What is about boys that make them want to wrestle and roughhouse all the time? Wrestling with my boys has become a routine pastime in my house, just like I remember wrestling around with my dad when my brother and I were growing up. Wrestling with my Uncle Bill is how I learned the valuable lesson that pulling a man’s beard with both hands is not a nice thing to do and leads to reactionary consequences. I’ve never done it since, I can tell you that!
We called it “rastlin” in my day. My buddy Ben calls it “romping” with his son, who is a freshman in high school now and almost stands shoulder to shoulder with Ben, and they still romp. My other buddy Chris calls it “womping” with his boys, so when he gets home from work sometimes it’s “womp:30,” which means it’s time to throw down.
I liked that and incorporated womp:30 with my boys. Both my boys are bespectacled just like I am, so womp:30 means it’s time for the glasses to come off and the match to begin.
The only problem is now I’m legitimately afraid that my 8-year-old will hurt me. He’s a solid 80 pounds and when he comes full force across the room with a flying head butt or diving tackle that I don’t see coming because my 6-year-old has my eyes covered, it really hurts!
I’ve read articles saying that wrestling with your children is a healthy way to enforce some good life lessons – when it’s done safely, of course. The author stated that wrestling with your children is a way for them to try out their own strength, help them grasp when they’re using too much force, and provides an opportunity to talk about appropriate and inappropriate touch. So I try to use womp:30 as a subtle teaching moment.
It’s never okay to hurt someone on purpose. Always say you’re sorry when you do accidentally hurt someone. Bullying is never tolerated; when someone asks you to stop something, you stop immediately. Things like that.
I just have to watch because my 6-year-old likes to jump off the furniture Jimmy “Superfly” Snuka style with a knee drop. Which is not cool.
Again, a chance to teach boundaries.
Eventually, womp:30 usually turns into other games, like riding daddy around the living room like a saddled horse. Or trying to cross from one end of the room to the other by only jumping on pillows. Or stacking all the couch cushions and trying to climb them like a mountain. Or playing “you go over there,” which is a game we made up one time in-the-moment where I toss one of them over there on the couch and the other one over there on the chair (it’s cushioned, don’t worry) and vice-versa. They think this is incredibly fun, and so do I, but I wear out much more quickly as they’ve grown older.
The experts say this a way to show them that dad is strong like they will be one day and that he can be trusted. But I will say that I try to balance that with lots of hugs and couch time with each boy too. I want them to know that a man should also be gentle and never afraid to show affection and emotion with those he loves.
Learning to be physical without being overwhelming is an important life lesson. So is learning to work through life’s struggles without immediately giving up. My hope is that by modeling this at 6 and 8, it will come naturally to them in real life situations later.
We always end womp:30 by “hugging it out” to make sure that everyone is happy in the end. I started doing that because I want them to know that even though there may be tense times with each other, we’re always family. If someone gets upset, we stop, we talk about it, we say we’re sorry, we hug it out, and we move on. That’s another important life lesson.
Plus it’s a chance to check on someone if they got a little too roughed up. Which lately, has been daddy more often than not. For the sake of my ribs, I think I’m gonna have to enforce the “no more flying off the top ropes” rule.