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TY-BELLO OPENS UP ON SEXUAL ABUSE

The woman of many talent, popularly known as a renowned photographer and singer opens up on her childhood struggles. In an interview with Kemi Adetiba on the King Woman’, she shares her growing up years of living with her mother and the absence of her father who died of stroke while she was young. ‘I began to know who my father was through people who knew him”. She made further remarks on how strong her mum was, who worked very hard to ensure she got the best. She didn’t miss her father as her mother was more than enough for her. . Ty-Bello shares her story on been sexually abused as a young girl, life as a floater in Unilag and her dream of being creative even till her old age. Her story on sexual abuse teaches on the need to talk to someone about whatever it it that you cannot seem to handle on your own. Ty-Bello found her solace and healing in God. Where do you find yours?

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TEENAGE DATING.

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Dating customs have changed since you were a teenager. The most striking difference is the young age at which children now begin dating: on average, twelve and a half for girls, and thirteen and a half for boys. However, you might not recognize it as dating per se. The recent trend among early adolescents is for boys and girls to socialize as part of a group. They march off en mass to the mall or to the movies, or join a gang tossing a ball on the beach. Don’t confuse group dating with double-dating or triple-dating. While there may be the occasional romantic twosome among the members, the majority are unattached. If anything, youngsters in the group spend as much time interacting with their same-sex friends as they do with members of the opposite sex. Dr. Ron Eagar, a pediatrician at Denver Health Medical Center, views group dating as a healthy way for adolescents to ease into the dating pool rather than dive in. “The number-one benefit is safety,” says the father of two grown children. Going out in mixed groups also gives boys and girls an opportunity to just enjoy one another’s company, without the awkwardness and sexual tension that can intrude upon a one-to-one date. One-to-One Dating At what age are children old enough to date “solo”? Not before they’re thirty-five. Preferably forty. Many of us feel that way when we imagine our son or daughter disappearing into the night arm in arm with a young lady or a young man. As a general guideline, Dr. Eagar advises not allowing single dating before age sixteen. “There’s an enormous difference between a fourteen- or fifteen-year- old and a sixteen- or seventeen-year-old in terms of life experience,” he says. You might add or subtract a year depending on how mature and responsible your youngster is. Community standards might be a consideration. Are other parents letting their teens date yet? Love and Relationships While parent-teen conversations must encompass the hormones, hydraulics and other biological aspects of love and attraction, equal time should be devoted to thoughtful discussions about love as the most powerful and heartfelt of all human emotions. Love is a subject of unending fascination for adolescents. Topping their list of questions is, “How do you know when you’re in love with somebody?” They are also genuinely curious about their parents’ courtship and marriage (“Mom, did you fall in love with Dad at first sight?”) and, if applicable, divorce (“Dad, how can two people love each other for years and years, then stop being in love?”). Having an imperfect romantic résumé yourself does not disqualify you from initiating this conversation. You might say, “I haven’t always made the wisest decisions when it comes to love, but I’ve promised myself that the next time I become involved with someone special, I won’t settle for anything less than a healthy, honest relationship. When you’re older and ready to start dating, I hope that you will do the same. We both deserve the best, right?” Call It Puppy Love, It’s Still Love Adults generally take a cynical view of teenage romance, as if it were a chemical imbalance in need of correction. “It’s all about sex,” they say. “You know what they’re like when their hormones start raging.” A boy and a girl float down the street holding hands, dizzy in love, and all parents see is testosterone and estrogen out on a date. Just look at the words used to describe affection between two young people: “infatuation,” “crush,” “puppy love.” If it feels like love to the two puppies, isn’t it love? To reiterate a point made earlier, it wasn’t all that long ago that many couples got married in their teens. “Parents should never minimize or ridicule a first love,” says Tucson pediatrician Dr. George Comerci. “It is a very important relationship to teenagers, and it’s important for another reason, in that it is their first intimate relationship with someone outside their family.” When “going out” evolves into “going steady,” it is natural to worry that things are getting too serious too soon. If you see schoolwork start to suffer and friendships fall by the wayside, it is reasonable to restrict the number of times Romeo and Juliet can rendezvous during the school week. High-school romances tend to have limited life spans. Those that endure until graduation day rarely survive the post-high-school years. If one or both young people leave home, the physical distance has a way of opening an emotional distance between them, and eventually the relationship coasts to a halt. First Heartbreak: Helping Your Teenager Cope The breakup of a romance can be painful at any stage of life. Still, when an adult relationship ends badly, at least the wounded party knows from having weathered other disappointments that the all-too-familiar hollow feeling and veil of depression will inevitably lift. Teenagers haven’t yet learned how resilient the heart is. The first time they experience romantic rejection, the sadness can seem bottomless. Parents need to treat a brokenhearted youngster’s feelings seriously. “Breakups are one of the major precipitants of suicidal gestures in young people,” says Dr. Eagar. The vast majority of kids, though, will get over their hurt and be fine. Moms and dads can aid the healing process by being generous with their time, patience and hugs. A little extra sensitivity helps, too, for in this situation, knowing what not to say is as important as choosing the right words. Acknowledge your teen’s pain but assure her that she will be happy again. “I understand how upset you are, and I know you may feel like your sadness is never going to go away. But it will, and probably sooner than you think.” Do not use this opportunity to reveal how you never liked the newly insignificant significant other in the first place. Your son may be venting his rage at the girl who dumped him, but don’t be fooled. It will probably be some time before he abandons the hope that she’ll realize her mistake and come

