The following scenario may inspire us to think about rough and tumble play:
A and B happily agreed to play fighting. After a bit of wrestling, A was tripped over and fell on the ground. A cried. I saw the look of guilt on B's face, and I said, 'sometimes we played fighting at home with our brothers or sisters, but is it a good idea to play fighting at the kindergarten?' It was A, who responded first, and he tried to make sense of why the seemingly harmless activity had turned out the other way. A said, 'I played fighting at home on the couch, and when I fell, I fell on the couch, and then we laughed!' And he added, 'let's play fighting inside...'
The article Rough and Tumble Play 101 by Frances Carlson, which I read sometimes ago on www.ChildCareExchange.com gives a definition of rough and tumble play as:
when children are willingly run, jump, tag, wrestle, chase and flee while they laugh. But children are aggressive when they show behaviors, such as, fixate, frown, hit and push.
Hi Judy,
ReplyDeleteIt was good to read this post on rough and tumble play. One tip would be to imbed your web address www.childcareexchange.com as a link. You do this by selecting the link button in the menu above where you write the new post.
Cheers Jo