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Areas › Your body › Touch and bodywork
The pattern in these studies is modest and repeated: short sessions, twice a week, over several weeks, with mood and behaviour improving rather than attention being cured. For a family, the practical version might be a shoulder rub at bedtime rather than a clinic. Ask the child what pressure they like and let them stop it whenever they want.
The prayer for parents recalls 'just as they cared for me when I was little' (Quran 17:24). Physical care of a small child is remembered as the thing that earns a lifetime of tenderness back.
الإسراء
وَٱخۡفِضۡ لَهُمَا جَنَاحَ ٱلذُّلِّ مِنَ ٱلرَّحۡمَةِ وَقُل رَّبِّ ٱرۡحَمۡهُمَا كَمَا رَبَّيَانِي صَغِيرࣰ ا
and lower your wing in humility towards them in kindness and say, ‘Lord, have mercy on them, just as they cared for me when I was little.’
Qur’an 17:24read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
A controlled study of massage for stable preterm babies reported better outcomes both in the short term and later on, though the design was quasi experimental rather than randomised. Repeated touch over time appears to do something real in children, on evidence that is far from watertight. Preterm infants are a long way from teenagers in a classroom.
Abdallah B, Badr LK, Hawwari M. (2013). The efficacy of massage on short and long term outcomes in preterm infants.. Infant behavior & development doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Regular calming touch lowers the background stress a child is carrying, and there is more of them available once it drops.
Find the soft place just under and behind your jaw, near your ears, and rest your fingers there. Then open and close your mouth slowly, slide the jaw forwards and back, and draw your chin gently towards your throat.
Ordinary harmless sensation competes with pain on its way up. Rubbing, squeezing or stroking near a sore place gives the nerves plenty of other traffic to carry.
Tapping pairs light contact on acupressure points with saying the trouble out loud. The claims made for it run ahead of the evidence, and it is cheap, quick and safe enough to try.