John Garvilla recognized his daughter's natural athletic talent when she was 5 years old.

Garvilla, who lives in the St. Louis area, is a former college soccer coach and athletic director, so he spotted her abilities early. She was fast, coordinated and loved playing ball.

Samantha Garvilla, now 18, started playing soccer and basketball competitively when she was 8 or 9. She excelled at both, and her father could see her playing as a high-level athlete in the future.

She was 11 when she tore her right ACL. Her father told her she had to choose between basketball and soccer; there was no way she could play both, having suffered this injury. He even tried to push her toward golf.

"I have an artificial knee," he said. "I didn't want my daughter to walk like me."

Samantha chose soccer, and played year-round. She trained hard and stood out on the field.

She was 12 when she tore her ACL again.

After the rehab, she was undeterred. She refused to quit the sport she loved.

During her freshman year of high school, she was recruited by Darlington School in Rome, Georgia, to attend the boarding school on a soccer scholarship. She was training four to six hours a day at school, and she loved it.

"It was the best thing that ever happened to me," she said.

The team was getting ready for regionals the beginning of her sophomore year. She was playing in a scrimmage when she went in hard for a tackle.

"Right away, I knew what it was," she said. "By the third one, you know."

It was the ACL in her left knee this time. The surgeon told her that there was no way she could go back onto the field.

"Your knees are not going to hold up," he told her. "You're not going to last." It wasn't just the three torn ACLs: She has also suffered 12 meniscus tears and undergone 10 surgeries.

She came back to St. Louis to finish her sophomore year. She was devastated to leave Darlington, but still refused to leave the game entirely.

The beginning of her junior year, she decided she wanted to play goalie, a position less prone to the injuries she's had. In a young athlete's career, this was a late time to switch positions, but she told her parents she was committed to playing.

"There are certain things you can't teach," her father said. "Speed, height, athleticism. She has a teachable spirit. She loves the game."

He made sure she had access to the best trainers in the country. She didn't have the experience playing goalkeeper in as many games as her peers, but she was fearless. Her family started getting contacts from Division 2 colleges. They sent her highlight reel to more places, and then the offers from Division 1 schools started coming in.

"What a lot of people saw was raw talent," John said.

They took their daughter to visit some of the colleges around the country that were recruiting her. They were still considering the offers when Samantha asked her father to take her to the doctor.

She had bruised her back in practice, and her entire abdomen was hurting. The doctor asked if she had been feeling bloated, and she said she had.

She wasn't injured, the doctor explained after she ran a test.

Samantha was pregnant.

She called her mother, Kim, hysterical. Kim picked her up, and they walked out the back door while the doctor broke the news to John.

When she saw her father, she broke down and said, "Daddy, people are going to point at me and say, 'That's the girl who ruined her life.'"

John told her that people may point, but that God had a plan for her.

"You're going to get through this," he said. "We're going to count this baby as a blessing."

Kim said she went through all the stages of grief about the loss of what her daughter's future could have been. She suggested considering adoption, but Samantha said she wanted to keep the baby.

Her parents are still raising a 15-year-old and two 13-year-old sons, so they told her this child would be her responsibility, although they would support her and help her as much as they could.

Samantha cried a lot. She told her boyfriend, who was shocked but supportive. She couldn't accept the idea of giving up her baby.

"I had the ability to raise him. I have the support of my family. There was no reason (to give him up), except it would have been easier for me," she said.

She delivered her son, Braxton, on Feb. 11.

Shortly after the delivery, Samantha told her mother that it was good that the baby came a few days early: This way, she'd have six weeks off and be back in time for practices by spring break. She would be ready to play when the season starts in her senior year.

After graduating, she will play soccer on a scholarship at St. Charles Community College. She plans to use her financial aid to pay for daycare.

"The dream has never wavered," Kim said.

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.