The most essential aspect of caring touch is being present, (embodied). Sensory awareness is essential to being in your body - to being present.
Exploring Your Senses has roots in a Peaceful Touch program developed for school children in Sweden.
It's been observed that children in the U.S. are touched less often than children in many other countries, and that the U.S. is labeled "touch phobic". The Skin page highlighted the importance of touch throughout life, so, to help people ease into experiences with touch, we expanded our training to include all aspects of sensory awareness.
After children have learned about the elements of safe touch, such as respecting boundaries, communicating their sensory awareness, being present, they can be taught a variety of activities that involve safe touch, such as story telling, touch-centered math, spelling and music games and pretend- pet grooming.
In this photo Claire instructs the children to ask permission before touching.
Peaceful Touch studies done with 10,000 multi-racial, multi-national children - who participated in the program for 10 years - demonstrated increases in co-operative behavior and learning capacity, and decreased aggressive behavior.
The studies also demonstrated that these activities help children learn to self-regulate, integrate boundaries and sensory awareness.
Children spread the word about safe touch. Over the years it was observed that the children in Sweden introduced their Peaceful Touch activities to their parents and siblings.