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- © 2013 - Gregory Keer. All rights reserved.
What Dads Need to Know: Running Room
By Heather Shumaker
My neighbor is a stay-at-home dad. When he heard I had written a parenting book – one that included chapter titles like “Ban Chairs – Not Tag” and “Bombs, Guns, and Bad Guys Allowed,” he perked right up. “I was always being told I was “bad” as a boy because I needed to move my body,” he said.
Movement, action and rough physical play are an essential part of early childhood, for boys and girls alike. Instead of banning high energy, find ways to welcome it.
Here’s an excerpt from the book It’s OK Not to Share…And Other Renegade Rules for Raising Competent and
Compassionate Kids (Tarcher/ Penguin, 2012. Reprinted with permission). The book contains a whole section called “Running Room” which explores action, power and movement. This chapter celebrates roughhousing.
Renegade Rule 17 – Only punch your friends
Dan punches Leo, and Leo punches right back.
Nearby, an adult looks on, but doesn’t interrupt. These two four-year-olds are having fun. Dan and Leo are both wearing pint-sized boxing gloves, purple and red, and standing barefoot on a tumbling mat. They are giggling and having a marvelous time.
Renegade Reason – Rough-housing—even play boxing—is social and healthy. But it has no place if someone’s angry.
When I told a fellow mother that I was writing a book which included boxing at preschool, she was shocked. “Boxing? You’ve got to be kidding me. I spend my time trying to keep their hands OFF each other!”
That can be a problem. Young kids are physical creatures. They like body contact and have a deep need for touch. Especially since verbal skills are still developing, one of the ways children show interest in a friend is through physical contact, sometimes hugs, sometimes play fights.
Lee and Janet, the founders of my childhood preschool noticed this. They watched kids play and saw how much young kids liked to wrestle. Children would roll around together like little lions or puppies. They thought: if kids want to play that way there must be a reason. Well, why not? Lee and Janet equipped rooms with wrestling mats and boxing gloves. Rough-housing games blossomed into a 40-year tradition at the School for Young Children.
Rough-housing games, like boxing and wrestling, give kids outlets for high energy and boost friendships. But only when everyone is having fun. If someone’s angry, it’s not a game. Rough-housing is not a way to settle a conflict. Games should be between willing partners who are in a playful mood.
What’s more, it turns out that boisterous play like preschool boxing is not only a legitimate way to have fun, it also plays a positive, important role in child development.
Renegade Blessings
Rough-and-tumble play helps our kids grow on many levels. A child can learn:
- I’m strong and powerful.
- It feels good to use my body actively.
- I can make friends and take on new challenges.
- I can set limits on other people and stop something I don’t like.
- I can listen to my friends and know when to stop.
- I can cope, even if I get hurt a little bit.
- If someone gets hurt, we can make new rules so it doesn’t happen again.
Why it works
Whether it’s called rough-and-tumble play, boisterous play, horse play, puppy play, or rough-housing, this kind of play is a vital part of childhood. Rowdy puppy play helps bodies and brains develop. When two kids tussle on the floor, or roll around together, they are showing the need to wrestle. If we say ‘no’ to rough play, we are thwarting this need. Instead of issuing a ban (Get your hands off of him! Quit hitting your brother. I don’t want to see any bodies touching.) think how you can best meet this age-old need.
Horse play may look like out-of-control goofing off, but it serves a deeper purpose. Studies by Dr. Jaak Panksepp show that rough-and-tumble play helps to develop the brain’s frontal lobe including the prefrontal cortex. This is the area of the brain that commands Executive Function, controls impulses and regulates behavior. The more the prefrontal cortex is developed, the better kids do in all areas of life, whether it’s social, emotional, or academic. On-going research by Dr. Adele Diamond and others suggests that Executive Function is the top predictor of kids’ success.
