Rough-and-tumble play is not aggression. It is neuroscience. Here is why the research insists we must let children play physically, and what it costs them when we don't.
Sergio Pellis at the University of Lethbridge has spent three decades studying rough-and-tumble play in mammals, including humans. His finding is unambiguous: physical play, particularly the wrestling, chasing and tumbling that children naturally seek, drives the development of the orbital prefrontal cortex, the brain region governing social decision-making, emotional regulation, and empathy. It is not correlated with these outcomes. It drives them.
Key citation
Pellis, S.M. & Pellis, V.C. (2009). The Playful Brain. Oneworld Publications · Pellis, S.M. et al. (2010). The function of play in the development of the social brain. American Journal of Play
Rough-and-tumble play and aggression are neurologically distinct. In play fighting, children signal and read play cues (laughter, restraint, role reversal); in real aggression, these cues are absent. Children who engage in rough play are not learning aggression, they are learning its opposite: the skills of social negotiation, empathy, and controlled emotion that prevent aggression. Children deprived of rough play show more aggression in later childhood, not less.
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