What Dads' Play Does for Kids

I have two boys and the biggest discussion my wife and I have is whether I tease them and push them too much. Especially the oldest one who was born 10 weeks to early and therefore we of course for a long time were being extra careful.<p>Both of our sons have bruises all over from play because we let them play and challenge themselves and each other.<p>It&#x27;s a tough balance but I think it&#x27;s doing them a favor also compared to later on in life.

I am the father of a 4 years old girl (and a 2 months old baby girl) and I can relate to the study&#x27;s results. In the family, I&#x27;m the one that pushes my daughter limits, sometime with a certain amount of risk.<p>One drawback of this playful approach to parenting, is that my daughter perceives the mother as the authority and the father as the &quot;friend&quot;. I reckon this is a quite common scenario, but it leads to some unpleasant situations (such as, mum says no to ipad, kid runs to father and ask ipad to father - hence creating a conflict ).<p>Actually, I&#x27;m trying to be less playful with her to check if I can restore the authority balance.

A lot of women, when asked what they&#x27;re looking for in a male partner say they really desire someone who is funny. Obviously, it&#x27;s generally more enjoyable to be around a funny person than a boring one, but could it also be that funnyness&#x2F;humor, being an important trait in parenting, is being selected for that reason? Very fascinating.

<p><pre><code> &gt; many of their dads scored low on a standard yardstick her &gt; research team was using to evaluate the parent-child bond. &gt; ... The children described rich, warm relationships with &gt; their fathers ... “My dad gives me encouragement to do &gt; things,” or, “My dad tells me he thinks I can do well.” </code></pre> What kind of yard stick are they traditionally using?

My first reaction when I read this was that it&#x27;s actually my wife who plays all the weird random games with our oldest son, whereas I often seem to be the serious parent who wants to explain stuff all the time and gets angry when he doesn&#x27;t listen. But then I fortunately remembered that I often carry him upside down by his ankles when I take him to bed.

Very exciting to see this. This book [1] argues for more play from both parents as it is how children learn and develop. If you are a parent, you will probably notice that when a child plays by himself, he will use phrases you use with him, pretend to be the parent in situations with his dolls &#x2F; toys, act out situations he didn&#x27;t understand previously. After reading this book, it gave both my wife and I new ideas on how to interact with our son (now 3). Is he afraid of something, have his dolls act it out and one of them is afraid of the same thing, for example.<p>The book has really helped us as well if anyone is looking for new avenues to teach, mentor, discipline their kids.<p>[1](<a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.amazon.com&#x2F;Playful-Parenting-Lawrence-J-Cohen&#x2F;dp&#x2F;0345442865&#x2F;ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1434641931&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=playful+parenting" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.amazon.com&#x2F;Playful-Parenting-Lawrence-J-Cohen&#x2F;dp&#x2F;...</a>)

read half way through the article could not find anything useful. not going to read other half.