2 boys who like to rough house :(

[Unregistered]

I have a 3 & 4 year old DCB that are best buddies. The problem is they are my worst 2 kids. They rough house and wrestle all the time, no matter how many time outs they get! During every activity in the play area (ie. picking up, story time, play time, nap time) it always turns into them wrestling. I separate them, but that only helps for so long.
Any ideas how to get this to stop?

[sharlan]

I've been searching for an answer to that for many years now. My grandsons are 6 & 7 and they can't be together for more than 15 mins without rough housing or wrestling. It's worse when the mommies are around.

[SilverSabre25]

My son's preschool has tumbling mats they pull out and children can roughhouse there. It's a great means to teach valuable skills like stopping when someone saying stop and checking to see if something's okay, etc. Plus, all kids but especially boys REALLY need that gross motor and proprioceptor input they get from roughhousing. Invest in one or two tumbling mats you can lay out and direct them there. Teach them to agree on rules (no hitting faces or private areas, stop when someone says stop or ow are good ones to start with). Consider getting a punching bag for them to crash into.

Basically, you're not going to get it to stop but by creating a "yes space" for it, and time for it (you may roughhouse during free play, but not lunch or in the bathroom, etc) you should see a decrease in the doing it at inopportune times. Then you can redirect them "Remember, you can't roughhouse here, but you CAN roughhouse when we go outside/have free time after snack/tomorrow after circle"