Roughhousing Benefits
- Friendship
- Energy outlet
- Chance to experience power
- Impulse control
- Risk-taking
- Building brain power
- Body and spatial awareness
- Need for motion
- Need for physical touch
- Practice setting limits on peers
- Negotiating skills
- Building trust with peers
- Self-esteem
- Reading emotions
- Showing empathy
- Joy
Since this part of the brain is so important, is it really any surprise that kids develop it by doing simply what kids do best? Rolling about the floor and tussling with squawks of high excitement. Rough-and-tumble play must be welcomed.
As early educator Dan Hodgins puts it: “It’s just as important to rough house with kids as to read them a story.”
More on welcoming rough-and-tumble play into your family or classroom in It’s OK Not to Share, including:
- staging a wrestling match
- getting hurt
- setting kid-based rules
- winners and losers
- power actions
- welcoming movement
- benefits of risk
Heather Shumaker is the author of It’s OK Not to Share…And Other Renegade Rules for Raising Competent and Compassionate Kids (Tarcher/ Penguin, 2012). She’s a journalist, blogger, speaker and mother of two young children, whose work has appeared in Huffington Post, New York Post, Parenting, Pregnancy and Organic Gardening. She’s a frequent guest on radio and TV shows about writing and parenting, and blogs at Starlighting Mama. You can learn more about Heather’s book at www.heathershumaker.com.
Sibs At School
By Gregory Keer
For three years, my sister and I went to the same school. Kimmy was especially proud of that fact, as I witnessed one day when she told another kid that if he wasn’t nice to her, her big brother was going to beat him up. Truth be told, Kimmy was the only person I was ever really mean to back then, but somehow she knew that, on campus, we were on the same team.
In those mid-’70s years, I loved having my sister with me at school. I got a chance to show off my basketball skills at recess and my student-council speeches in sixth grade, but I also noticed her laughing with her friends at lunch and leading her third-grade class in the newspaper drive. It was great to be part of each other’s lives outside the house, even though it was just for a short time.
As a new September unfolds, my two oldest boys will converge on the same campus for the first time since Jacob, 6, was in preschool. Benjamin, 10, will begin his third year at his public elementary school and will be one of the reigning fifth graders, who will graduate at year’s end. Although he had big hurdles to jump when he transferred to the school, he has since become an expert on every nuance of the teachers, grounds and events. Jacob has soaked up his big brother’s experiences by seeing Benjamin do complicated homework and attending open houses.
“I know he’s going to annoy me,” Benjamin said in a late-summer talk I had with him about Jacob joining him on the schoolyard. “He’ll drag me over somewhere to show me something like a bug he found under a tree.”
This scenario is likely, yet even the little guy who sometimes goes all “kung fu” on Benjamin is welcome to the big brother’s kingdom. “Jacob’s good at art, so he’ll like that we do a lot of it at school,” Benjamin explained. “He’s pretty fast, too. He’ll love sports day when we do relays and obstacle courses.”
While he expects Jacob to be a bit sad and confused at a new place with people he doesn’t know, Benjamin said, “(My classmate) Sean’s brother will be going into first grade. Maybe I can get Jacob to be friends with him so he’s not alone when I’m not around.”
When I talked with Jacob, he seemed mellow about not having old pals with him at the start. “I like challenges,” he offered, as if he were vying for a corporate management position. He cannot wait to ride the bus for the first time so he can talk with the other kids and trade game cards with them. He’s also eager to check out the classrooms as a student and not just a visitor.
“Will I go to the same after-school programs as Benjamin?” he asked hopefully. Jacob has been chomping at the bit to try out a comic-book drawing class and a “rock star” program ever since Benjamin bragged about them. Jacob has even begun learning the violin so he’ll be ready to join the orchestra like his brother did in third grade.
“I hope Jacob knows it’s not easy to make it in the orchestra,” Benjamin said, showing territorialism about this particular area. “I had to practice a lot for two years before I could be a first trumpet.”
Sibling rivalry will certainly find a home away from home at school. I expect to hear competing stories about what Benjamin may have said to a cute fifth-grade girl at recess or what Jacob may have done to overflow a toilet. The key is that they will be together, if only for a year.
