The Comforting Touch: Tactile Intimacy and Talk in Managing Children’s Distress

The present study examines young childrens distress management in situ, focusing on situations of crying and caregivers embodiedhapticsoothing responses in preschools in Sweden. The adults responses to crying involve embraces, stroking, and patting. Haptic soothing is managed by calibrating the bodily proximity and postural orientations between the participants, including hapticembracing or face-to-faceformations that are coordinated with particular forms of talk. Haptic formations configure specific affordances for embodied participation by actualizing the availability of tactile, aural, and visual modalities. The interactional organization of soothing in an embracing formation involves: an initiation/invitation and response, submergence of two bodies into a close haptic contact, and coordinated withdrawal from haptic contact. The embracing formation temporarily suspends the requirements for the distressed person to act like a responsive listener and speaker. The caregiver uses the face-to-face formation to reestablish conditions for the childs interactional co-presence. Data are in Swedish and English translation.