What do American parents usually do when their child injuries himself?

When a child injuries himself the American parent’s usual response is to kiss the child’s injury. This parental habit is also observed in many other cultures. This practice may be a survivor of the primitive custom of "sucking out evil". At primitive times, a healer traditionally withdrew, by using his mouth, infection from the afflicted part of a patient’s body. In fact, except in those cases where the patient is bitten by a fatal snake and the actual poison will be sucked out, there is no obvious curative effect to be derived from the sucking. Then the common parental habit of kissing a child’s injury to make it go away seems to be purely psychological. The psychological effect is also not negligible. When a patient believes in a cure, there is a much greater chance that it will work, even when the cure is medically groundless. Thus kissing a child’s injury to make it better can always ease the child’s pain and give him the mental confidence that will hasten the body’s own healing process.