Today, I call my sister Kim, not Kimmy, and she’s been able to handle her own battles for years, even without her big brother down the hall. But we did build on that shared school time as part of what is now a close bond. For Jacob and Benjamin, I hope they too will learn they can depend on each other even when they’re not under Mom and Dad’s roof.
Odd Man In
By Gregory Keer
“Jacob’s got to do his morning pee,” Wendy says, zipping up a lunchbox and grabbing waffles from the toaster.
Eyeing the clock, which shouts “You’re gonna be late for school,” I shepherd my five-year-old to the toilet.
“I can’t do it,” Jacob whimpers.
“Relax,” I tell him, using a voice so strained a Zen master would feel nervous.
Benjamin (age eight) runs in, nudges Jacob aside and takes a leak, putting even more pressure on my middle child.
After Benjamin skidaddles, I cheer Jacob on, “Let’s go pee!” when little naked Ari pads into the bathroom. I assume he’s there as a spectator so I forget about him.
“Go pee! Go pee! Go pee!” I chant and — sure enough — pee fountains out. Warmth bathes my foot. Giggling wafts to my ears.
“Ari!” I shout as my toddler showers my shoe with a firefighter’s gusto.
Feeling the wetness reach my socks, my frustration melts into laughter. I turn from Jacob, who finally tinkles (in the proper receptacle), kiss Ari’s proud face. The way my littlest child sees it, anything the big boys can do, he can do better.
One of my worries for my third child was that he would get left in the dust of the older kids. For much of his early life, Ari was schlepped to the other boys’ activities and restrained by a high chair or stroller as his siblings caromed around freely. Adding to his helplessness, he got sick a lot. In between countless incidents of cold and flu, Ari endured a hospital stay for a respiratory infection and surgery for ear infections.
But, in the half-year leading up to his second birthday, Ari developed into a family superstar. Armed with a head of cottony blonde hair (in a family of darker-hued tresses) and vibrant blue-green eyes, our smallest child does everything louder, faster, and funnier than his siblings did at the same age.
When he wants to be noticed at mealtime, Ari wears his bowl on his head. If his siblings fight over the remote control, he snags it, squints at Mommy or Daddy – in his attempt to wink – and tries to tune into his own show. Should he get bored at a concert, he wanders around, hugging strangers (under our supervision) with the gusto of an uncle who’s just come over from the old country.
Being the littlest person in a family of five never daunts Ari. In fact, the bigger the group the more he shines. At a minor-league baseball game, while a dozen other children begged sweetly for practice balls, Ari high-fived every pitcher in the bullpen until he got a ball. Having no idea what kind of cool souvenir he earned, he was just pleased to have outsmarted the other kids.
In true youngest child fashion, Ari imitates everything his older brothers do, then improves on it. If he notices Jacob fighting us to put on clothes, Ari grabs an outfit and attempts to dress himself. When I ask a reluctant Benjamin to scrub his teeth at night, Ari scrambles to the sink to use a spare toothbrush. Seeing Benjamin and Jacob whine as they don school bags, our little toddler disappears into a closet and emerges with a backpack, properly strapped to his shoulders.
Although Ari thinks he’s ready to join his brothers at school, he does have to work on one particular aspect of his big personality. He’s kind of a thug. Despite being in the fifth-percentile in height, he steals his daycare friends’ toys and shoves kids down during play. While this behavior works well when he wants to retaliate against a roughhousing brother, he comes off as a kind of “ant bully” among his peers. Making matters worse, he does all of this with a smile that’s more “This power thing actually works” than “Get out of my way, you worthless knave!”
I’ve seen a lot of nice, quiet third children who go about their business, resigned to their last-place finish in the family race. And while we’re working on re-channeling his daycare intimidation tactics, we couldn’t be more thankful that Ari chooses to take his place alongside his brothers.
