Humans crave touch from the moment we are born.

Studies have shown that touch is important to infants' development, and as we grow up, that impulse to connect never goes away. We instinctively know how to grab on to and hold another person for comfort or to express affection.

But while most hugs are nice, some are better for us than others.

The majority of hugs last about three seconds, numerous studies have found. And more than a decade ago, researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill reported the benefits of the prolonged hug: one that lasts 20 seconds. This type of contact boosts levels of oxytocin -- also known as the "love drug" or "bonding hormone" -- as well as serotonin, the biochemical that helps stabilize mood.

Oxytocin is released at that point where trust meets touch. There's a surge in our bodies when a mother breastfeeds her baby, or during an orgasm, or even during an extended, 20-second hug.

It is a powerful hormone that bonds us to the people who provoke that oxytocin release.

Nick Ortner recently published a children's book called "The Big Book of Hugs: A Barkley the Bear Story," which teaches children and parents about the power of hugs.

"We've become very head-centric," Ortner said. "We try to think our way out of everything, to mentally process it, and we've ignored that we have a body."

Ortner listed the overwhelming benefits of frequently hugging your kids: Long hugs help children feel loved and safe. They build trust and closeness between the parent and child. They improve pulmonary and immune system functions and sleep patterns. They strengthen digestive, circulatory and gastrointestinal systems. Hugs lower anxiety and stress, and lessen feelings of loneliness, isolation and anger.

They teach us how to give and receive.

Since his daughter June was born more than eight months ago, Ortner's been practicing what he preaches.

"We hug the baby all the time," he said.

He acknowledges that this dynamic will change as his child grows up, and that the concept of personal space differs from culture to culture. Americans tend to prefer a large zone of space around them.

Even so, knowing the benefits, I decided to implement this "prolonged hug" agenda at home. First, I approached my youngest, who is 10 -- an age when hugs are still willingly given and accepted. I told him I needed to hug him for 20 seconds, wrapped my arms around him and started the stopwatch on my phone.

After a few seconds, he said, "Why is this so long?"

I assured him it would be over soon, and afterwards, I asked how he felt.

"Well, relaxed, sorta."

Anything else?

"Smiley. That's pretty much all."

Those reactions seemed pretty consistent with the research.

I moved on to the teenager. I am not allowed so much as a smile in her direction in public, so this hug had to occur far away from any potential embarrassment. Still, she agreed to accept my longer-than-usual hug.

"How do you feel now?" I asked.

"Protected, I guess," she said. (That made me want to hug her far more often.)

My last hug recipient required some upfront clarification.

"I need to hug you for 20 seconds," I said to my spouse. "But don't get the wrong idea. It's for a column."

He was still amenable to the idea. We were watching television on the couch, so I had to lean into this hug. After my timer hit 20 seconds, I asked for feedback.

"It was relaxing at first," he said. "But then you were crushing me, and I couldn't really breathe, but I thought I shouldn't tell you at the time."

But hugs are always relaxing, he quickly added.

A close call.

It called for a closer embrace.

In retrospect, the findings didn't surprise her at all.

After all, professor Suniya Luthar remembers when her children were middle-schoolers.

"Just horrible, those years," said Luthar, professor of psychology at Arizona State University. "And I say this as a mother and a scientist."

She's referring to the results of her recently co-authored study, which found that mothers of middle-schoolers reported the highest levels of stress and loneliness and lowest levels of life satisfaction and fulfillment. Other research has also shown marital satisfaction to be lower, and strife higher, when children are in their teenage years.

"Middle school is just chaos," Luthar said -- both for the children in that period of rapid growth, and for their parents. There's no other time that brings such dramatic changes in a child's cognitive, physical and social development all at once, affecting school, friends and family life.

Luthar and postdoctoral scholar Lucia Ciocolla studied more than 2,200 mothers, most of them well-educated, with children ranging from infants to adults. They looked at several aspects of the mothers' personal well-being, parenting and perceptions of their children. Moms of middle school children, between 12 and 14 years old, were far more stressed and depressed than those rearing toddlers.

Many adults can remember the ways middle school was challenging for them.

Bodies are changing. Emotions are turbulent. You encounter rejection and being left out. Old friends might leave you. You feel awkward, and people around you are also awkward, or acting more confident than they feel. Everyone is trying to fit in. Insecurity is high. Peers compete on so many levels, academic and social.

It can be difficult for parents to accept that these same struggles may be hard for their child.

