Am I Roughhousing Enough With The Kid?

Special photography (phone) captures not-so-rare moment of kid attack.

I am a man who has wide swings of emotions. I laugh boisterously, I weep uncontrollably. Part of this tendency shows itself when I enter a room and see content children sitting quietly. With the smaller one I often have the inclination to hold him upside-down.

I like doing this because he likes it too. Sometimes he says he would prefer not to be inverted, and I respect his wishes.

The challenge is to get him to respect my wishes if I'm in a calm mood. Sometimes he gets too physical with LSS, who does not embrace a tradition of scrappy play, so I don't want to roughhouse with him too much lest he always expect inversion from a parent.

But how much is too much?

Also, if I do get into it with the 8-year-old the 11-year-old is certainly entitled to join in. Then my goose is most definitely cooked. At 90 lbs inversion is just not a safe option.

So as a father I must negotiate the fine line of enough roughhousing to ensure a happy frisson but not to the extent that it encourages hyperactivity or the hurting of others.

Whatever. The kid's going upside-down again soon.