My child's "love language" is "physical touch," and mine is not. Suggestions?

[Anonymous]

We are majorly into hugs and kisses and couch snuggling in our house. We also pile into my bed for story time before sleep. However, I would NEVER hold my son's hand during dinner. I give him 50 kisses a day and will gladly hold him for an hour (2yo)... The dinner thing seems a little odd to me. Maybe because I'm Italian? Don't interfere with my knife and fork!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP I hear you. Ignore the stupid trolls sending you to therapy. It's totally normal. How old is your child?

I'm at a breaking point now... all 3 (DH, DD and my newborn) crave this physical closeness and I'm dying for some space. At one point last weekend I had DD sitting on my lap while I BF the baby and DH was laying on my leg. I could not breathe but they were all so happy I could not bring myself to ask them to move. It didn't last long and I just tolerated it.

DD needs to touch me no matter what we're doing. She's 2 and even when we're eating together she has to touch me under the table rubbing her toes on my leg or even holding hands!!! LOL I write a journal for them to read when they grow up and just yesterday I asked her why she wants to hold hands during dinner but insists in trying to run away when we're at a parking lot HAHA

Anyway, it won't last forever and part of it in my case is hormonal (I read somewhere that when you have a baby your hormones make you icky to physical touch as a birth control measure to protect the new baby and your milk supply).

I know it won't last forever so right now I just suck it up. DH knows how I feel and he's pretty good at giving me space most of the time and for 1 hour every day I go away somewhere just by myself so I can get rid of the icky feeling.

No, it's not totally normal, and part of being a parent is stepping outside our comfort zone in any case for the good of the kids. Kids need physical affection, some more than others. If therapy is needed, then OP should do it, but it's probably not.

[Anonymous]

I think people are misunderstanding you, OP. Are you someone who distresses by alone time? It's perfectly okay to not enjoy excessive touch. If you never want your child to touch you, that's a problem. If you are exhausted by 24/7 touching, that might not be unusual. It's probably just your kid's age, when she desires a lot of touch. Or maybe she feels insecure about something and is seeking reassurance through touch.

I think you need to keep making the extra effort to provide her with touch, but you can't ignore your own needs. It will show in HOW you touch her. Providing less but truly quality touch time is far more important than more but disinterested, half-resentful touch. Give her some dedicated touch time, and find ways to redirect it when you are overwhelmed - explain to her that in addition to touch, words and actions can also show love. Read her a book, ask her about something she's excited about, etc.

[Anonymous]

Op, I am like you as is my mom, so we were well matched in that regard. My dad was super touchy feely and i HATED HATED HATED it!!!!!! If i tried to pull away from a hug when I was done he would lay on a guilt trip about how I didn't love him or respect him etc. I would be thinking "I love you, I just don'nt love touching you so much." My sister who is 10 yrs older than me needs a lot of touch and to this day berates.my mom for not touching her enough and for pushing her away. (Though she does the exact same thing to her kids.)

To tell a non touchy feely person to just deal with it is like telling a left handed person to be right handed, or telling an extrovert to stop needing so much social contact etc. You are the way you are and I think it is important fkr OP to make an effort to meet her daughters needs but it is also important for the daughter to learn that not everyone has the same needs she does. It is a two way street.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think people are misunderstanding you, OP. Are you someone who distresses by alone time? It's perfectly okay to not enjoy excessive touch. If you never want your child to touch you, that's a problem. If you are exhausted by 24/7 touching, that might not be unusual. It's probably just your kid's age, when she desires a lot of touch. Or maybe she feels insecure about something and is seeking reassurance through touch.

I think you need to keep making the extra effort to provide her with touch, but you can't ignore your own needs. It will show in HOW you touch her. Providing less but truly quality touch time is far more important than more but disinterested, half-resentful touch. Give her some dedicated touch time, and find ways to redirect it when you are overwhelmed - explain to her that in addition to touch, words and actions can also show love. Read her a book, ask her about something she's excited about, etc.