It's not a time for parents to disengage, even when children start to push away and pull back. But parenting at this age requires a new diplomacy. Caring for infants and toddlers is physically exhausting, but the complexities of child-rearing during adolescence can be emotionally and mentally exhausting. Parents are trying to figure out new ways to relate to, guide and discipline a child, and the stakes feel much greater than they did in elementary school.

So, what's the best way for parents to cope during their kids' turbulent years? Luthar says mothers, in particular, need to seek out other women who will nurture them: Mothers need to be given what they routinely give out, she said. Lean on your relationships with other women you respect and trust, and who care about you and your children.

"Go to other moms who share your values, who are kind people," she said. "Be able to share your hurts and vulnerabilities."

These relationships need to go beyond the occasional girls' night out.

During the middle school years, more than ever, moms need "tenderness and gentleness and support."

She remembers her own wise council of women, an ad hoc advisory committee she could turn to when she felt heartbroken, angry or bewildered. These were women who could tell her how they navigated similar challenges, or say, "Yeah, me too."

Don't wait until your child is in sixth grade to nurture these relationships, she said. "You need to have systems in place."

Michelle Icard, author of "Middle School Makeover: Improving the Way You and Your Child Experience the Middle School Years," writes that it's important to keep in mind that children need to form their own identities so they can have healthy relationships throughout their lives. It's also vital for parents to nurture their own interests, hobbies and passions outside of child-rearing during this time.

For me, just reading this study -- the validation that yes, this is an especially trying period -- was reassuring.

While we may know intellectually that our social supports and personal pursuits are important, we may not realize how much we need to prioritize them given the demands of other people in our lives.

It's how we build our shelter to weather a storm.

More than 100 teens in Canon City, Colorado, were saved from a sexting scarlet letter last month.

Prosecutors decided not to press child pornography or other charges, which would have forced the middle and high school students to register as sex offenders for swapping and collecting hundreds of nude pictures. Some teens had evaded parental oversight by using the private Photo Vault app, which allows naked pictures to be hidden on smartphones.

The early data on the rate of adolescents exchanging sexually explicit pictures or messages, known as sexting, has been all over the map, ranging from the low single digits to upwards of a third of teens. According to recent research by Jeff Temple, associate professor and psychologist at University of Texas Medical Branch, anywhere from 20 to 30 percent of teens will send or receive an explicit text. By college, that number is around 50 percent. And 70 percent of teen girls have been asked to send a naked picture of themselves, he said.

Teens engaged in sexting minimize or dismiss the legal and emotional risks involved. But in 30 states, sexting could carry felony charges under child pornography laws and put participants on a sex offender registry. There are 20 states with laws that specifically address sexting; of those, 11 treat it as a misdemeanor, allowing informal sanctions such as counseling, according to the Cyberbullying Research Center.

When Temple has the opportunity to discuss these risks with students, he begins by asking them if they wear a seat belt in the car. Every hand in the crowd goes up. Then he asks, "Why?"

The students say they want to be protected in case there is an accident.

"But the chances are slim," he says.

"But just in case," a student typically responds.

Ah, just in case. This is where he wants them.

He tells them to think about how slim the chances of getting caught sexting seem.

It's unlikely. But what if?

Then, the consequences can be enormous -- life-altering. It's a crash in which reputations and futures get burned.

Yet anytime there is a big bust of a school sexting ring, which happens regularly in big cities and small towns all across the country, parents express shock.

Temple says parents do their children a real disservice if they don't pay attention to their online lives. They have to know how popular apps like Instagram, Snapchat and Tumblr work so they can help their children become responsible digital citizens.

Sexting creates a perfect storm of parental avoidance: unfamiliar technology combined with the uncomfortable topic of their child's emerging sexuality. But staying in a state of denial does nothing to protect your kids.

Temple says his research finds that sexting typically precedes real-life sex. And teen girls who sexted were more like to be associated with other risky behavior, he said.

"Risky behaviors tend to cluster together," he said, not that one necessarily causes another.

His advice to parents who catch their teens with compromising or inappropriate texts on their phones is not to panic or freak out. It's a chance to talk about consequences and boundaries. It signals a need for closer monitoring, but it is also an opportunity to talk about healthy relationships, digital citizenship and safe sex, he said.

"What does it mean to be online, and how does it reflect their offline behavior?" he asked.

Until our laws catch up to the ways in which technology has impacted teen interactions, parents have to continue to use stories like Canon City's to talk to their children about sexting.

Otherwise, kids risk being branded for life by a teenage mistake.