Hugs, they’re not for everyone.

There’s currently a Puritanical idea that has pervaded our culture in which touch and sex are inherently linked and it is doing us a great disservice. I think that people are afraid to touch each other no matter how platonic.

I will admit it, I’m a tactile person. I give and receive hugs every day. Touch is one of the ways I communicate. I’m also a shoulder patter, and a hand holder. Hugs are free and there is no purchase required.

We Americans are often “touch starved” because the casual, nonsexual contact that happens between friends in other cultures just doesn’t happen here. I think we were never meant to hold each other at arm’s length.

According to Readers Digest, hugs are more than just a friendly greeting, they’re a surprisingly powerful health booster you’ll want to take greater advantage of every single day. From the time we’re born our family’s touch shows us that we’re loved and special. The connections of self-worth and tactile sensations we received in our early years are still implanted in our mind as adults. Hugs affect our ability to love ourselves.

Hugs are much more than a friendly greeting. Holding a hug for an extended time is said to lift one’s serotonin levels, elevating mood and creating happiness. Hugs supposedly strengthen the immune system. Hugging is reported to boost self-esteem.

Touch is incredibly important for us as human beings. Studies have shown that hugs can reduce blood pressure and release oxytocin. Oxytocin is a hormone that has been associated with empathy, trust, and relationship-building among other things.

A good hug relaxes muscles and releases tension. Hugs can help ease pain and soothe aches by increasing circulation into the soft tissues. Hugs teach the importance of giving and receiving. There is an equal value in receiving a hug as there is to giving one. Hugs show us how love goes both ways. As a loving person, I get an abundance of hugs from my family. I find that hugs are like a miracle drug.

A Swedish study of 172 nursing home residents found that those who received hugs and physical touch, connected more with family, friends and visitors, were more socially active and had a tendency to thrive better than the residents who didn’t receive the physical contact.

When you are in a relationship, it is too easy to take the other person for granted. A benefit of hugging that is frequently overlooked is that a hug can reaffirm your love. I think it’s valuable to know that something as simple as time spent touching or hugging has been shown to have measurable benefits.

I had a doctor who was very professional but unemotional. He was an excellent doctor that in my mind saved my life on more than one occasion. The first time he proclaimed that I was “In remission” I jumped up and gave him a big hug, I was so elated. It was like hugging a tree.

In his culture, men did not hug. Over the course of several years and 2 remissions, I hugged him many times. Our relationship warmed so much that the last time I saw him, he initiated the hug. He also had a student with him on this particular day. He said to the student that he might as well hug me because I was going to hug him too.

A few years ago, I had a person report me to HR that I had hugged her. She was telling me about her horrible battle with cancer when I said “sounds like you need a hug”. I did not approach her or grab her, just stood and opened my arms. She then stepped forward to get her hug. She didn’t protest at the time or say “No thanks.” but seeing as I was in a position of superiority over her she didn’t think she could refuse.

She taught me to always ask if people are comfortable with a hug or possibly even a warm handshake before assuming that they were. It was a boundary I needed to understand and something I needed to learn.

I now recognize that for lots of people, touch can be not only be something unfamiliar but has the ability to transmit aggression or dehumanizing and scary messages. I mean nothing more by it when I offer you a hug other than make an effort to connect with you or to offer comfort to you, not to invade your space or make you feel uncomfortable.

So while I will continue to offer hugs to people who seem to welcome them. I will never foist them upon anyone. I will say though that if I see you crying, eating cold pizza and you explain your troubles to me and ask for advice, offering a hug to you seems as reasonable to me as offering you a tissue.

Hugging might also be a wonderful way to resolve a disagreement. I think that giving each other the touch they need may have the ability to reverse the damages.

To me, there doesn’t seem to be a downside to consensual hugging, I just have to ask first. Norb is a loving husband, father and grandfather who doles out hugs in Lockport.

Do children deserve/need an allowance?

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As a young child, I got an allowance and spent it unwisely buying my “friends” penny candy and comic books. I found out my “friends” were gone as soon as my money was. Lesson learned.

Allowances are powerful things. Children should be allowed to make unwise purchases, because we all learn from our mistakes. Allowances are most children’s first exposure to the power of personal choice that financial means can bring. It is for this very reason that parents may approach it with fear. Children need to understand the value of money, and will only learn this when they have their own money. Receiving an allowance can teach children the basics of how to be responsible and self-reliant.

Children need the opportunity to spend and save their own money. As I got older and stopped receiving an allowance I went to work. I worked at a stable and then on a chicken farm. I learned that I needed to work for my money and not to be dependent on my parents for everything. I remember buying my first car at 16. I didn’t need any help paying for it. I also had to pay for all my car expenses myself like gas and insurance. I learned true money management this way. Children will learn how to make a budget and spend accordingly. As parents we may be responsible for the basics, but kids who earn money should become responsible for the frills.

Let me tell you how we used to do it. My kids grew up in the era where your popularity depended partially on whose name was embroidered on the seat of your jeans. I believed we, as parents, were responsible to buy them jeans but I balked at paying for a designer name. My girls were working at the time so I proposed the following. I would give them the price of a reasonably priced pair of generic jeans. If they wanted designer jeans, they paid the difference. They quickly decided the designer jeans just weren’t worth the extra money and got the jeans I gave them the money for. I did something else with my children to measure how they were learning fiscal responsibility. I gave them all ten dollars with the stipulation they had to spend it on something totally impractical. At the end of a week they had to give it back if they didn’t spend it. My oldest daughter had to return the money because she just couldn’t spent it foolishly. I was so proud.

