The Value of Roughhouse Play

I’m working at my desk and all of a sudden I hear loud and raucous squeals, stomping feet up and down the stairs and the crash of bodies jumping off the bed. I immediately envision  something that isn’t supposed to crash or a screaming child running to me. My breathing shortens and I can feel my muscles tighten in my shoulders. For me, loud, unrestricted and potentially unsafe play makes me anxious. Very anxious. I had not been a child who roughhoused, tussled with my friends or siblings or ran through the house screaming. I never fully understood this type of play and didn’t seem to have a handle on what was rough and tumble play versus angry fighting with my two boys. When they were younger and wrestled or chased their friends on the swing set, I envisioned the worst ending - tears, bumps and bruises and possibly a trip to the ER. However, they survived (bumps and bruises intact) and are still here to tell the story.

Roughhouse play.

Are you the kind of parent who embraces and joins in or reacts with apprehension?

Physical, high energy play and has earned the respect of parenting experts in recent years. At its best, it is mutually agreed upon, interactive and creative; children feel relaxed and exhilarated afterward. This kind of play pushes limits; children dance on the edge of safety and feel the thrill of risk. There is a sense of victory and strength to be gained and children can master fears and practice boundaries.

The most common forms of roughhousing are wrestling and pillow fighting but it can also include early games as London Bridge (trapping and jostling your friends in the bridge) or Ring-Around-the-Rosie. Despite what it looks like, these activities are generally not about anger or actual fighting at all. While adults can’t always tell the difference between roughhousing and actual fighting (me!), kids generally can.

According to Larry Cohen, there are five categories of roughhousing: Flight, Competitive, Contact, Imagination and Extreme Roughhousing. In early roughhouse play, it is helpful to have a parent involved to keep things within safe parameters. In this blog, I am going to elaborate on these five types of playing and provide examples for you to try.

Flight - This type of play includes actual ‘flight,’ when a child zooms through the air via different means. For instance, in Catapult, your child sits on your feet and you catapult them onto a nearby pillow (safely!). Another example for older children could be jumping off the swing. Horsey is a great game for a parent and child as well as a young child holds onto a bucking bronco. Sound effects and a story or simple narration can add to the play and bring a structure to this play by providing a beginning, middle and end.

Competitive Games introduce the element of a winner and a loser. Though sensitivity around this idea has become more prevalent in recent years (“everyone gets a trophy”), there are real benefits for children to learn how to win and to lose. Both take skill and a bit of coaching at times; learning how to accept loss or win with grace will teach valuable life lessons that can be used through adulthood. While these situations can be tricky, they provide ample opportunity to teach your child how to lose without ‘losing it.’ This type of play can begin at a young age and in very simple, age appropriate games. Examples of simple competitive games could include races or any kind of sport. An active and fun option is the Sock Game in which players take their shoes off and try to take each others’ socks off. This game typically ends in a lot of laughter and some jostling.

Contact play can teach children how to come into physical contact without hurting each other. This is where tickling, wrestling, tag or early sports can occur. Try to create a space for games that include physical contact that are also positive and age appropriate. A Monster Chase adds an element of imaginary play when a parent runs around to catch children and put them in a pretend cage of some sort. And haven’t we all played ‘boys chase the girls’ at some point on the playground? Boys running after the girls who shriek and laugh and sometimes allow themselves to be caught? As your child grows, it might be possible to use this type of play to explain that physical contact does not have to be sexual or violent. We have an opportunity to teach different types of touch: tender and playful or inappropriate and hurtful. We can help our children discern and verbalize what feels good and right and what feels uncomfortable and scary through contact play.

Imaginary Play is the most common sort of play that comes to mind. Playing house or school are  two examples of quiet imaginary play. But Cops and Robbers and Jumping on the Trampoline as Simone Biles can add a whole new level when characters or scenarios are created around the roughhouse play.

Sliding down the stairs! Swinging from tree branches to the ground! How did we survive all the crazy things we did? Now, as parents, this type of Extreme Roughhousing can be difficult to watch. It can trigger negative memories, overwhelm our nervous system (me!) or challenge our sense of control (me again!). Safety concerns are always present. When I was a young gymnast, I  set up my ‘gym’ in my house. I would begin in my parents dining room, run through the foyer and complete my round-off back-handspring in our living room, landing between my parents’ two most expensive lamps and in front of our brick fireplace. However, (thankfully) I never broke the lamp or my head!

There are tons of types of play; there is a spectrum of possibilities ranging from quiet and safe to risky and on the edge of danger. We can talk to our young children about safety and do our best to find ways to make it safe. But in the end, we have to trust and breathe and be there when something goes wrong (hopefully not too wrong).

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More information on the benefits of roughhouse play and examples of different play

https://www.mother.ly/health-wellness/the-science-benefits-of-roughhousing-with-your-kids-that-will-make-you-less-anxious/

https://themilitarywifeandmom.com/roughhousing-with-kids/

Debenedet, A & Cohen, L: The Art of Roughhousing: Good Old-Fashioned Horseplay and Why Every Kid Needs It