I raise chickens on my ranch and after one hatch we had a red Rhode Island chick that just screamed and screamed and screamed. It wouldn’t stop her sneaky little screams. After trying to figure out if there was something wrong with him, I finally realized that he was lonely and wanted a mom who would love him. When he held himself, he calmed down and fell asleep. By putting a teddy bear on her, I finally got her to calm down. Girls aren’t the only ones who have this desperate need for love or what’s called a psychological stroke.

A stroke is any response to its presence or existence. Getting a response is essential to one’s emotional well-being. Children who are isolated from the response of others can die. Experiments with many mammals (rats, monkeys, pigs, goats, sheep, dogs) show that if the newborn is not caressed, even if it is hot and has food, it will become seriously ill or die. At the very least, your development processes will be seriously affected. Human babies also died at a high rate in orphanages where they were kept clean, warm and well fed because there were not enough adults to give them adequate stimulation. This changed dramatically when orphans were placed in foster care, even without especially loving adoptive parents because there were more strokes in foster homes than in orphanages.

Around 1930, people interested in child placement found that children fared better even in dirty and abusive foster homes than in clean and uncaring orphanages. What they discovered is that there is another aspect of parenting besides food, clothing and shelter, and that aspect is touch, touch, response. A child needs to be stroked, petted, bounced up and down, talking to him, for his brain and muscles to develop properly. When you are a baby, stroking is literally touching. Later, a wink or a smile from mommy will suffice. When we get older and are able to understand symbolic behavior, a word, a letter, a golden star, an award of merit are all strokes. “Hello” is a hit. Someone saying my name out loud is a stroke. From a celebrity or a love, the same “hello” can be worth many blows. Sometimes the recognition is a scream or a beating. Negative recognition is better than no recognition. A kick is a blow too, and since everyone has a survival mentality, a kick is much better than nothing. Children who are beaten survive; children who are ignored die. I am not suggesting that no one should go around hitting children. I am saying that people should know that stroking is essential, that all human beings, both children and adults, need to be touched. If they can’t receive tender loving caresses, the kicks will at least keep them alive.

Attention is not necessary not only for our mental well-being, but also for our physical well-being. We cannot survive physically without the attention of another person. Now, of course, the best kind of attention is positive love and affection, but understanding that attention is a physical survival necessity can help you understand much of your behavior and that of others (such as if your toddler has a tantrum or a woman who does not leave a domestic violence situation). The best way to solve problems caused by inattention is to find or give positive love and affection.