PP, I think you hit the nail on the head. I am an introvert, and I certainly recharge by being alone, having alone time, etc. I did know that about myself but hadn't really viewed this situation through that particular lens, but looking back, I can see that the times it most gets to me are when I am already drained and haven't had any time to recharge; it's at times like this where it can feel like an all-out, purposeful, assault on me. And DD is absolutely absolutely an extrovert. I have already been aware of this aspect of DD and myself, and have done reading about parenting an extrovert when you are an introvert, but just didn't really click that this was part and parcel of the same issue. It's those times, at the end of a work day when I've had no transition bw work and home but I just walk across the parking lot to pick up DD from daycare and we hop in the car and she starts chatter chatter chattering, or after a long weekend of lots and lots of family-time, when I feel drained, when these feelings start to come up. Well, thank you all for listening and helping me better "frame" this in my head, so I can get a handle on it. For one, I think I need to be aware that I need to recharge my own batteries before I get to the point where I am scraping the bottom of the barrel. As it is, that is how I feel sometimes. Ugh. And, like some of you other PPs have mentioned, DD is young, so it's not like she'll always be like this but it is developmentally appropriate for her. Well, thank you again.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Op, I am like you as is my mom, so we were well matched in that regard. My dad was super touchy feely and i HATED HATED HATED it!!!!!! If i tried to pull away from a hug when I was done he would lay on a guilt trip about how I didn't love him or respect him etc. I would be thinking "I love you, I just don'nt love touching you so much." My sister who is 10 yrs older than me needs a lot of touch and to this day berates.my mom for not touching her enough and for pushing her away. (Though she does the exact same thing to her kids.)

To tell a non touchy feely person to just deal with it is like telling a left handed person to be right handed, or telling an extrovert to stop needing so much social contact etc. You are the way you are and I think it is important fkr OP to make an effort to meet her daughters needs but it is also important for the daughter to learn that not everyone has the same needs she does. It is a two way street.

Thanks, PP! OP here. In my family, we were ALL pretty much like you describe (you and your mom)!!!!! So, this is a whole new ball of wax for me!! Thank you!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, your daughter is 2. It doesn't matter what her "love language" is. Forget whatever quiz you took or whatever paradigm you feel you fit into. All two year olds like a lot of physical closeness. All two year olds want to be on your lap, in your face, holding your hands, touching your body. Your body still belongs to them in pretty primal ways and will for another couple of years. They are very young children still, many of them still nurse into the second year of life.

Little kids this age hold hands, hug, touch, get close, sensory seek. It's not a "love language." It's early childhood. Their bodies are small.

With all due respect, this isn't true of all kids. DD is was never one to be all over us -- not as a baby, not at 2, not now at 4. Yes, she likes to cuddle and touch us, but I would never characterize it as "a lot of physical closeness." When she's in the mood, she's huggy and cuddly and sits in our lap or holds our hand. But just as often she pulls away a bit and demonstrates that she wants space. Again, she was like this even as a baby. We call her "selectively affectionate" (and in general she's not especially sensory.)

That said, she's quite verbal, and as a family we've always used words to express our affection for each other. We've also learned how to talk about physical closeness -- asking if she wants a hug and kiss, asking if she wants to sit on our lap, and her learning to ask us for the same -- plus everyone learning to talk about "needing a little space" -- again, she's said it to us and we've said it to her. As an aside, all this talking about affection/space has been helpful as she's entered pre-school. Apparently kids learning to understand and respect each other's differing needs for affection and personal space is a big developmental theme in her class.

So again, I do believe that there's a wide range of normal in terms of a person's need for and interest in physical affection. This goes for children as well as adults. I don't think OP needs therapy -- I just think she needs to give as much physical affection as she can without feeling like she's faking it or undermining her own needs for space. And she should help her daughter understand that asking for a little space is not rejection -- both so she doesn't feel rejected AND so she's comfortable expressing limits and preferences as she gets older, too.

It's also good to teach DD that there are many ways to show love -- pointing out specific examples as they happen, both with DD and with DH or others. Things like doing nice things for each other or listening to each other's stories or helping each other etc. All ways to show DD how much you love her, as long as you help her understand what those acts mean.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Op, I am like you as is my mom, so we were well matched in that regard. My dad was super touchy feely and i HATED HATED HATED it!!!!!! If i tried to pull away from a hug when I was done he would lay on a guilt trip about how I didn't love him or respect him etc. I would be thinking "I love you, I just don'nt love touching you so much." My sister who is 10 yrs older than me needs a lot of touch and to this day berates.my mom for not touching her enough and for pushing her away. (Though she does the exact same thing to her kids.)

To tell a non touchy feely person to just deal with it is like telling a left handed person to be right handed, or telling an extrovert to stop needing so much social contact etc. You are the way you are and I think it is important fkr OP to make an effort to meet her daughters needs but it is also important for the daughter to learn that not everyone has the same needs she does. It is a two way street.

