My summer of one hug

I have a confession: I hugged a camper.  The urge to hug came upon me suddenly – it was a spontaneous thing.  I did not plan the hug.  As we know, in moments of joy sometimes hugs can just happen.  Our younger campers really like to hug a lot.  They’re natural born huggers.

 

As we come to the end of what hopefully is our last “Summer of Covid”, I will definitely remember that one hug. Did you know hugs actually reduce stress and can make you happier?  I felt the power of that in my one hug this summer.  It’s probably because I’ve had to work so hard not to hug that this one hug left a big imprint on my heart. 

 

This summer has been like no other.  Our camp was tiny, as expected.  We wore masks, washed our hands endlessly.  The new procedures that at first felt so overwhelming quickly became routine.  We all learned that “98.6 is normal temperature” is – like so many other things we were taught – incorrect.  I have more knowledge of the fluctuations of my body temperature throughout the day than I ever really wanted to know.   

 

I think what may stay with me the most is how difficult it was to show the staff and the campers my support, empathy and compassion towards them without any touching. I have read plenty of research, listened to numerous podcasts and even attended seminars on the subject.  I think it is fair to say that I have some understanding of just how important touch is to humans – especially children in their early childhood years.   But all the research in the world was nothing when compared to living through this summer, trying to limit our physical contact.  Having a difficult meeting with a counselor and not being able to put my hand on their back or hug them as we had an emotional conversation was hard.  Having campers say, "I really want to hug you, but I don't think I should", was truly heartbreaking.  

 

We’ve all been working hard to be careful.  To remain vigilant. We know that we could be a carrier of the virus yet be asymptomatic so what would normally be considered a kind of paranoia became a necessity.    Keeping a distance; limiting our physical contact with one other.  The children adapted very quickly and without too much obvious difficulty, but still I worry for the children that have lived through this experience.  

 

They’ve been receiving less physical contact than usual in their daily lives – please keep this in mind. Make an effort to hug and touch a bit more than usual at home, because the people we are living with are the one we can touch. Go find them, hug them and feel the power of the hug!

 

As we move into our new school year we should pay extra attention to potential effects of living with this virus.  Has this impacted someone’s mental health?  What type of behavior are we seeing that might be a result?   As teachers and parents we need to make this part of our observations so that as we move through this life experience together, we can be there for our families and students to give them the hug they may so need... safely of course!