ABSTRACT
The article investigates how nurturing touch practices, such as gentle brush massage, finger massage and body massage, are applied in 10 Danish toddlers’ early childhood education and care (ECEC) settings. Thirteen practitioners contributed to the study with written narratives on their experiences with nurturing touch practices and how they influenced their relationship with the children and the conditions for toddlers’ emotional well-being and learning at the nursery or family day care. This qualitative case study is built on a relational ontology and draws on Hundeide’s ([2007]. When empathic care is obstructed – excluding the child from the zone of intimacy. In S. Bråten (Ed.), On being moved from mirror neurons to empathy. Amsterdam: John Benjamins) concept of a zone of intimacy. The practitioners describe how nurturing touch practices can enhance their sensitivity and the intersubjective space between them and the children. The practitioners also describe how toddlers seem to become more attentive to their bodies, more relaxed and flexible. The study invites policy-makers and practitioners to broaden their focus on children’s learning and to consider how the mutual relatedness between practitioner and child influence children’s bodily, non-verbal and emotional experiences and participation.