Lovers and Fighters
By Gregory Keer
My second-grader has grown seriously shaggy hair. He thinks he looks cool. His karate instructors call him “Shaun Cassidy.” His four-year-old brother calls him “easy pickings.”
That’s why, when the two get in a scuffle, Jacob goes straight for the locks, grabbing a hearty handful in his little mitt and tugging with the expression of a cowboy rasslin’ a rodeo steer.
Often, Benjamin screams in pain, “Help! He’s pulling my hair again!” He doesn’t hit back; he just takes it until my wife or I show up for the rescue.
Jacob thinks it’s funny to see Benjamin cry. He doesn’t realize how lucky he is that the older brother who’s twice his size doesn’t rearrange his face, Picasso style.
Both my boys love more than they fight, but Benjamin’s extremely patient. Perhaps it’s because he studies Tong Soo Do martial arts and maybe it’s his in-born temperament, but this kid has the tolerance of Gandhi.
He’s the kind of child who, when told it’s OK to shove an opponent out of the way in soccer, asks, “But can I stop and tell him ‘I’m sorry’?”
Now Jacob’s different. Sure he’s charming as hell and, as he matures, is learning to channel his burning emotions into monkey-bar athleticism and an ever-increasing vocabulary. But, man, no one wants to be within ten feet of a ticked-off Jacob for fear of meeting his fists of fury.
That’s not to say that Jacob doesn’t have his reasons for wanting to belt Benjamin in the kisser. Even when all Jacob wants to do is scribble with a crayon alongside Benjamin while he’s doing homework, my eldest son isn’t shy about dishing such classic brother lines as, “You’re so annoying!” and “Get away from me!”
Then there are the times when my Zen-master of a son just loses it. This happened the other day as Jacob dared to pick up Benjamin’s much-beloved GameBoy in the middle of record-setting Pokemon game. My seven-year-old shoved Jacob to the floor. Jacob yelled like a howler monkey and barreled his head into his big brother’s stomach. Benjamin roared back and threw his little brother back down before I decided to break it up.
While watching this unfold, part of me was dumbfounded – maybe a little entertained (even one-year-old Ari found the whole thing hysterically funny) — at how it went down. Part of me was proud of Jacob for being unafraid of Benjamin. Another part of me was OK with Benjamin showing some toughness against his younger brother’s aggression.
Once I apprehended my two “extreme fighters,” I realized I wasn’t disappointed in them. It was a mixed-up feeling, given that I do espouse the use of talk over the deployment of violence. However, I couldn’t shake a primal reality – all siblings beat the crap out of each other.
This sibling rivalry thing has been around so long the Bible credits the first brothers with starting the whole trend (with less than preferable results). Looking into my own history, there are knockdown battles I had with my poor younger sister who finally developed a Bionic Woman leg kick to neutralize my Olympic half-nelsons. The fighting is just something all parents have to deal with since siblings naturally get jealous of each other because of perceived preferential treatment and get punchy because of the sheer volume of time they spend together in homes and car backseats.
We bemoan our children’s failure to abide by our values of nonviolence. We fret in embarrassment that public displays of discord reflect our own failures. But where would we all be if we didn’t throw our siblings into a few hallway walls?
Experts say that fighting helps children learn to resolve conflicts with peers. Because of the relative safety of battling with a family member who will generally love him no matter what, a kid can develop the right way to settle differences. Another benefit of the rivalry: realizing that the world is contentious and often not fair. Through sibling wars, children accrue a sense that they have to live with some injustices and move on from them to other matters. While we must instruct our children to resolve their differences with words, we should also let them struggle among themselves, just as they will need to do in the big, bad world beyond us. That way, when a viciously insulting boss socks them in the gut, they have a reservoir of sibling-fed feelings to help them choose the right reaction.
Given our many goals for family harmony, it’s worth noting that having a houseful of scrapping kids is rather healthy. It better be, because my three sons are only getting bigger and the fights gradually becoming nastier… and, if you’ll excuse me, I think I hear Jacob yelling that baby Ari has him in a headlock.
