When you master the art of roughhousing, you send a strong message to your children: Your power is welcome here, this is a place for you to be strong and confident, I will keep you safe, and we will be closer and more connected than ever.^[1]

Rough (but safe), boisterous physical play is a kind of Playlistening.  It is incredibly helpful to young people (and it’s good for us grown-ups too). DeBenedet and Cohen, who have written a lovely book which details the theory and practice of this kind of play, make a bold claim:

“Play – especially active physical play, like roughhousing – makes kids smart, emotionally intelligent, lovable and likable, ethical, physically fit, and joyful.”^[2]

What parent wouldn’t want that?

What is Roughhousing?

The goal is to allow your child to safely and successfully test her limits, so building her confidence. You may need to let her beat you with her superior strength or with her superior cunning. Either way, she wins and you are, one way or the other, cheerfully defeated.

“Let your child be the strong one – the monster, the scary dog, the doctor giving the shot etc – while you exaggerate being fearful or clumsy or incompetent. This switch gives kids a chance to feel powerful and release their tensions through waves of laughter. When in doubt, fall over. Falling over is always good for a laugh and helps our child feel more confident, because it means they are not always the one who is smaller, weaker and more helpless.”^[3]

How can it work?

A mother attended a class I was teaching, and had been doing some roughhousing with her child and a friend.  She told this story:

My husband and I have recently started doing wrestling with my daughter. We have “rounds” of 2 minutes each, with a bit of excited introductions about the scenario, the fancy names of the wrestlers etc. My daughter usually sets the rules – mostly with the idea that she always wins (example – “whoever is the highest at the end of the round is the winner, but mum, you’re not allowed to stand up or sit up” or “once I have your hand (foot, leg) off me, you can’t move it back”).

It reliably gets her laughing if we make lots of exaggerated noises and make up silly names for the various wrestling manoeuvres, and generally follow the Playlistening guideline about being less competent and never quite successfully catching her.

Doing it shortly before bedtime doesn’t seem to generate feelings or expectations which get in the way of going to sleep (in fact perhaps the opposite) – she is happier to part with us and fall off to sleep having had a chance to really connect this way in play.

Recently, my friend was over for dinner with her boy, and towards the end of the evening I suggested we do some “wrestlemania”. The children decided together what the rules would be, and agreed to some that we suggested (i.e. no tickling, and no spitting – which is something I have trouble handling). My friend’s boy is pretty shy and quiet, but he got into the play – diving on the bed, and blowing raspberries on his mum’s tummy. After about 15 minutes it was time to go home.

Later, my friend nearly cried with joy when she told me about how different things had been since “wrestlemania” at our place. She said her boy had been much more outgoing and talkative –“a different boy”.

I was so touched to hear about what a difference just 10 minutes of vigorous playing can make!

Keeping it safe

We parents care a lot about our children, and are pretty focussed on making sure they are safe!  Roughhousing might challenge you to relax a little on this front: it turns out that our children need to play “on the edge” of danger.  I don’t think I can say it better than DeBenedet and Cohen:

Roughhousing is great fun. It’s also a little dangerous. In fact, roughhousing is great fun because it’s a little dangerous…you should expect that someone will eventually get hurt Here’s the thing: We believe that occasional bruises and scrapes are a normal part of childhood. It’s how we learned to pick ourselves up, dust selves off, and stay in the game. It’s how we grew our confidence and discovered the laws of physics… We want you to have fun. We want you to get rowdy. But we need you to use common sense.”^[4]

This can be tricky for us parents. We have  an almost biological impulse to “keep things safe”. But part of what Playlistening allows, in particular when we are Roughhousing, is the safe exploration of feelings of fear. The actual safety in the situation makes it possible to feel the fear (though laughter, sweating, and sometimes, shaking) rather than being overcome by it.  This is how we nautralise the charge of emotion left behind by a frightening experience.

It follows that, if it is too safe, we won’t be able to “feel the fear”.  We wil just be comfortable…which is OK, although not all that interesting for most children!

Old feelings can be triggered

Frightening experiences leave us with feelings which can be triggered long after the original experience.  Unfortunately, the feelings don’t just “go away” once the experience is over. There’s a kind of watermark left on our memory, or a recording, which can be triggered by future experiences which are similar. The similarity doesn’t have to be great – sometimes the smallest reminder can bring up big feelings – feelings which can seem quite out of proportion to the “threat” we are now facing.

Balance between safety and risk

Humans have an instinct to get rid of those old recordings and to heal from old frightening experiences. I think this drives much of our impulse to embark on risky activities, and maybe explains our fascination with horror movies, scary stories and (speaking for myself) amusement park  rides.

To be successful in resolving old feelings of fear, we need to get the balance right – if we end up in a situation which is too scary – where the risk seems too real, we will feel overwhelmed and are likely to revert to our instinctive responses of “freeze, fight or flight”.

Roughhousing offers a chance to touch on old feelings of fear, but with at least one foot firmly on the bank of safety. When the balance is right between actual safety and old feelings of fear, then we will laugh – laughter is a way humans release lighter feelings of fear and embarrasment.

You are the Safety Manager

So roughhousing, almost by definition, has some element of risk, and it is always possible that, despite your best efforts, that something might go wrong.

When you are roughhousing, it’s important to remember that YOU are the Safety Manager. As DeBenedet and Cohen say, “Secure the perimeter”^[5] : do your best to get grandma’s vase out of the way, or move the play away from the window, “disappear” potential projectiles which might cause damage, and pad the sharp corners. (Though, having roughhoused with many children over the years, I have often been amazed at their ability to miss the sharp corner by only a few milimeters as they fall. Human beings are truly remarkable.)

It’s not that “anything goes” in this kind of play. It’s that you need to keep an eye on keeping it safe and moderating the play so that it stays smooth. Without being too careful, make an assessment of your own, and your child’s physical capacity and adjust the play accordingly.

When things go wrong

And, if something does get broken, if a punch lands wrongly, you’ll need to take responsibility. This relieves children of the worry about “making mistakes” and “getting it wrong”. You can apologise “Sorry honey, I didn’t get there fast enough to stop that happening/I should have moved us away from the window”. Avoid blaming them.

Pulling the responsibility to yourself helps to avoid a whole secondary set of feelings – guilt, defensiveness, more fear – crowding in on top of whatever damage has already been done. Your child won’t get confused that, for instance, “it’s OK to break things”. They know, intuitively, that this kind of play is a “special zone” where mistakes happen and are managed and forgiven.

If someone gets hurt, or something gets broken, try to listen. A good rule of thumb is to respond with five words or less – that will help to keep you on the side of listening to the upset rather than trying to justify, appeal to reason, explain or blame.)

Learn more

Anthony DeBenedet and Lawrence Cohen have put together general guidlelines and a wonderful list of Roughhousing games in their book “The Art Of Roughhousing”. You can find a summary here.

Good luck!

So go forth and challenge yourself and your child to some good, rough, physical play, and…

No need to go it alone!

I love to help: why not book a Free 20 Minute Consultation, and I can help direct you to the best resources and support.

Endnotes:
[1] Cohen, Lawrence, and Anthony DeBenedet. The Art of Roughhousing: Good Old Fashioned Horseplay and Why Every Kid Needs It. Quirk Books, 2010, p 26. [back to article]
[2] Ibid, p13 [back to article]
[3] Ibid p26 [back to article]
[4] Ibid, p7 [back to article]
[5] Ibid, p33 [back to article]

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