Honestly, your dad is wrong and so was your mom. Children and parents are not the same. Parents don't get to disregard their children's needs because "it's not their way". Your dad violated your boundaries and the guilt tripping is borderline emotional abuse. Honestly, it probably plays the same role as grooming does for child molesters (weakening boundaries, inspiring confusion and guilt). But your mother likely exacerbated your sister's anxiety and need for touch by refusing to give it to her. The fact that "she does the same things to her kids" suggests that your entire family has issues which you are happily passing on from generation to generation. It's not normal to dread touching your own child. It's not normal to whine and guilttrip your child to touch them. There is a middle ground - it's called trying to fulfil your child's emotional needs like a non emotionally damaged, psychlogically table human being. You should try it.

[Anonymous]

^ ugh, iphone typos. Sorry for that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, your daughter is 2. It doesn't matter what her "love language" is. Forget whatever quiz you took or whatever paradigm you feel you fit into. All two year olds like a lot of physical closeness. All two year olds want to be on your lap, in your face, holding your hands, touching your body. Your body still belongs to them in pretty primal ways and will for another couple of years. They are very young children still, many of them still nurse into the second year of life.

Little kids this age hold hands, hug, touch, get close, sensory seek. It's not a "love language." It's early childhood. Their bodies are small.

With all due respect, this isn't true of all kids. DD is was never one to be all over us -- not as a baby, not at 2, not now at 4. Yes, she likes to cuddle and touch us, but I would never characterize it as "a lot of physical closeness." When she's in the mood, she's huggy and cuddly and sits in our lap or holds our hand. But just as often she pulls away a bit and demonstrates that she wants space. Again, she was like this even as a baby. We call her "selectively affectionate" (and in general she's not especially sensory.)

That said, she's quite verbal, and as a family we've always used words to express our affection for each other. We've also learned how to talk about physical closeness -- asking if she wants a hug and kiss, asking if she wants to sit on our lap, and her learning to ask us for the same -- plus everyone learning to talk about "needing a little space" -- again, she's said it to us and we've said it to her. As an aside, all this talking about affection/space has been helpful as she's entered pre-school. Apparently kids learning to understand and respect each other's differing needs for affection and personal space is a big developmental theme in her class.

So again, I do believe that there's a wide range of normal in terms of a person's need for and interest in physical affection. This goes for children as well as adults. I don't think OP needs therapy -- I just think she needs to give as much physical affection as she can without feeling like she's faking it or undermining her own needs for space. And she should help her daughter understand that asking for a little space is not rejection -- both so she doesn't feel rejected AND so she's comfortable expressing limits and preferences as she gets older, too.

It's also good to teach DD that there are many ways to show love -- pointing out specific examples as they happen, both with DD and with DH or others. Things like doing nice things for each other or listening to each other's stories or helping each other etc. All ways to show DD how much you love her, as long as you help her understand what those acts mean.

OP here. Thanks for these helpful suggestions. I will certainly be trying them. Thank you so much.

[Anonymous]

13:47 here and I must agree with 14:32...
When we're home DD now walks around wrapped in a blanket and reduced A LOT of her need for being rubbing against me 24/7!!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:13:47 here and I must agree with 14:32...
When we're home DD now walks around wrapped in a blanket and reduced A LOT of her need for being rubbing against me 24/7!!!

HI PPs. I don't think DD is sensory-seeking but thank you for alerting me to this possible angle to it. I've read the lists of SS traits/behaviors and don't see anything else on there that she really does, but of course I will keep it in the back of my mind because you just never know. Thank you!

[Anonymous]

I am so with you, OP. Mine is 10 and would like to move into my body if she could. Sometimes, I just want to scream, "STOP TOUCHING ME!!" I do not do this. I hug her and kiss her every day. I tuck her in and snuggle with her at night. I do set boundaries with her when it is too hot for me to grin through her hugging me and kissing me. I simply say, "It is too hot for me, you can hold my hand," and she does happily.

[Anonymous]

OP, I understand how you feel. How is your DH with affection? Mine loves it, so I often send the kids his way. I hug and kiss my kids, hold their hands, etc., but I do not like when they hang on me, and they know that. I tell my kids I love them all the time, and I feel confident that they feel loved. BTW, I come from a very affectionate family, but sometimes I need space. Please ignore all the PP who say you need therapy -- you seem totally normal to me.

[Anonymous]

I'm not saying never touch your kid, but honestly, don't you think they can tell when you are forcing it? Just say no, honey, mommy doesn't like it when you hang on me. Here, give me a kiss and go play.

You and your child will survive, and adapt.