Roughousing with a Superhero

We've been doing a lot of couch wrestling recently. The fourth year has seemed to add to Everett's endurance and energy so it's been an absolute necessity to rough house with him almost every day. Rough housing with your child is like speaking their language. It gets you down on their level, playing and goofing around, providing affection and love through physical touch and creating connections of trust. 

Last October I wrote about a book that was recommended to me (by my good friend Dionna at Code Name: Mama) and now I find myself recommending it to nearly every parent I know: Playful Parenting by Dr. Lawrence Cohen. This book taught me a lot about the language of play and it's the reason Everett and I have our routine of rough housing. Everett is more easily able to calm down at quiet times and bed time, he is more willing to cooperate through out the day, and we're both more relaxed. 

We have our different styles of rough housing. We have cuddly morning wrestles and full-out pillow fights. We have sword fights that end up in a bunch of rough housing. When Everett is especially full of mischief or has been upset, he runs at me (sometimes full speed!) tackling and trying to knock me over. We also include Kellan in some of our rough housing, allowing Everett the opportunity to practice self-control and build a relationship with his brother.

And, of course, like last week, we had lots of superhero battles. I play the Wicked Mama Mia and Everett plays Spiderman. He has no idea, really, what the real Spiderman is about because he has never seen the movie or cartoons, but he loves him nonetheless. The addition to our battles last week was a pair of Spiderman pj's that I found at a kid's sale. They were too small, but the black webbing at the arms couldn't be missed out on so we cut them both to make short sleeves. 

The best thing about superhero rough housing is catching the jumps on camera... 

** For more information on Playful Parenting and Dr. Larry, including his new book, The Art of Roughhousing, see his website here.