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Serena Williams Baby Bump.

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Well… Serena Williams, the tennis pro who got engaged recently to her beau is heavy already. Eyes and ears at the 2017 Met Gala in New York on Monday evening say that her bump is very obvious which is quiet clear in her picture pose. Well Serena Williams looks happy and fabulous. We wish you the very best girl After all, he who laughs last,laughs long and better. Pictures after the cut…

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Mistakes are OK.

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Is there such a thing as a “perfect” parent? Many people believe in the myth of the perfect parents – the ideal mother and father who raise happy, well-adjusted problem-free children. In truth, there is no such person as a perfect parent – or a perfect child. Problem behavior is common among school-age children and takes up a significant portion of a parent’s time. At any one time, on average, school-age children have about five or six traits or behaviors that their parents find difficult. These might include not complying with simple requests, avoiding chores, spending too much time watching TV or playing videos, engaging in sibling rivalry or having difficulty completing homework. Other common problems for parents are dealing with a temperamentally difficult child, or coping with a child who either wants too much independence or hasn’t achieved enough autonomy. Parents also sometimes encounter the dilemma of a child who prefers friends or activities not approved of by his mother or father. Mistakes are OK! As a parent, you need to recognize that it is normal to feel worried, confused, angry, guilty, overwhelmed and inadequate because of your child’s behavior. That is part of being a parent. It is futile and self-defeating to try to be perfect or to raise perfect children. Think back to how you behaved, or misbehaved, as a child, about how your parents dealt with your behavior, and how you felt about their disciplinary techniques. They were not perfect, but neither was anyone else. Do not try to overcompensate for their shortcomings by trying to be perfect yourself, and by getting caught up in statements like “I’m not going to make the same mistakes my parents made.” All parents and all children make mistakes in their attempts to communicate and deal with one another and in trying to solve problems. Parents need to trust themselves and their instincts. Mothers and fathers tend to have good intuition and knowledge of their own children. They often know more than they think they do, and they should not be afraid of making mistakes. Children are resilient and forgiving and usually learn and grow through their mistakes. Parents tend to be just as resilient and forgiving. Flexible Parenting: However, parents who “live for their children” are putting themselves in a very vulnerable position, setting themselves up for possible disappointment, frustration and resentment. They are also being unfair to their family. Parents should not expect to receive all their personal fulfillment from their children or from the parenting role. Parents need other activities to fulfill their self-images, and other sources of love and nurturing. They need time to be adults and time for themselves – and a break from children and parenting responsibilities. As a parent, you need to develop your own philosophy – one with which you feel comfortable – within a flexible and adaptable framework. Take into account your own expectations, parenting style, and temperament, and how they fit with each of your children and your spouse, and their own unique preferences and temperaments. Your approach and philosophy will vary from youngster to youngster, mainly because of their own particular attributes. Along the way, remember that professional help is available if problems ever become too intense, exceed your own coping capabilities, or cause secondary difficulties such as a decline in school performance, increased family stress or serious emotional problems. You should take comfort in the fact that in the vast majority of cases, children do turn out well. But along the way, keep your sense of humor, trust your instincts and seek help and advice early rather than late. While parenting is a great challenge, it can also be one of the most rewarding and enjoyable experiences of your life. Culled from American Academy of Pediatrics.

