1. Nurturing and Bonding

2. Nurturing Promoting a child’s development by providing nourishment, support, encouragement and unconditional love throughout the life span.

3. Bonding The formation of close emotional ties
Bonding The formation of close emotional ties. (Extremely important to the social and emotional well-being of the child)

4. Attachments Trust

5. Nurturing/Bonding/Attaching
When do these take place in a child’s development?
Why are they considered to be so important?

6. Nurturing/Bonding/Attaching
Some benefits of bonding…
1. Increases brain connections
2. Raises IQ
3. Produces more security in child
4. Strengthens health and immunity

7. Bonding Builds Skills
 - At the most basic level, relationships foster warmth, intimacy, and pleasure; furnish security, physical safety, and protection from illness and injury; and supply basic needs for nutrition and housing.
- When there are secure, empathetic, nurturing relationships, children learn to be intimate and empathetic, and eventually to communicate their feelings, reflect on their own wishes, and develop their own relationships.
- Relationships also teach children which behaviors are appropriate and which are not
From scholastic.com

8. Developing Cognitive Skills
- Pretend play involving human dramas—such as dolls hugging or fighting—helps the child learn to connect an image to a wish and then use this image to think, "If I'm nice to Mom, she will let me stay up late.“
- We have come to understand that emotional interactions are the foundation of most of a child's intellectual abilities, including creativity and abstract thinking skills. Emotions are actually the internal architects of our minds. They tell us how and what to think, what to say and when to say it, and what to do. We "know" things through our emotional interactions and then apply that knowledge to the cognitive world.
From scholastic.com

9. Developing Morality
- Not only thinking grows out of early emotional interactions—so does a moral sense of right and wrong. The ability to understand another person's feelings and to care about how he or she feels can arise only from the experience of nurturing interaction.
From scholastic.com

10. Developing Self-Regulation
 - When a child is capable of rapid interactions with his parents or another important caregiver, he is able to negotiate how he feels. If he is annoyed, he can make an annoying look or hand gesture. His father may come back with a gesture indicating "I understand," or "OK, I'll get the food more quickly." 
- The child doesn't have to have a tantrum to register his annoyance; he can do it with just a little glance and a little annoyed look.
From scholastic.com

11. Bonding with an Infant
1. With long, loving looks. (Look into baby’s eyes during feedings, while holding or any other time!

12. How to Bond with an Infant
2. Loving touches. Handle and touch in calm, gentle ways. (Infants can easily sense anger, nervousness and bad moods). Touch is extremely healing.

13. How to Bond with an Infant
Animated face and voice. Respond to their sounds, laugh with them, communicate with eyes and voice.

14. Basic Rules to Remember at Any Age to Continue Nurturing and Bonding
1. Consistency: A child needs to know what to expect. Inconsistency causes confusion to the child. How? Make sure you consistently respond to needs such as hunger.

15. Bonding/Nurturing Rules
2. Responsiveness: Pay attention to them!!! Repeat back to them the sounds they make! If fussy or bored, play with them!

16. Bonding/Nurturing Rules
3. Sensitivity: Look at things from their point of view. Don’t force but gently lead with love. Try to understand their frustrations.

17. The Power of Touch (Touch was the earliest form of healing)
Touch can lift depression. (It decreases stress hormones and improves sleep)

18. The Power of Touch
Increases immune function.

19. The Power of Touch
Reduces stress.

20. The Power of Touch
Premature infants show remarkable improvement when touched through openings in incubator over those who were not touched for fear of germs or disease.

22. The Power of Touch
Autistic children (who often show an aversion to touch) showed remarkable improvement in social relationships.

23. The Power of Touch
“Touch is a cheap and effective prescription for wellness.”

24. The Power of Touch
In spite of the healing benefits of touch, Americans touch their children 1/3 less than most foreign countries. Why?