What Dads Need to Know: Running Room
By Heather Shumaker
My neighbor is a stay-at-home dad. When he heard I had written a parenting book – one that included chapter titles like “Ban Chairs – Not Tag” and “Bombs, Guns, and Bad Guys Allowed,” he perked right up. “I was always being told I was “bad” as a boy because I needed to move my body,” he said.
Movement, action and rough physical play are an essential part of early childhood, for boys and girls alike. Instead of banning high energy, find ways to welcome it.
Here’s an excerpt from the book It’s OK Not to Share…And Other Renegade Rules for Raising Competent and
Compassionate Kids (Tarcher/ Penguin, 2012. Reprinted with permission). The book contains a whole section called “Running Room” which explores action, power and movement. This chapter celebrates roughhousing.
Renegade Rule 17 – Only punch your friends
Dan punches Leo, and Leo punches right back.
Nearby, an adult looks on, but doesn’t interrupt. These two four-year-olds are having fun. Dan and Leo are both wearing pint-sized boxing gloves, purple and red, and standing barefoot on a tumbling mat. They are giggling and having a marvelous time.
Renegade Reason – Rough-housing—even play boxing—is social and healthy. But it has no place if someone’s angry.
When I told a fellow mother that I was writing a book which included boxing at preschool, she was shocked. “Boxing? You’ve got to be kidding me. I spend my time trying to keep their hands OFF each other!”
That can be a problem. Young kids are physical creatures. They like body contact and have a deep need for touch. Especially since verbal skills are still developing, one of the ways children show interest in a friend is through physical contact, sometimes hugs, sometimes play fights.
Lee and Janet, the founders of my childhood preschool noticed this. They watched kids play and saw how much young kids liked to wrestle. Children would roll around together like little lions or puppies. They thought: if kids want to play that way there must be a reason. Well, why not? Lee and Janet equipped rooms with wrestling mats and boxing gloves. Rough-housing games blossomed into a 40-year tradition at the School for Young Children.
Rough-housing games, like boxing and wrestling, give kids outlets for high energy and boost friendships. But only when everyone is having fun. If someone’s angry, it’s not a game. Rough-housing is not a way to settle a conflict. Games should be between willing partners who are in a playful mood.
What’s more, it turns out that boisterous play like preschool boxing is not only a legitimate way to have fun, it also plays a positive, important role in child development.
Renegade Blessings
Rough-and-tumble play helps our kids grow on many levels. A child can learn:
- I’m strong and powerful.
- It feels good to use my body actively.
- I can make friends and take on new challenges.
- I can set limits on other people and stop something I don’t like.
- I can listen to my friends and know when to stop.
- I can cope, even if I get hurt a little bit.
- If someone gets hurt, we can make new rules so it doesn’t happen again.
Why it works
Whether it’s called rough-and-tumble play, boisterous play, horse play, puppy play, or rough-housing, this kind of play is a vital part of childhood. Rowdy puppy play helps bodies and brains develop. When two kids tussle on the floor, or roll around together, they are showing the need to wrestle. If we say ‘no’ to rough play, we are thwarting this need. Instead of issuing a ban (Get your hands off of him! Quit hitting your brother. I don’t want to see any bodies touching.) think how you can best meet this age-old need.
Horse play may look like out-of-control goofing off, but it serves a deeper purpose. Studies by Dr. Jaak Panksepp show that rough-and-tumble play helps to develop the brain’s frontal lobe including the prefrontal cortex. This is the area of the brain that commands Executive Function, controls impulses and regulates behavior. The more the prefrontal cortex is developed, the better kids do in all areas of life, whether it’s social, emotional, or academic. On-going research by Dr. Adele Diamond and others suggests that Executive Function is the top predictor of kids’ success.