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MARRIAGE FORMULA: UB4ME

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MARRIAGE WILL COST YOU. When you think of the cost of marriage, what comes to mind? According to recent statistics, the average couple today spends millions of naira on a wedding. That’s a lot of money, but it’s nothing compared to the REAL cost of marriage. Because like it or not, marriage will cost you MORE. It will cost you something great. It will cost you a price much larger than the money you spend on a ring or a wedding or a honeymoon…it will cost you yourself. I hear lots of people say, “I shouldn’t be with someone if I’m not happy…” and it made my stomach turn. What an accurate reflection of the self-centered society we live in, everyone believing that their main goal in life is THEIR OWN personal happiness. What a small and shallow way to live. If you’re getting married with that as your main goal, to make yourself happy, you will be disappointed in a severe way. This particular reason is why most marriages collapse easily and everyday. NOBODY WANTS TO WORK IT OUT. Marriage is not about your happiness, it’s not even about you. It’s about LOVE – which is something we choose to give time and time again. It’s about sacrifice, serving, giving, forgiving, and then doing it all over again. No wonder we choose divorce over commitment…because most of the time, we’re choosing “personal happiness” over real commitment…over real love. They say marriage teaches you more about selflessness than you ever wanted to know. I have definitely found that phrase to be true in my relationship with my husband. Because at the heart of it, real love is all about sacrifice. About the giving of yourself, in ways big and small. It’s about offering forgiveness when you’ve been hurt. It’s about giving your time though it’s not always convenient. It’s about sharing your heart when you’d rather hold back. It’s about cleaning the kitchen after a long weekend, even if it’s your least favorite job. It’s about choosing to respond with love when you’d rather respond in anger. It’s about offering a listening ear, when you’d rather tune out or go to bed. It’s about putting someone else’s needs and desires before your own. It’s about giving up that last bite of cake, just so your spouse can enjoy it. It’s about laying down your rights, to make way for the rights of another. The list could go on and on, but it always ends with the same formula: YOU before ME. And WE before I. We live in a world that DESPISES the sacrificial side of marriage…and tries to wish it away. They teach us to strive for power, control, and the upper hand in a relationship. They tell us to do what feels right, and not to tolerate anything less. They fool us to thinking that love is about doing what makes us happy. And the second we feel less than happy, they encourage us to bail…to abandon ship…and to stop investing. But they’ve got it all wrong. Because the more we give, the better we become. Real love is not self-seeking…and it will ALWAYS cost you. More, and more, and more. It will cost you your heart, your time, and your money. It will cost you your comfort, your rights, and your pride. It will cost you to “lay down your life” for the life of another. And only those who learn to die to themselves are the ones who get to experience the resurrection power that comes with it. Resurrection into real love, into real life, and into meaningful relationships. YES, I SAID IT. Marriage is probably one of the most expensive “commodity” in the world and it comes with a very HIGH risk. And the question you should ask yourself before embarking on this journey is ” Would i sacrifice my happiness for another”? Culled from True love Dates.