You are not going to kill your kids by teaching them how to be responsible with money. Our job as parents is to prepare our kids for adulthood. You won’t rob them of their childhood and you’ll teach them lifetime lessons that our school system does not. By giving them an allowance you will teach the concept of budgeting, how to avoid unnecessary purchases, how to save towards a bigger goal, teach them responsibility and give them independence. An allowance can be a great way to teach kids money management skills and help them learn how to make decisions, deal with limited funds, and understand the benefit of saving. There’s no single correct way to handle giving an allowance. Deciding when to start, how much to give, and whether you want to link the allowance to chores are choices that should fit your family.

No set age is best for every kid, but consider starting an allowance by the time a child is by 10 years old at the latest. By then, most kids have had experience making thoughtful spending decisions but still look to parents for guidance. Regardless of how much you choose, give the allowance regularly and increase the amount as your child gets older. Should an allowance be tied to chores? Again, it’s a personal choice. Some experts think that it’s important to make this connection so that kids learn the relationship between work and pay. Others say that kids should have a responsibility to help with housework, above and beyond any financial incentive. In the end, you must decide what works best for you.

Whatever you decide, be sure that all parties understand the arrangement. If some of the allowance is to go to savings, consider setting up an account at a local bank. This way, your child can keep track of the money. Many banks offer special bank accounts for kids, and yours may enjoy the experience of getting mail and seeing their money grow.

Being Alone

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You may not be surrounded by your friends or other people but you always seen to have your phone or perhaps your computer or tablet nearby so you can stay in contact with your friends, your social media followers, your neighbors and even your co-workers.

Even when we’re all alone in real life, on a remote beach, in the middle of the woods or on top of a mountain. All it takes is a text, tweet or post from someone in your social circle to get in touch with you. We aren’t ever actually alone. Sometimes this can be very daunting.

Everybody needs some alone time. Some time to put your “head in a box” as I like to call it. Some time to be alone with your thoughts. This is especially important if you are trying to write something for publication like I do.

We don’t understand just what the exact amount of alone time we need is, or even if there is one. Most likely, these amounts are different for everyone. Some of us are fine with just being alone on our drive to and from work whereas some people might need some additional time to unwind even after they get home.

Whether it’s for your job, or for your own mental health because you need time to decompress or so you can binge on your favorite television series online and don’t want to share your potato chips, it is good to have some alone time. Even some very sociable people like being alone sometimes.

I know quite a few people but sometimes I don’t want them to call, asking me a question or even to just say hello. Time in which I don’t need an opinion, think about how I feel, think about what I need to do. Time I don’t have to answer for at all. I certainly want people in my life, but the idea of that invaluable time alone is undeniably wonderful.

A few people may think it is egotistical to want to have some time alone but it can be extremely invigorating. Some people may equate being alone as being lonely. This is an error. They are two totally different but related things. You can be alone without being lonely and can feel loneliness in a crowded room. We often fear being alone because we think that being alone will make us lonely.

A lot of people are fine with being alone. People may think being alone goes against our natural condition and somehow it does. Humans are naturally social creatures. We join Facebook groups, clubs and socialize with people that share our common interests for this reason.

Quite possibly wanting to be alone is self-centered or maybe it just seems so. The best thing about being alone is having the independence to make your own decisions. You don’t have to compromise, you don’t have anyone getting in your way or telling you what to do. This is a valuable lesson for everyone. It’s important for you to spend some time alone, to decompress and to gather your thoughts away from the stress of day to day life.

Alone time to me is as refreshing as the feeling you get the first breath you take on a frigid winter morning or as invigorating as a cold shower on a hot August day. I imagine even extroverts love being alone occasionally because it’s a time they have the freedom to do what they want, when they want.

In a piece for The Atlantic titled “The Virtues of Isolation,” Brent Crane wrote of a scientific work regarding the positive aspects of being alone. “Increasingly scientists are approaching solitude as something that, when pursued by choice, can prove therapeutic,” he explained.

It turns out that that choice part is very important. Kenneth Rubin, a developmental psychologist at the University of Maryland, calls them the “ifs.” Crane wrote that. “Solitude can be productive only if it is voluntary, if you can regulate your emotions effectively, if you can join a social group when desired, and if you can maintain positive relationships outside of it.”

I know this is true, I want to be alone most when I am working on a project that requires my complete attention but I know I can easily have companionship of others when I want it. This is why couples try to find private spaces in their own homes, her “she shed” and his “man cave”. But you can also be alone in the same room as someone else. For instance, when I am writing I sit in my recliner, focusing on what I am doing. Less than five feet away, my wife sits, knitting and watching television or reading a book on her Kindle. We are both alone in our thoughts but together in the same space.

We all need our time alone, but there’s this special feeling when you know that there’s someone there for you, waiting patiently, just the other side of the door. Another way to state this is if you know someone will find your body within 24 hours after you die in your home, I don’t believe you are really alone.