Roughhousing Benefits
- Friendship
- Energy outlet
- Chance to experience power
- Impulse control
- Risk-taking
- Building brain power
- Body and spatial awareness
- Need for motion
- Need for physical touch
- Practice setting limits on peers
- Negotiating skills
- Building trust with peers
- Self-esteem
- Reading emotions
- Showing empathy
- Joy
Since this part of the brain is so important, is it really any surprise that kids develop it by doing simply what kids do best? Rolling about the floor and tussling with squawks of high excitement. Rough-and-tumble play must be welcomed.
As early educator Dan Hodgins puts it: “It’s just as important to rough house with kids as to read them a story.”
More on welcoming rough-and-tumble play into your family or classroom in It’s OK Not to Share, including:
- staging a wrestling match
- getting hurt
- setting kid-based rules
- winners and losers
- power actions
- welcoming movement
- benefits of risk
Heather Shumaker is the author of It’s OK Not to Share…And Other Renegade Rules for Raising Competent and Compassionate Kids (Tarcher/ Penguin, 2012). She’s a journalist, blogger, speaker and mother of two young children, whose work has appeared in Huffington Post, New York Post, Parenting, Pregnancy and Organic Gardening. She’s a frequent guest on radio and TV shows about writing and parenting, and blogs at Starlighting Mama. You can learn more about Heather’s book at www.heathershumaker.com.
Sibs At School
By Gregory Keer
For three years, my sister and I went to the same school. Kimmy was especially proud of that fact, as I witnessed one day when she told another kid that if he wasn’t nice to her, her big brother was going to beat him up. Truth be told, Kimmy was the only person I was ever really mean to back then, but somehow she knew that, on campus, we were on the same team.
In those mid-’70s years, I loved having my sister with me at school. I got a chance to show off my basketball skills at recess and my student-council speeches in sixth grade, but I also noticed her laughing with her friends at lunch and leading her third-grade class in the newspaper drive. It was great to be part of each other’s lives outside the house, even though it was just for a short time.
As a new September unfolds, my two oldest boys will converge on the same campus for the first time since Jacob, 6, was in preschool. Benjamin, 10, will begin his third year at his public elementary school and will be one of the reigning fifth graders, who will graduate at year’s end. Although he had big hurdles to jump when he transferred to the school, he has since become an expert on every nuance of the teachers, grounds and events. Jacob has soaked up his big brother’s experiences by seeing Benjamin do complicated homework and attending open houses.
“I know he’s going to annoy me,” Benjamin said in a late-summer talk I had with him about Jacob joining him on the schoolyard. “He’ll drag me over somewhere to show me something like a bug he found under a tree.”
This scenario is likely, yet even the little guy who sometimes goes all “kung fu” on Benjamin is welcome to the big brother’s kingdom. “Jacob’s good at art, so he’ll like that we do a lot of it at school,” Benjamin explained. “He’s pretty fast, too. He’ll love sports day when we do relays and obstacle courses.”
While he expects Jacob to be a bit sad and confused at a new place with people he doesn’t know, Benjamin said, “(My classmate) Sean’s brother will be going into first grade. Maybe I can get Jacob to be friends with him so he’s not alone when I’m not around.”
When I talked with Jacob, he seemed mellow about not having old pals with him at the start. “I like challenges,” he offered, as if he were vying for a corporate management position. He cannot wait to ride the bus for the first time so he can talk with the other kids and trade game cards with them. He’s also eager to check out the classrooms as a student and not just a visitor.
“Will I go to the same after-school programs as Benjamin?” he asked hopefully. Jacob has been chomping at the bit to try out a comic-book drawing class and a “rock star” program ever since Benjamin bragged about them. Jacob has even begun learning the violin so he’ll be ready to join the orchestra like his brother did in third grade.
“I hope Jacob knows it’s not easy to make it in the orchestra,” Benjamin said, showing territorialism about this particular area. “I had to practice a lot for two years before I could be a first trumpet.”
Sibling rivalry will certainly find a home away from home at school. I expect to hear competing stories about what Benjamin may have said to a cute fifth-grade girl at recess or what Jacob may have done to overflow a toilet. The key is that they will be together, if only for a year.