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ATTRIBUTES OF FRIENDSHIP

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I will like to talk about 5 attributes your friendship or relationships must have. We all know that when two people are not sincere with themselves, the quality of friendship decreases frantically. Here are my top 5: 1. Sincerity Vs Insincerity The moment you are lying often about minor daily activities, your friend may become uncomfortable with you. Lying has become very common with people and this can be a turn off if you are not watchful. 2. Pretense vs Realness For some people, living a fake lifestyle is a must. Why do you have to lie about staying on the Island when you stay at Mushin. As a young child, I had a neighbor who would always lie about where they had lived before moving into our neighborhood. She tried to create a fake representation of their worth but as we grew, the truth set in and I began to doubt most of her authenticity. You don’t want to be like that. 3. Sharing peoples secrets vs Respecting their secrets. Are you the kind of friend that gossips about the latest thing happening with your friend with other friends of yours? Such attitude can end your friendship on time. Work around sealing your lips and gaining the trust and confidence of your friend. 4. Pride vs Humility For some people, pride is their biggest issue. I used to have a friend in school who looked down on me because I didn’t dress as expensive as she does. The day she made a weird statement, her apology just couldn’t erase it because it came from her heart and she continued to act it in other ways. Pride can stop people from being close to you. 5. Selfishness vs Sharing Caring is giving. It doesn’t have to be cash resources but you should be willing to give your time, resources, advise, support, encouragement and any other valuable asset you possess. If you ignore your friend when they need you most, they may place you below the level you expect. Don’t forget that, for you to make friends, you need to speak the friendship language first. To connect emotionally with your friends, you should speak their love language, respect them and show responsibility. There are other wrong attributes you should avoid but I want you to tell me about it. What are the attitudes you can’t stand in a friend? Drop your comments below. Nike Adedokun

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THE URGENT NEED FOR PROFESSIONAL COUNSELING/THERAPY IN NIGERIA

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THE URGENT NEED FOR PROFESSIONAL COUNSELING/THERAPY IN NIGERIA I recently counseled a young couple, they were separated and decided to come for counseling after the guy attempted suicide. The wife left with their two kids and the man became lonely and miserable. It took the intervention of neighbors and friends to rescue him, this is not moonlight story but reality. I’m sure the typical African man reading this will say, “ Is he alright ‘women don finish for town’…” We live in a society where we have left the cultures and traditions that shaped us in the quest of trying to be western. I personally don’t think its a bad idea to move along with the current pace at which the rest of the world is moving, because we could be left behind if we don’t brace up ourselves. My issue is the fact that, we seem to be in a trance, we are neither here nor there, we seem to have outgrown African cultures but underdeveloped for the western ways, we want to behave like the West but put no measure in place for checks and balances. The men want to be the usual African husband that must be cooked and catered for and wants the wife to, at the same time, contribute to the upkeep of the house. He wants the wife to be a freak in the bedroom only to satisfy his needs, she doesn’t deserve to enjoy sex because sex is for making babies, he wants blow job, but said its un-African to get down on his woman. He wants to go clubbing and hang out with the boys hoping to meet a faithful and submissive wife at home, who is always at his beck and calls, how do you match all these together in a world that is already a global village, a world where every woman is more conscious of her needs and how to satisfy them. Our level of pretense and hypocrisy is appalling, everyone come to social media trying to put up the best appearances while living in bondage. We go to church and raise holy hands, and we are very quick at judging and condemning others, while committing worst atrocities in the closest. People will rather pretend to please spiritual leaders and die in silence, instead of coming out to be helped, of course, coming out could mean being termed a demon or could earn the sinner a suspension. We want things to be done the old school way, just like our great grand parents, but want to align with the internet age as well, who does that for crying out loud. Most of the problems weighing people down are relationship related, and whether you agree with me or not, things have changed from the way it used to be. It is high time we use the right approach, the time to cultivate the habit of talking to professional counselors is now! Can you imagine the state of mind of a society where children grow up without child counselors? In the olden days, the whole village usually teemed up to train a child, but the situation is different now, we lock up our kids in our apartment without making alternative provision for professional child counselors. The same scenario is playing out with the teenagers, how many teen counselors do you know in Nigeria? What about relationship matters? I run a pre-marriage counseling service in my company, Intimate Solution network, in that department, we hardly have up to 3 clients in 6 months, meanwhile people get married on a weekly basis spending millions of naira on paparazzi and show off, they will rather have ‘a talk of the town’ wedding than prepare for the marriage itself. ‘Maybe they don’t know about us’ you said….. Don’t forget Singles will google the latest Asoebi, hairstyles, shoes and all for a society wedding, but will never take a moment to google professional pre-marriage counseling in Nigeria. What about marriage? The worst hit institution. I was discussing with a medical doctor friend recently and he said something that i can’t help but agree with, he said about 75% of Nigerian men doesn’t know how to sexually satisfy their wives, but they thought they knew. A lot of house wives are becoming lesbians and sex toys are becoming more popular in Nigeria than some western countries, are you still saying we are very African? Your highly spiritual wife usually takes good care of herself with her dildo whenever you are not at home sir. Do you know cheating used to be a man thing, but the women are gradually catching up with men now. Is there any measure in place for a sexually frustrated man or woman? how many sex therapist do you know in Nigeria, the few of us that came out to professionally talk about these things are being termed sinners. What about grief and bereavement counselors, do you know any around you, who counseled the bereaved in our society? Is professional counsel readily available for those that are waiting for death? What of the elderly, we think they don’t have needs and don’t feel like sharing their thoughts? What about those that lost their loved ones, mothers that just put to bed nko? The list is endless…. That brings me to the aim of this article, depression. I read about the young medical doctor that committed suicide yesterday and was troubled in my mind. We can’t just go on like this, it is high time we cultivate the habit of talking to professional counselors and therapist around us. Like i said earlier, most of the issues people are battling with are relationship related, wicked bosses, unfriendly financial institutions, bad relationships, frustrating sex life, marriages from hell etc. Parental advice could be helpful but you will need more than that to achieve a peaceful closure in this present age. In fact, your pastor is not a financial consultant, he’s not a clinical marriage counselor

