifestation of the love and consideration that all people need in order to survive. Love and touch are indivisible (Key, 1975; Montagu, 1971; Montagu & Maison, 1979). Throughout people's lives, "touch is no short-lived event, finished when a hand is removed from the person, but rather is perceived as part of one's history, an event of real magnitude, effecting some permanent change" (Henley, 1973, p. 96).

If touch is so important, why is it so relatively rare in the United States? According to anthropologists, the United States is a non-tactile society. In fact, compared with cultures around the world, the mainstream U.S. citizen seems to be "touchy" about touching. French parents touch their children three times more often than do U.S. parents. Men in the Middle East, Korea, China, and Indochina walk arm-and-arm or hold hands without any homosexual undertones. Jewish men are very tactile; they often embrace and kiss. Puerto Rican couples might touch approximately 180 times in an hour; French pairs touch 110 times; couples in Florida touch twice; and couples in London don't touch at all (Axtell, 1991; Colt, 1997; Jourard, 1983; Montagu & Matson, 1979).

Researchers discovered that as immigrants become assimilated into U.S. society, they reduce the frequency with which they touch one another. For example, one study found that newly arrived Italian immigrants might touch every 27 seconds. After becoming assimilated U.S. suburbanites, they might touch only every 40 seconds. Is this a positive change in behavior? The influx and assimilation of new cultures into the societal fabric of the United States gives people an opportunity to learn how to become more physically demonstrative towards their friends and intimates, as members of other societies have been for generations (Henley, 1973; Zunin & Zunin, 1972).

LEARNING ABOUT TOUCH

How do children learn the different meanings of touching behaviors? Babies first sense the world in the womb through touch. Their mother's rhythms, heartbeats, and cushions of uterine fluid stimulate developing fetuses. These experiences develop infants' tactile sensitivity even before birth. The birthing process massively massages babies' skins. Scientists believe this massaging prepares babies for postnatal existence by activating their respiratory tracts and gastrointestinal and genitourinary systems (Blondis & Jackson, 1977; Burgoon & Saine, 1978; Colt, 1997; Montagu & Matson, 1979).

Touch is, therefore, the first sense developed by humans, and it may be the last to fade. Intrauterine and tactile experiences enable infants to distinguish between themselves and the world around them. Children use their tongues and hands to explore their worlds. They have to see an object, taste it, and fully experience it through touch to learn what the object really is. Through touch, children construct their own knowledge of the world as they differentiate between themselves and the outside world (Blondis & Jackson, 1977; Burgoon & Saine, 1978; Fast, 1970; Montagu, 1971; Montagu & Matson, 1979; Weiss, 1984).

As children grow, they learn about touching behaviors by modeling after the significant others in their lives. Caring touch begins with the family. Family members experience more personal growth when they practice some kind of affectionate touching. Parents communicate their caring for their children while cuddling and playing with them. When babies fuss, their mothers pick them up, hold them against their bodies, rhythmically pat their backs, and smooth their hair until they are peaceful once more. Yet, gender, age, and physical characteristics affect the amount and quality of touching. Researchers in the United States have discovered that mothers touch male and female infants differently. In the first few months of life, male infants receive more attention in the form of touching, holding, and rocking than females do. By six months of age, female infants receive more touching. Male toddlers initiate more contact with their mothers. At the age of 13 months, female toddlers touch their mothers more frequently during free-play periods. As children mature, mothers tend to touch daughters more often than sons; some fathers do not touch their sons at all. In one study, people who rated themselves as being unattractive reported being touched less extensively by their parents. This leads one to believe that parents might convey their acceptance of their children's bodies through physical contact (Burgoon & Saine, 1978; Goldberg & Lewis, 1969; Henley, 1973; Jourard, 1983; Jourard & Rubin, 1968; Kagan & Lewis, 1965; Lewis, 1972; Montagu, 1983).