Today, I call my sister Kim, not Kimmy, and she’s been able to handle her own battles for years, even without her big brother down the hall. But we did build on that shared school time as part of what is now a close bond. For Jacob and Benjamin, I hope they too will learn they can depend on each other even when they’re not under Mom and Dad’s roof.
Odd Man In
By Gregory Keer
“Jacob’s got to do his morning pee,” Wendy says, zipping up a lunchbox and grabbing waffles from the toaster.
Eyeing the clock, which shouts “You’re gonna be late for school,” I shepherd my five-year-old to the toilet.
“I can’t do it,” Jacob whimpers.
“Relax,” I tell him, using a voice so strained a Zen master would feel nervous.
Benjamin (age eight) runs in, nudges Jacob aside and takes a leak, putting even more pressure on my middle child.
After Benjamin skidaddles, I cheer Jacob on, “Let’s go pee!” when little naked Ari pads into the bathroom. I assume he’s there as a spectator so I forget about him.
“Go pee! Go pee! Go pee!” I chant and — sure enough — pee fountains out. Warmth bathes my foot. Giggling wafts to my ears.
“Ari!” I shout as my toddler showers my shoe with a firefighter’s gusto.
Feeling the wetness reach my socks, my frustration melts into laughter. I turn from Jacob, who finally tinkles (in the proper receptacle), kiss Ari’s proud face. The way my littlest child sees it, anything the big boys can do, he can do better.
One of my worries for my third child was that he would get left in the dust of the older kids. For much of his early life, Ari was schlepped to the other boys’ activities and restrained by a high chair or stroller as his siblings caromed around freely. Adding to his helplessness, he got sick a lot. In between countless incidents of cold and flu, Ari endured a hospital stay for a respiratory infection and surgery for ear infections.
But, in the half-year leading up to his second birthday, Ari developed into a family superstar. Armed with a head of cottony blonde hair (in a family of darker-hued tresses) and vibrant blue-green eyes, our smallest child does everything louder, faster, and funnier than his siblings did at the same age.
When he wants to be noticed at mealtime, Ari wears his bowl on his head. If his siblings fight over the remote control, he snags it, squints at Mommy or Daddy – in his attempt to wink – and tries to tune into his own show. Should he get bored at a concert, he wanders around, hugging strangers (under our supervision) with the gusto of an uncle who’s just come over from the old country.
Being the littlest person in a family of five never daunts Ari. In fact, the bigger the group the more he shines. At a minor-league baseball game, while a dozen other children begged sweetly for practice balls, Ari high-fived every pitcher in the bullpen until he got a ball. Having no idea what kind of cool souvenir he earned, he was just pleased to have outsmarted the other kids.
In true youngest child fashion, Ari imitates everything his older brothers do, then improves on it. If he notices Jacob fighting us to put on clothes, Ari grabs an outfit and attempts to dress himself. When I ask a reluctant Benjamin to scrub his teeth at night, Ari scrambles to the sink to use a spare toothbrush. Seeing Benjamin and Jacob whine as they don school bags, our little toddler disappears into a closet and emerges with a backpack, properly strapped to his shoulders.
Although Ari thinks he’s ready to join his brothers at school, he does have to work on one particular aspect of his big personality. He’s kind of a thug. Despite being in the fifth-percentile in height, he steals his daycare friends’ toys and shoves kids down during play. While this behavior works well when he wants to retaliate against a roughhousing brother, he comes off as a kind of “ant bully” among his peers. Making matters worse, he does all of this with a smile that’s more “This power thing actually works” than “Get out of my way, you worthless knave!”
I’ve seen a lot of nice, quiet third children who go about their business, resigned to their last-place finish in the family race. And while we’re working on re-channeling his daycare intimidation tactics, we couldn’t be more thankful that Ari chooses to take his place alongside his brothers.