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LET HER BE THE WOMAN

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As unedifying as it sounds, i have to say this so we can understand the magnitude of the problem facing religious leader’s marriages… I have counseled G.O who is addicted to masturbation because mama didn’t show interest for 30 months, yes, you heard me, 30 months. I’ve been able to speak in churches where minister’s wife threatened to work out of her marriage as a result of poor sex life, and another cheating with her ex who knows how to make her orgasm. As much as sex between couples shouldn’t be orgasm based and no reason is good enough to justify cheating, a woman who keep craving for orgasm to no avail will become a nagging and unloving wife. Anointing doesn’t mean romance should be zero in your marriage, and being a minister doesn’t mean orgasm should become a thing of the past for your wife. Solve your boring sex life issue and you will be shocked that most of the issues you are battling with in your marriage will automatically disappear. Understanding your wife as a minister will help you solve a lot of problem in your marriage, most ministers are ignorant of the way women are wired and this has resulted into a lot of troubles that is currently drifting their marriage apart. understanding her will help you to celebrate and appreciate your differences instead of fighting over it, in fact understanding these basic facts about your woman means more sex in the long run. How do you explain a man who doesn’t understand what turns his wife on, where do you start teaching a man who believe orgasm is a sin for a woman, what about the one who concentrates only on the breast, mishandling it like balloon and expect the wife to get wet instantly, or the one who fingers roughly with dirty and peppery hand. Romance doesn’t come naturally to men but physical intimacy absolutely does. Men needs just a place to sleep with a woman but woman needs reasons, this is why there’s conflict of interest between couples when it comes to romance and love making. A lot of ministers are getting it wrong here, most of you lost the romantic aspect of your life the moment you became born again and its not suppose to be so. it is the duty of every man to meet the romantic needs of the wife, its your job to make her scream, make her beg for more, it wont affect your anointing as God no longer see you as two but one. Check out these basic sexual facts that men need to know about the women folks, it will guide you: She will not desire sex just like you: because men and women are wired differently, she will not desire sex like you. This should not cause any problem that could result into bigger problem, but rather you should try and understand how to put her in the mood. Testosterone, the hormone responsible for sex drive is about 20-40% higher in men, this explains why most time men naturally desires sex more than women, don’t blame it on the women blame it on the hormone. Women are moved by what they hear and men what they see. she can be wowed by a sexy guy with six pack, but that will not make her get wet on a normal day, this is not the case with men, exposure to bare flesh can cause a lot of troubles. So when next you are in your short and she’s not drooling, don’t be surprised. Women needs reasons to have sex, men need just a place. She’s not like you , and you have been wondering why she can just open her arms widely whenever you beckon in the night even when you have not spoken to her all evening. It doesn’t work that way, you need to appeal to her emotions before she can do it, she want to feel connected to you emotionally, sex to women is a serious business and not just a physical exercise. The slower the better for a woman, except in rare cases when she wants it fast, even in such cases, you have to start gently to get her in the mood in most cases. (TAKEN FROM DR. TOLU’S BOOK: ROMANCE & ANOINTING. TO GET A COPY, TEXT YOUR NAME, LOCATION AND THE TITTLE TO +2348184575377)

