Celebrating International Day of Peace

By Karen M. Rider

Peace, I have learned, is not something that just happens by itself. The practice of peace begins with every individual on this planet. For peace to become our global reality, it must be cultivated by each one of us… in our thoughts, our beliefs, and especially in our words and our actions. And, I have learned it must begin at home, in our families and especially in how we interact with and correct our children.

More often than I would like, my two young daughters demonstrate warfare tactics that would make a general proud. No matter what I model for them, how I speak (or don’t speak) to them, it is a perpetual struggle to cultivate peaceful problem solving between these “darlings.” Despite monitoring and changing my own behavior, I am left clueless about how to teach peace to my children. Between the shouting, hitting and stomping off to another room, I have begun to wonder if that is even possible.

Teaching Children to Practice Peace in Sweden

In Sweden, more than 300,000 children are practicing peace through?a program called Peaceful Touch® (P.T.), developed by Hans Axelson in Stockholm in the early 1990’s. The program integrates respectful, healthy touch with a child’s daily activities. From reading and storytelling to math, science problems and physical activities such as yoga, these children are learning to use their hands as instruments of peace, instead of warfare. The children calmly and gently use one another’s back, or even an arm, to trace numbers or letters, solve simple math problems or draw figures from a story. Sometimes the children form a “massage train” or help each other roll into “cooked spaghetti” while lying in savasana (relaxation) pose.

Peaceful Touch® is widely used in the home, in school classrooms, and other curricular settings. Swedish parents and teachers have reported that children partaking in a P.T. program, over time, have lower levels of anxiety and aggressive behavior, improved concentration, greater confidence and enhanced peer relationships including group cohesion and cooperation. The P.T. philosophy is based on three fundamentals. First, touch is necessary for human growth and development. Second, P.T.  embraces a permission granting process that helps establish appropriate boundaries between children. The third foundation is the oxytocin factor. Scientific evidence has demonstrated the touch of another human (or even a cuddly pet), triggers the body to produce the hormone oxytocin. Oxytocin generates a calming effect throughout the body. Healthy, peaceful touch is necessary for our mental, physical, emotional and spiritual well being.

The Science of Human Touch

More than a century of scientific research and observation gives evidence to what many know by instinct: Touch is essential to human growth and development. As far back as 1915, psychosocial studies conducted in orphanages and crowded nurseries demonstrated that failure to thrive in infants and young babies is directly linked to lack of human touch, even when sufficient nutrition and medical attention is provided. The Harlow monkey studies conducted in the 1950’s clearly showed the necessity for tactile affection in social and cognitive development. Harlow’s study involved two groups of monkeys. In thefirst group, the “terrycloth mother” provided no food, while the “wire mother” provided food in the form of an attached baby bottle containing milk. In the second group, only the terrycloth mother provided food. The young monkeys clung to the terrycloth mother whether or not food was provided. In fact, the baby monkeys only went to the wire mother when it had food and they rarely stayed longer than it took to get the necessary food. (When the cloth model had the bottle, they didn’t go to the wire model at all.) The baby monkeys clearly preferred cuddling with the softer cloth model.Rider

Obstacles to Peaceful Touch in Children’s Daily Life

According to Dori Sargent, a Peaceful Touch Facilitator and Trainer in the United States, teachers using Peaceful Touch frequently report transformations in behavior, for some of their most difficult students. However, in the United States, many school systems have a “no-touch” policy out of fear of legal action or because of cultural differences regarding touch. Yet, the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) requires healthy and positive touch in its accreditation criteria. Teaching staff are encouraged?to express warmth through behaviors such as physical affection, eye contact and tone of voice.

Outside of a school environment, social situations, personal mores and cultural customs raise a different set of obstacles to the day-to-day practice of healthy touch in children’s lives. In some cultures, touching is not permitted at all in public. In social situations, what may be regarded as normal, loving touches for one family, may be viewed as unnecessary, silly or even inappropriate by another family. The P.T. program, whether used in a private home or a school programs must account for such differences.

Benefits of a Peaceful Touch Program

Dori has observed the beneficial effects of teaching P.T. to children, families and educators.

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“Every time I bring Peaceful Touch to children and families I witness how it changes lives. It is thrilling for me to see how something so simple, something we think we know so much about, can be so powerful! While I have observed changes similar to those documented in the Swedish programs: improved body awareness, enhanced self-esteem, greater empathy, lower levels of stress, it is the small effects that are most significant to me.

I remember one particular preschool age boy who did not want to participate with the rest of his class. He told me “It’s boring and it’s for girls!” All of his friends were participating; he reluctantly joined his peers. The next day, his mother shared with me that she had been?having a terrible time with?migraine headaches. Her son?approached her and asked if?she would like Peaceful Touch?to make her feel better. The?child brought Peaceful Touch?into his home and even?remembered to ask permission. What a beautiful thing!”

We need human touch, physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. I know this and my children know this. Which is why, after we’ve hurt someone, we often hug them. Now, when I see the tension escalating between my daughters, my first reaction is not to focus on who is right or who is wrong. Instead, I ask them to zip it, hug-it-up and draw a silly picture on each other’s back. Most of the time, they will get so silly with each other they forget all about the source of their disagreement. The become calm and centered. When it comes time for me to find out what the shouting was all about, the girls are better able to contain their emotions, talk about the situation and work together for a solution. Imagine what a Peaceful Touch curriculum could do for the United Nations!

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Connect with Dori Sargent: Dori@earthwingsyoga.com ; 860-559-7737; www.earthwingsyoga.com; www.yogawise.org , Peaceful Touch: www.peacefultouch.net

For more information: http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Harlow/love.htm and http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aso/databank/entries/bhharl.html.