What are the motifs in Great Short Works by Fyodor Dostoevsky?

Human development is a recurring idea. The stories include characters in various stages of life development. There are some that are children. In one story, a boy is a minor character and is regularly met with the vigorous affection of grown men. In these cases, the older men have no abusive intentions but they are very hands-on. Dostoevsky writes that it is okay for grown men to grab a ten year old boy with whom they are acquainted, to pick him up, to hug him warmly and to kiss him repeatedly. All this is simply to be viewed as a perfectly normal level of safe human affection.