Q: MY HUSBAND and 18-month-old son play a lot of rough and tumble games. Is this good for my child or will it teach him to be aggressive?
A: Paul Ramchandani, professor of play in education, development and learning at the University of Cambridge, recently studied fathers’ play with young children. He says: “Most children love rough and tumble play. It gets them excited and they love being able to try things out, playing with someone they trust.
“In the first few years of life, children are developing strength and coordination and learning a lot about the boundaries of what’s allowed and what isn’t allowed. Rough and tumble play is one of the places where they can test out and learn about those boundaries.
“Some colleagues and I recently completed a review of the research conducted on fathers’ play with young children, which highlighted a couple of key findings. First, on average, fathers tend to play more physically with their children than mothers.
“There is a lot of overlap and fathers do all kinds of play with their children, but it includes more physical play, like tickling, rolling around and, with older toddlers, chasing games.
“The second is that the studies showed children who played more with their fathers tended to do better later on in terms of their development.
“So it seems rough and tumble play doesn’t make children more aggressive – if done well, it can actually help them learn the boundaries and exert their strength and manage their emotions in a controlled way.
“But it’s important that parents help children in learning this and where the boundaries are. When children get overexcited, they’ll sometimes push or hit a bit too hard and they need to learn safely and gently how to try to do it differently next time.
“The other thing to remember is that rough and tumble isn’t the only kind of play – it’s great when mums or dads can do rough and tumble play with their children, but it’s also important that children get a wide range of play experiences – some exciting, some calmer, some exercising their brains and some exercising the rest of their bodies.”
