A hug a day is important

One of the rules in my five-year-old grandson’s classroom is “no hugging.”
When I heard this, I was puzzled. I know we are called upon to be vigilant in our awareness of, and recognizing and preventing, physical abuse but I’m still wondering.
I’m thinking back to the first few days of school for Linden, when I was chauffeuring him back and forth for his graduated entry. He was happy one day at dismissal time and spontaneously threw his arms around his teacher’s waist before we departed the school.
She raised her arms above her head as if Linden had some disease that she didn’t wish to share and looked startled. I thought it odd at the time, but now I’m guessing the rules are clear about such things in our schools now.
I love to hug my friends; hug them in greeting, in goodbye, in well done, in I-don’t-need-a-reason. I certainly hugged my children and still hug them every opportunity I get.
My little granddaughter spent the afternoon with me last week. She had a brief nap in her little bed and then napped on my chest for an hour-and-a-half. And it was the best 90 minutes I’ve spent in a very long time.
I was reading about the importance of hugging children, infants, and toddlers as they develop and how absolutely essential and necessary physical touch is for babies to thrive. We’ve known for decades the research that guides us to provide skin-on-skin touch for newborns.
I can’t help thinking about those children who go without physical comfort; those children taken from their families and placed in institutions with no one to gather them up to comfort them, to console them. And yet we still question why generations later, the family unit is broken and we raise the argument of get over it.
I didn’t go to school until I was six years old. Annie cared for me when my mother went back to teaching when I was four and while my father was busy clearing land for crops and pasture. Some days I did very little other than snuggle on Annie’s lap; her arms around me, her list of chores on hold until I climbed down.
I wonder about the harm caused by telling children they must not hug others and I’m thinking specifically about boys told this. In order to prevent one problem, are we not creating another?
Are we telling our developing children that comforting one another is not allowed, is not essential, is not important.
When I visited my mother, long after she no longer could remember who I was and the majority of her day was spent in bed, her conversation gone, her ability to interact with others forgotten, I would climb into bed with her and drape my arms around her, my head against her back and I felt her soften, felt her sink into that embrace.
She hadn’t stopped needing hugs, needing physical touch. Her eyes closed and she sighed, and her breathing lengthened and she rested in my arms.
Hugging is a very important part of who we are and I would hate for anyone to hear rules that forbid it.
wendistewart@live.ca