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THE PICTURE IN MY HEAD

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Ofure and I have been married for three years; it was and still is a marriage of willing bed fellows. I had known Ofure all my life but I really met her four years ago, crazy right? Well we grew up together, played together and even went to the same schools- primary, secondary and tertiary, but then she was just another annoying ugly girl. While we were very little, I remember I used to tease her about how big her head was, and how you could fit in a baby’s head into her mouth. She would cry so hard and I’d just stand there laughing equally as hard, she was my comic relief. Then we got into secondary school and I discovered she was a bookworm, sometimes an insufferable know-it-all but still very brilliant. She was still ugly, and I still teased her but she was mature now and instead of crying she’d just ignore me and after a while the joke got stale. When we got into the university we became strangers, we weren’t friends anymore nor were we enemies, we just acted like we never knew each other. I personally didn’t care as I thought she was too nerdy, and being a member of the coolest group on campus I couldn’t be seen with someone like her, she didn’t care either, in her opinion I was quite egoistic and my nonchalancy towards education repulsed her, so we disconnected on mutual grounds. I didn’t tease her about being ugly anymore though she still was, and there was no need for her to ignore me. My name is Oghenero but I shortened it to Nero, I’m not promiscuous. I had my preference for girls; I had a picture in my head. She had to be at least 5’8 feet tall, and had an ebony skin complexion like Genevieve Nnaji. I disliked fair girls, so I never thought of Ofure romantically. The girl in my head was charismatic; she had a subtle naiveté, elegance and a grace. Her beauty had to be unequalled, like the fairest of them all. She had to be Barbie-like, my Barbie. Ruth was a good match but she was overbearing, pleasing her was an arduous task. I met her during my NYSC programme, in Anambra state. Four months into our relationship and not a day goes by without me doing something for her, she tortured me with sex if I didn’t carry out whatever task she assigned, the day she broke up with me was the happiest day of my life. Then I met Amaka two months to the end of my NYSC programme, her beauty was enthralling and enchanting but she had a bad attitude, she threatened with a break-up whenever I did a thing consciously or unconsciously wrong. The relationship was on her terms and conditions and these terms and conditions weren’t really favorable so I broke up with her. I decided to focus on my career, I got a job with Access bank and I was doing quite well for myself, a relationship would be detrimental at this point but I fantasized with the picture in my head, I even named her Jane. She was a lively and homely girl; she would wake me up with kisses and breakfast and welcome me home with hugs and love. It was a perfect world in my head, my very own utopia. Other girls I met had a standard to surpass, and all of them fell below average, I concluded that all the girls I met didn’t have all the qualities the picture in my head had, so I ended whatever relationship with them as soon as they started. It went on for years and my imaginations were getting vivid, I had married Jane and she bore kids for me, we named them Micah, Chloe, and Ezra, it was perfect world in my head but in reality I was a 35 years old man with no girlfriend and a nagging mother who needs a daughter-in-law. I had to break Jane’s heart and leave my children fatherless. It was on the 1st of February, 2011, a Tuesday at around 5:30pm, I had rounded up for the day and was heading home, walking past the ATM point I saw a familiar face, not as I knew it though but I could never forget that head that I teased for a better part of my childhood, it was Ofure….. I sucked it up and I walked, each step I took took me farther away from what I should do and what I shouldn’t, I might regret it, I might not, it didn’t matter . I stopped behind her and tapped her shoulders, I must have waited for an eternity before she finally looked back but when she did, it was worth it. She was looking pretty, her face was angelic and her eyes where deep brown, and then she smiled, it was heaven, and though I surprised myself by asking for her number, she willingly gave it along with a date for me to pick her up for dinner. It was a lovely evening with her, her gown was eclectic and her smile infectious, she smiled often and was a little shy, her shyness was cute. We talked about everything, starting from our childhood days, then our teenage years and our university days; it surprised me how much I didn’t know about her. Looking at her speak made me realise I didn’t really know her, I didn’t notice she had such cute dimples or how her skin shone bathed in the incandescent light, I didn’t know I didn’t really know her. The evening painfully came to an end and she promised me lunch, we agreed to rendezvous at TFC the next day and I looked forward to it. I walked her to her car (Yes, she had a car now and was doing well for herself too). I proposed to drive her but she politely declined with a

