SF BAY PLAY THERAPY
  • Home
  • Families
    • Parenting Support
    • Parent Groups
    • Family Play Therapy
  • Children
    • Play Therapy
    • Tele Play Therapy
    • Social Skills >
      • Social Skills Groups
  • Adults and Couples
  • Work with us
  • Trainings for Therapists
    • Tele Play Therapy Trainings
    • Job Opportunities
  • Workshops & Webinars
    • Transforming Tears and Tantrums
    • Social Skills 101
    • Social Skills Playshops
  • Blog
  • Contact
  • Praise
  • Resources
    • Websites and Printables
    • LGBTQ+ Families
    • Teaching Kids about Racism
    • Talking to Kids about Difficult Events
    • Resources for Therapists
  • Fees
  • Forms and Feedback
    • Client Forms
    • Effective Therapy Feedback
  • Store

Why you need to let your kids rough house.

10/8/2014

1 Comment

 
Picture
Kids need violent play. Although this statement may sound alarming (particularly form a child therapist) hear me out. Every day in my child therapy practice I hear children tell me how they weren’t allowed to pretend sword fight in school, or they can’t play superheroes, or they aren’t allowed to play tag because someone could get hurt. Although I understand teachers and parents are just trying to create peaceful environment, frankly these reports concern and upset me. I deeply want children to be able to feel safe emotionally and physically, to be kind to one another, to build healthy relationships, and to thrive in all areas … and the overwhelming evidence shows that if children are deprived of rough-and-tumble play these skills don’t develop properly.

Picture
Stuart Brown, MD is the founder of the National Institute of Play, researcher, and author. He has studied play and its effects for years. One of the most important findings he and his researchers have discovered is that when children are not allowed to engage in rough-and-tumble play (defined in his book as “play-fighting … and any activity that includes body contact among children…(including) superhero play” p.90), these children grew up to be antisocial and at times violent, including mass murderers (his first subject was the man who committed the Texas Tower Massacre).

When the impulse to play was suppressed, these individuals were stripped of their natural method of learning such important social and emotional skills as empathy, boundaries, and self regulation.

Picture
In his pivotal and profound book, Play: How it Shapes Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul  Dr. Brown writes: “Research on rough-and-tumble play in animals and humans has shown that it is necessary for the development and maintenance of social awareness, cooperation, fairness, and altruism. Its nature and importance is generally unappreciated, particularly by preschool teachers or anxious parents, who often see normal rough-and-tumble play behavior such as hitting, diving, and wrestling (all done with a smile, between friends who stay friends) not as a state of play, but a state of anarchy that must be controlled.” (p.88)

Parents and teachers are tasked with keeping children safe, and there is indeed risk in rough-house play. But what Dr. Brown discovered was that the benefits far outweighed the risk of scratches, hurt feelings, or even a broken bone here or there. He describes research on animal play that shows that when mammals are allowed natural play they are better able to socialize and make decisions, and those that are deprived of this play are stymied for life, unable to read social cues or deal with stress. We must help our children keep their bodies safe, but what of their spirit? We need to nourish that through this natural play as well.

Empathy, the ability to set healthy boundaries, and to problem-solve stressful situations are developed when children are allowed lightly supervised rough-and-tumble play.

Picture
When a child runs after another child and pounces too hard, they get to see the effect that behavior had on their friend. The child cries, the pouncer feels bad and some part of him says, ‘I won’t do that again.’ This is how empathy is built. Brick by brick, pounce by pounce. And it’s also how boundaries are discovered and set. The child being pounced realizes what is too much and what is okay and learns how to communicate that.

So the next time your child gets out his or her imaginary sword and cape, get yours out too, and let the tumbling begin.

(Worried about how to set appropriate limits within rough play to keep it from crossing that line from healthy rough-housing into danger? Stay tuned for more on this next week…)

1 Comment
Amy Castillo link
1/7/2021 07:34:40 am

Loved rreading this thank you

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Newsletter Sign Up

    Author

    Karen Wolfe, MFT is a psychotherapist in San Francisco and the East Bay. She is passionate about helping children and families thrive and has particular expertise with children with exceptional learning and sensory styles.

    Archives

    August 2016
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014

    Categories

    All
    Improving Self Esteem
    Improving Self-Esteem
    Limit Setting
    Parent Child Connection
    Parenting Tools
    Rough House Play
    Sensory Processing
    Tantrums

2354 Post St, Suite B,
​San Francisco, 94115
3655 Grand Avenue,
Oakland, CA 94610
  • Home
  • Families
    • Parenting Support
    • Parent Groups
    • Family Play Therapy
  • Children
    • Play Therapy
    • Tele Play Therapy
    • Social Skills >
      • Social Skills Groups
  • Adults and Couples
  • Work with us
  • Trainings for Therapists
    • Tele Play Therapy Trainings
    • Job Opportunities
  • Workshops & Webinars
    • Transforming Tears and Tantrums
    • Social Skills 101
    • Social Skills Playshops
  • Blog
  • Contact
  • Praise
  • Resources
    • Websites and Printables
    • LGBTQ+ Families
    • Teaching Kids about Racism
    • Talking to Kids about Difficult Events
    • Resources for Therapists
  • Fees
  • Forms and Feedback
    • Client Forms
    • Effective Therapy Feedback
  • Store