Copies of the handouts from each presentation are available here.

Boys on the Playground
Stanley British Primary School
Dr. Daniel Hettleman, Ph.D.
October 31, 2011
I. Exercise
II.
III.
IV.
What distinguishes the play of boys
• Sex-typed play choices can be seen as early as 2 years of age.
• Boys spend more time playing with blocks, transportation toys, guns, and manipulative
objects;
• Boys connect through action
• Boys tend to play in large groups in large spaces
• Boys and girls start playing primarily with their own gender starting at age 2-3, and this
continues until 11-12, when it starts to cross gender again more.
The playing field of friendships
• Equal status
• Movement away from family
• Development of negotiation, empathy, collaboration, assertion, problem-solving skills
• Intrinsic motivation
• Free from external rules
• Allows children to master fears
• Develop problem-solving skills
Common types of play among boys
a. Building/Manipulating: sand structures, snowmen, climbing, intricacy
i. Goal: growing, ambition, achievement motivations, development of mastery
ii. Challenges: everything falls, everything breaks, starting over
b. Rough and tumble: wrestling, king of the hill, banter.
i. Goal: healthy expressions of aggression, constrained aggression, establishing
hierarchies.
1. Hierarchies actually reduce aggression
ii. Challenges: feeling less strong, having to become more assertive (if you’re timid);
learning to become more sensitive/generous if you’re an alpha male; coping with
your place in the hierarchy
c. Game playing: competition, sports, board games
i. Goal: healthy expressions of ambition, aggression, learning/negotiating rules,
playing fair, learning your strengths and weaknesses, development of mastery
ii. Challenges: losing. Feelings of inferiority. Being an obnoxious winner.
d. Imaginative play: role playing games, drama
i. Goal: development of roles, flexibility of roles, delegation, negotiation, empathy
ii. Challenges: negotiation, sharing power
e. Flirtation: teasing, touching, looking (later elementary school and middle school)
i. Goal: first attempts in this new, exciting, intimidating playing field.
ii. Challenges: feeling too shy, too promiscuous.
TALKING TO YOUR KIDS ABOUT PLAYGROUND RELATIONSHIPS

I. Parent roles already established
a. Attachment/empathy! safety, exploration, sensitivity
b. Neighborhood/school/culture
c. Arranging play dates
d. Modeling
e. Advice, support, strategies
II.
III.
WHEN YOUR CHILD IS TOO ROUGH
a. Strong feedback. With oomph. Brief but pack a punch. You need to mean business.
• “That’s mean.” “That’s not acceptable in our family.”
• “We don’t want our family members to act that way.”
• “We don’t treat other people that way.”
• “I know you’re a great soccer player, but we expect you to encourage your teammates
rather than tear them down.”
• “When you’re mad at somebody, we expect you to find a more appropriate way of
dealing with it.”
b. Be careful of your and your spouse’s own domineering ways, intrusiveness, inflexibility.
Model/teach negotiation, compromise, empathy.
• “Let me think, I really want to watch Dancing with the Stars right now, but you want to
watch the Rockies game. Let’s think of a compromise.”
• “I’m really sorry I was cranky this morning. I was in a rush, and was stressed about
something from work and I took it out on you. You didn’t deserve that.”
• “I really want to scream right now. Let’s take a few minutes away from each other so I
don’t do something I’ll regret later.”
c. Consequences!
• Action speaks louder than words. Lectures almost never help.
• Providing your child with an opportunity to be powerful, have impact (INCLUDING A
NEGATIVE IMPACT!)
• Expectation they’ll work out the problem with the other kid(s).
WHEN YOUR CHILD IS NOT ROUGH ENOUGH (TOO TIMID)
a. Do NOT oversympathize or demonize the other kid (who’s just being his monkey self)
• You CAN label the other person’s behavior as “mean”, “rough”, “not nice”
• Although they may not be able to OVERpower the other child(ren), we can teach them
about personal power.
b. Help them see the overly rough child’s insecurities, explain what that’s about, how that child
gains temporary pleasure by diminishing other children.
c. Access their personal power.
• Use analogies, stories, books, folktales from your cultural tradition, e.g Wizard of Oz
• Ask them to imagine what they’d do if they felt just as strong “in their heart” as the
other child.
• Ask them what their younger sibling has done to make sure they (the older sibling)
don’t always have too much power; use that as an example.
d. Tell them the consequences of not standing up to others.
• You feel weaker, less powerful, less likely in the future to stand up to the other.
• The other kid becomes more likely to be mean to you in the future.
e. Help them access allies.
• Who else in your class has trouble with that boy? Can the two of you work with each
other on standing up to him?
• Involve teachers only when a pattern has been repetitive and your child has not been
able to access his internal power.
f. Get absurd: Humor increases flexibility/creativity.