Lovers and Fighters
By Gregory Keer
My second-grader has grown seriously shaggy hair. He thinks he looks cool. His karate instructors call him “Shaun Cassidy.” His four-year-old brother calls him “easy pickings.”
That’s why, when the two get in a scuffle, Jacob goes straight for the locks, grabbing a hearty handful in his little mitt and tugging with the expression of a cowboy rasslin’ a rodeo steer.
Often, Benjamin screams in pain, “Help! He’s pulling my hair again!” He doesn’t hit back; he just takes it until my wife or I show up for the rescue.
Jacob thinks it’s funny to see Benjamin cry. He doesn’t realize how lucky he is that the older brother who’s twice his size doesn’t rearrange his face, Picasso style.
Both my boys love more than they fight, but Benjamin’s extremely patient. Perhaps it’s because he studies Tong Soo Do martial arts and maybe it’s his in-born temperament, but this kid has the tolerance of Gandhi.
He’s the kind of child who, when told it’s OK to shove an opponent out of the way in soccer, asks, “But can I stop and tell him ‘I’m sorry’?”
Now Jacob’s different. Sure he’s charming as hell and, as he matures, is learning to channel his burning emotions into monkey-bar athleticism and an ever-increasing vocabulary. But, man, no one wants to be within ten feet of a ticked-off Jacob for fear of meeting his fists of fury.
That’s not to say that Jacob doesn’t have his reasons for wanting to belt Benjamin in the kisser. Even when all Jacob wants to do is scribble with a crayon alongside Benjamin while he’s doing homework, my eldest son isn’t shy about dishing such classic brother lines as, “You’re so annoying!” and “Get away from me!”
Then there are the times when my Zen-master of a son just loses it. This happened the other day as Jacob dared to pick up Benjamin’s much-beloved GameBoy in the middle of record-setting Pokemon game. My seven-year-old shoved Jacob to the floor. Jacob yelled like a howler monkey and barreled his head into his big brother’s stomach. Benjamin roared back and threw his little brother back down before I decided to break it up.
While watching this unfold, part of me was dumbfounded – maybe a little entertained (even one-year-old Ari found the whole thing hysterically funny) — at how it went down. Part of me was proud of Jacob for being unafraid of Benjamin. Another part of me was OK with Benjamin showing some toughness against his younger brother’s aggression.
Once I apprehended my two “extreme fighters,” I realized I wasn’t disappointed in them. It was a mixed-up feeling, given that I do espouse the use of talk over the deployment of violence. However, I couldn’t shake a primal reality – all siblings beat the crap out of each other.
This sibling rivalry thing has been around so long the Bible credits the first brothers with starting the whole trend (with less than preferable results). Looking into my own history, there are knockdown battles I had with my poor younger sister who finally developed a Bionic Woman leg kick to neutralize my Olympic half-nelsons. The fighting is just something all parents have to deal with since siblings naturally get jealous of each other because of perceived preferential treatment and get punchy because of the sheer volume of time they spend together in homes and car backseats.
We bemoan our children’s failure to abide by our values of nonviolence. We fret in embarrassment that public displays of discord reflect our own failures. But where would we all be if we didn’t throw our siblings into a few hallway walls?
Experts say that fighting helps children learn to resolve conflicts with peers. Because of the relative safety of battling with a family member who will generally love him no matter what, a kid can develop the right way to settle differences. Another benefit of the rivalry: realizing that the world is contentious and often not fair. Through sibling wars, children accrue a sense that they have to live with some injustices and move on from them to other matters. While we must instruct our children to resolve their differences with words, we should also let them struggle among themselves, just as they will need to do in the big, bad world beyond us. That way, when a viciously insulting boss socks them in the gut, they have a reservoir of sibling-fed feelings to help them choose the right reaction.
Given our many goals for family harmony, it’s worth noting that having a houseful of scrapping kids is rather healthy. It better be, because my three sons are only getting bigger and the fights gradually becoming nastier… and, if you’ll excuse me, I think I hear Jacob yelling that baby Ari has him in a headlock.