"At the end of the day, the most overwhelming key to a child's success is the positive involvement of parents." - Jane Hull

This week my class talked about parenting and raising children. The purpose of parenting is to protect and prepare children to survive and thrive. This includes giving love and respect to your children, along with preparing them for the future. The biggest thing I got out of class was that children need to  have human contact. NEVER withhold contact/affection from your child, they actually need it to survive and remain healthy.

My professor gave an account of a real story that happened years ago. A hospital had two wings that held sick babies. One wing had babies that were making quick recoveries. The other wing had had the same amount, with the same illnesses, but there was a huge mortality rate. The staff had no idea what was causing this so they tried to solve it. They cleaned everything from top-to-bottom, and even rearranged the doctors and nurses. Sadly, there was still a high mortality rate in the one wing. One night a doctor stayed after hours in the hospital. He went into the healthy wing and noticed one of the custodians--a woman. As she cleaned the rooms, she would pick up one of the babies and hold them. She would then put them down and do the same to the next one. The doctor wasn't angry with her for doing this, but he assigned her to clean over the other wing that wasn't doing so well. After some time went by, the wing that had the high mortality rate was now flourishing. More babies were living and getting healthier, although, the rooms that the woman used to clean were now getting worse. The wings had swapped mortality rates. The one that was doing horribly was now doing good, and vice versa.

This story shows that physical affection and care will literally help people live. Parents should never hold back their love, this may cause children to act out or even gain certain disorders. You can never love your child too much, it's just not possible.