Abstract
Affectionate expression appears naturally in young children, both verbally through words like "beautiful," "handsome," "I like you," "darling," or "I love you" and physically, through hugging, stroking, and salim, the customary hand-kissing gesture of respect. Within Islamic thought, this inclination is seen as a manifestation of fitrah, the inborn human capacity to love and be loved. This research focuses on a 4-year-old boy who showed strong affective language abilities alongside a notable pattern of emotional regulation, settling quickly from distress through simple physical closeness, a pattern also presents in his mother's caregiving style. The study set out to explore how emotional support and affective language develop in early childhood, interpreting the pattern through both developmental psychology and the Islamic principle of fitrah, using the DEKAP framework (Detection of emotion, verbal Empathy, affective Contact, positive Affirmation, and Pattern reinforcement) as a guiding lens. A descriptive qualitative case study design was used, drawing on semi-structured interviews with the mother and direct behavioral observation, with findings processed through data reduction, display, and conclusion drawing. Results indicate that maternal emotional support rooted in physical affection (the DEKAP approach) plays a central role in shaping the child's affective language, which emerged both spontaneously and in response to caregiving, largely through modeling and the stability created by co-regulation. Interestingly, the mother's caregiving stemmed from her own psychological intuition and lived experience rather than explicit religious motivation, yet it aligned closely with the fitrah-based values found in the Qur'an (Surah Ar-Rum: 21) and authentic hadith on embracing and kissing children. The study offers a theoretical contribution by connecting emotional caregiving and affective language to the concept of fitrah, and a practical one by presenting DEKAP as an initial reference model for parents and educators.