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THE POWER OF TOUCH

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THE POWER OF TOUCH Do you know the largest organ in the human body? Hazard a guess. What is the largest human organ? I could almost bet the majority of you will be wrong. The largest human organ is the skin. In a grown man, it covers about 19 square feet and weighs over 3.5kg. A piece of skin the size of a small coin contains more than 3 million cells, 100 to 340 sweat glands, 50 nerve endings and 3 feet of blood vessels. The skin is a work of genius that sub serves many physiological functions ranging from acting as a protective barrier to external agents, to thermoregulation, and even excretion of waste products. Today I want us to examine one of the abilities our skins confer on us especially in our relation with others. Through series of studies we’ll be looking at the power of touch. A study was done in the 1960s and I find the results fascinating. It showed a stark contrast between cultures by noting the number of touches exchanged by pairs of people sitting in coffee shops around the world: In San Juan, Puerto Rico, people touched a whooping 180 times an hour (i.e. 3 times a minute= every 20 seconds); in Paris, France, 110 times an hour; in Gainesville, Florida, 2 times per hour; and in London, England, they never touched! I am not aware of any such study done in our country, but I think culturally as a nation, we are “touch shy” people. Our culture looks with puckered brow at open expression of affection. I once asked a large group of young people I was leading then how many of them had ever heard their fathers tell their mothers spontaneously “I love you”. Only a tiny fraction had ever done so. For example, from the moment of birth our physical sense is stimulated. Pushed out, picked up, and slapped on the bottom, we are placed at our mother’s breast, and a bonding process begins. This bonding process is further reinforced by the design of the infant care-giving process. It is by no means an accident that there is a lot of skin contact for the act of breast feeding. We are designed so that the infant care-giving process involves an enormous amount of contact. Touch is essential for optimal brain and psychological development. This has been demonstrated in both humans and animals. I saw a documentary last year about the greatest carnivore of the open sea: The Great White Sharks. These creatures grow to be as long as 20 – 25 feet long and over 2,000kg in weight and can swallow things half their size! Their jaws (sic!) are massive. Yet I saw them mesmerized with touch! They went perfectly still as if in a trance. Just with a touch! In a study with premature infants, half of the tiny babies, selected at random, were gently stroked for 45 minutes a day. The other half was not. Although all were fed the same amount of calories, after ten days, the touched babies weighed-in 47% heavier than the untouched group. Not only were those babies bigger, they were happier as well. The stroked kids were more active, more alert and more responsive to social stimulation. Studies like this and others are challenging the practice of isolating premature babies in incubators and our cultural rule of no touching. It’s also the same in relationships, there are times when you need to connect on a different level, it’s not every time you will want to talk or go out to have fun. Sometimes, a long hug, a pat on the hair, a stroke of the face is all the connection you need. We need to be touched. Now I am not asking you to go haywire and start grabbing anyone in sight. You might just receive a hot slap soon if you go about doing that. You have to respect people’s personal space. As mentioned earlier Nigerians aren’t a big fan of touching, but it goes a long way when you connect with your partner through the simple act of touching. Some of us adjust well to open affections, some of us do not. However a balance can be reached. With all the above analysis, the art of touching is enough to keep the flame alive in your relationships. Pass a little sunshine to someone today. Give a warm handshake to a stranger. Not a limp wave. Pat the back of a friend. Rub the head of your child. Lift him/her up. Give your spouse a warm, long unexpected hug. Pull the cheeks of a naughty friend. Cultivate the habit of meaningful impactful touch. Those touches of yours will add value to their lives. Dr Gbenga Adebayo

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