When was the last time you had a pillow fight, slid down the stairs on a mattress, wrestled your child to the floor or let them pin you down and return you to a cardboard box prison? The answer is probably “too long ago”. Horseplay with kids has been sidelined, victim to safety concerns, time pressures and worries about encouraging aggression.
But Lawrence Cohen and Anthony DeBenedet, authors of The Art of Roughhousing, have news for you. Roughhousing is good for your kids and for your relationship with them. It can actually reduce aggression, make kids likeable, fitter and even improve their marks at school. And that goes for girls as well as boys.
Where has all the horseplay gone?
• The authors lament the demise of physical play. “When children aren’t staring at computers or TVs, they’re being over-scheduled, over-protected and under-adventured.” Playtime is being exchanged for adult-organised activities.
But rough-and-tumble is a normal part of growing up and actually improves peer relationships in the classroom. Banning it tells children that their natural exuberance and desire for physical play is wrong. That’s likely to send it underground,. It leaves children frustrated, with no outlet for their need to move and interact physically.
Stuart Brown, a leading advocate for free play, is on the same page as Cohen and DeBenedet. In an interview with Amazon for his book Play: How it Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination and Invigorates the Soul, he says: “Beginning in preschool, the natural mayhem that three- to five-year-olds engage in (normal rough-and-tumble play) is usually suppressed by a well-meaning preschool teacher and parents who prefer quiet and order to the seeming chaos that is typical of free childhood play.”
Telling the difference
• Obviously, games can sometimes get out of hand, so parents and teachers need to know when to draw the line. There aren’t exactly any rules, but DeBenedet says that child-ren use “play faces”, smiles and laughter to signal that they are playing rather than fighting. They’ll run, jump, chase one another, wrestle, fall over and use open hands to hit (rather than a closed fist), but the “roles of the aggressor and the victim are fluid” and they’ll take turns being the chaser. If those things aren’t happening or real harm is occurring, then it’s time to intervene or redirect. Otherwise, adults should step back (or join right in).
Brown also wants teachers and parents to recognise that “diving, screaming, chasing, even some punching” are “normal play”. He adds: “When there are smiles and continuing friendships, rambunctious play is healthy.”
Why is it good for kids?
• DeBenedet says that rough play “activates many different parts of the body and brain, from the amygdalae which processes emotions, and the cerebellum, which handles complex motor skills, to the prefrontal cortex, which makes high level judgements”. He says that it also releases a chemical called BDNF, which has been described as “fertiliser for the brain”.
It “stimulate neuron growth within the cortex and hippocampus, both of which are vital to higher learning, memory and advanced behaviour such as language and logic”.
Play fighting also allows children to make mistakes and have them corrected within the game. Just as a mother dog will reprimand her puppy if it nips too hard in play, parents can gently warn kids to wind it in, then just carry straight on.
Playing in this way builds child-ren’s emotional intelligence. “You and your child practise revving up and calming down, which helps your child learn to manage strong emotions,” says DeBenedet. He wants this kind of play to send a message to children that “your power is welcome here, this is a place for you to be strong and confident.”
It’s also physically good for them, promoting “complex motor learning, concentration, coordination, body control, cardiovascular fitness and flexibility”.
Brown goes further, advocating that all learning should involve play. “Play should also be used with teachers in their classrooms, and by parents when they help their children with homework. Learning should not be drudgery.”
You and me, baby, ain’t nothin’ but mammals
• In the animal world, when Rhesus monkeys don’t wrestle with peers when they are young, “they’re unable to mate when they mature”. DeBenedet and Cohen suggest that roughhousing helps both monkeys and children improve their social success. It also makes them more adept at making friends.
Unpopular kids tend to have more trouble telling the difference between play and aggression in others, perhaps because they have missed these learning experiences.
DeBenedet says: “One of the secrets of leadership and negotiation is the concept of win-win. Everyone needs to walk away happy. Roughhousing is great for developing an understanding of this concept. If you rely on brute strength, you might end up with terrified followers, but you won’t have any friends.”
Why parents need to join in
• The authors say: “When we roughhouse with our kids, we model for them how someone bigger and stronger holds back. We teach them self-control, fairness and empathy. We let them win, which gives them confidence and shows them that winning isn’t everything. These form the points of a healthy moral compass.”
DeBenedet wants us to let our child be the strong one; the monster, the troll, the big dog … while we play the weakling. He says: “When in doubt, fall over.” That allows kids to release any tension in waves of laughter. The resulting fun will help to forge a deep bond with your child.
It’s not just for boys … or dads
• “Boys as a group tend to tease, shove and hit more than girls, even when they are having fun and being friendly,” says DeBenedet. This is because direct ways to show affection are forbidden as being unmanly. So boys need their parents to hug as well as wrestle.
Girls, meanwhile, can tend towards relational aggression, which DeBenedet describes as “cruelty through gossip, dirty looks or the cold shoulder”.
Horsing around can break this mean girl cycle. “After physical play, your daughter will be more likely to speak up for herself and stand up for her friends,” says DeBenedet. “And horseplay gives girls a chance to test out their strength and step out into the world with confidence.”
Most importantly, the authors say that lots of men back off from physical contact as their daughters approach puberty. But they exhort men not to give up roughhousing or hugs, “because girls need their dads to teach them that there is great value in non-sexual physical contact”.
Mums should get in on the action too to underline that physical play isn’t just for the men of the house. It’s a chance to say yes through physical contact, rather than a stream of noes.
In fact, play is good for adults too. Brown says: “We are fundamentally equipped for, and need to, play actively throughout our lifespan by nature’s design. Our capacity for flexibility, novelty and exploration persists. If we suppress this natural design, the consequences are dire. The play-less adult becomes inflex-ible, humourless, loses the capacity for optimism and generally is quicker to react to stress with violence or depression than the adult whose play life persists.”
How to get going
• So, if your playtime has fallen by the wayside, the authors suggest that you let your child pick the right moment and try to tune in to whether they are ready. For safety, you need to teach them not to jump onto your belly or kick you in sensitive areas.
To avoid accidental concussion in your kids, be aware of bumps to the head and monitor children afterwards. Don’t overdo the annoying tickling (the kind that stops being fun). And follow the giggles; if they laugh, do it again.
Get to it
The book is packed with over 70 brilliant ideas to get play rolling through games, moves and activities. Here are just a few tasters of what they have to offer.
Airplane
Lie on your back with your legs bent at the hips and knees at 90-degree angles. Place your kid, belly down, across your shins. Now move your legs (and your child) forward and back and side to side so that she experiences just enough weightlessness and unpredictability for it to be thrilling without losing her lunch.
Roly Poly Derby
Curl into a ball on the ground, wrapping your arms around your legs. Tell your child to do the same. Now roll towards a predetermined finish line, accidentally smashing into each other on the way.
Olympus Mons
The largest known volcano in our solar system is Olympus Mons on Mars. Sit with your child on a bed or couch. Pretend you’re both on top of Mons and that the floor below is lava. Alternate between trying to push each other into the lava and engaging dramatic rescues.
Alcatraz
Let your kids put you in a make-believe version of The Rock – a prison built of couch pillows – and then make a daring escape, allowing them to round you up again and put you back in the slammer. Start by giving in easily and then make it increasingly harder for them to catch you and drag you back behind bars. Use your imagination to spice up the game. (Weren’t there sharks in that water?)