| Abstract: | This paper emphasizes the following points regarding the appropriate role of rough-and-tumble play (R & T) in educational settings. (1) There has been an important secular trend toward an increasing importance of adult supervision of children's play. As a result, children's R & T must be considered in the context of social values regarding the expected developmental significance of children's play. (2) R & T is an aspect of evolved systems that propel the children into enthusiastic interaction with their environment and can be reasonably supposed to have several beneficial influences on children's cognitive and social development. (3) R & T can be distinguished from aggression, and adult supervised R & T is potentially an important arena for learning the limits of appropriate R & T. (4) It is suggested that supervised educational settings should be concerned with socializing several discrete systems that underlie children's development, including the present emphasis on socializing children to be able to focus attention, inhibit behavior, and be neat and orderly. However, the purpose of the present paper is to present a case for socializing the systems underlying stimulus seeking, extroversion, sociability, and intellectual creativity as well. |
