Teen boys and fake fighting.
I genuinely don’t understand the obsession that teenage boys have with play fighting. Like they get one second of free occasion and they are up, trying to wrestle. Similar to cease touching each other and sit the fuck down. “We are just playing around” I don’t care, you can sI learnedl get hurt and get in trouble. 🙄🙄
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Maybe don't do it during school but play fighting and rough housing is pretty normal and I would argue pretty critical in a boys development and upbringing. I'm not saying lets go out and fight people, but me and my friends would wrestle and play fight in the pool, in the gra...
I look forward to tossing my 4 year old around when I get home. He loves it!
Agree to all of the above. All play is learning. For some kids, play fighting flips to real fighting quickly- teachers have enough on their plate without worrying if a kid will get hurt.
As a former teenage male, yeah. I'm not exactly sure why it's a thing, but it definitely is. One minute you're sitting in class and the next minute you get a strong urge to see if you can wrestle your best friend into the recycling bin. I'm sure there's some evolutionary or...
As a father, I can't explain the urge to fold my kids up like pretzel and throwing big fake hammer fists while yelling about throwing them over the house onto the neighbor's roof. The kids love it... my wife doesn't particularly want that energy in the house.
hahahahahahahahahahahaha
If you look at young males of many other species, I believe you see the same phenomenon.
It’s incredibly annoying, but it’s also a developmentally normal thing for adolescent humans (and other primates). All you can do is be a broken record about not doing it in school, and write referrals if they won’t stop.
I always wished I could just...let them be with it. They need it. It's not like I can force them to calm down, and getting it out of their system would help anyway. Admittedly, i would have some of them do jumping jacks/push-ups/burpees voluntarily. They loved it, and I was ...
You can also encourage them to try out for wrestling, football, hockey, take a martial art, etc. In other words, try to guide them to find a constructive, regulated outlet for that aggression.
Agreed. We are doing kids a big disservice by reducing PE and other opportunities for gross muscle movement. A lot of kids need much more of that, especially boys and people with ADHD.
That's true in every country where I've spent enough time to observe society. And it starts way before teen years.
I imagine you could go back 10 thousand years and find adults complaining about it too
It’s pretty common behavior among adolescent male mammals - a way to hone fighting skills that will be used later in life to win a mate. It’s obviously a bit vestigial in humans at this point, but understandable. Best you can do is mitigate potential damage, but you’re never g...
Hell I'm a woman in mid 20s and I do this too 💀💀💀
Also pretty common throughout the history of humans. Mentioned as activities in such places as Persian and Greek Empire sources. Probably one of the first sports ever besides hunting games (for men/boys that is).
It isn’t that vestigial. You’re just living in a privileged society.
This is literally what is meant by boys will be boys lol
Exactly, it’s this and the urge to put a leaf blower up against a merry go round to make it go faster
Its one of the few ways boys have to express physical affection in western culture.
This is it exactly. When I was in high school, me and all of my friends put each other in headlocks, smacked each other in the balls, slapped each others asses, punched each other, boxed, and just randomly wrestled each other to the ground. You didn’t do this with anyone you d...
This might actually be the answer. Definitely an aha moment for me.
Bingo! Wrestling, slapping each other, its all conforming to the patriarchal "tough guys don't need affection" stereotype while stealthily circumventing it. Every dog pile and pseudo-assault between buddies is the closest they can come to hugging in public without voiding thei...
This is what happens when recess is taken away from school aged children.
Absolutely
Hmmmm maybe cause they’re teenage boys and we are expecting them to sit still from 8-3pm looking at a board. Source: former teenage boy
There’s a reason the oldest sport in the world is wrestling. People do it, chimps do it, bears do it. I once saw a video of a sun bear landing a near perfect outside trip takedown on a zoo employee. The best thing you can do is tell them there is a time and a place for it.
I think most students aren’t active enough in their daily lives and this is a consequence of it
A friend once referred to such behavior as "senseless antler clacking." He was correct.
As a guy, Idk yeah. I like wrasslin. I don't really know how to explain it and even if I did, you'd probably look at me and ask, "why."
This is the problem with education on a whole. Trying to deny tens of thousands of years of human evolution because we built a box and put a few dozen desks in it.
Who knows man. I coach wrestling, so I often suggest it to boys who can’t seem to keep their hands off each other. They’re all completely not interested, it baffles my mind. Eight times out of ten I get “no that’s gay” as a response
As a dude who played water polo, lemme tell you our sport was way more homoerotic than wrestling. That said... my husband wrestled in high school so... six of one, half dozen of the other I guess.
Probably the outfits. I suggest pro wrestling style speedos to keep it more hetero.
I don’t think there is a high chance they get hurt but the bigger issue is boys need to learn that there is a time and place for certain behaviors. It is disruptive and has no place in a classroom. Too often we let boys get away with it because that is what boys do. I mean y...
Nobody is saying it's "fine." We're saying it's typical. Of course they need to learn, but learning to control natural impulses comes from experience. Experience often requires monotonous repetition.
"There is a time and a place", yet we provide zero time and no acceptable places.
Because it’s fun and is completely developmentally appropriate (I do understand how annoying it is during class time though.) I just had enough sense to generally not do it in class. Time and place and impulse control, and I do think teenage boys are absolutely capable of it. ...
It's a way of showing affection without having their sexuality questioned.
OP never had a puppy when they were little
>I genuinely don’t understand the obsession that teenage boys have with play fighting. Dude, *what* are you doing teaching teenage boys if you understand this. Boys *need* to test their competence with each other. It allows boys to gauge their own strength relative to thei...
I enjoyed this response. Thanks!
I say: "Look, I get it. It's not that what you're doing is bad or wrong, it's just not appropriate for school. If you fall over and break your head while I'm nearby, I have to do *so much paperwork.* So, please, just do this after school when it's not my problem, ok?
Weirdly enough, this is what gets through to kids the most. My baseball coach hit me with this response when I punched one of my teammates in high school. He basically said, 'I get it, he was being a dick. But don't make it my problem." That made sense to me as a teenager.
I've learned most times this happens that if you go "hey stop touching each other." And play into it as inappropriate touching and not fighting, they'll get really uncomfortable and stop.
Homophobic shaming isn't cool.
You're a teacher and you don't know this yet, apparently. Teenage boys are raging with testosterone. It is not their fault. This makes them competitive and one result is physical challenges like climbing mountains, exploring the world, and fighting wars. It's totally normal in...
Times seem to be changing, but when I was young boys weren't raised to show affection to each other. IMO wrestling and play fighting with someone is a trust fall spoken out loud. I trust you enough to act like we're fighting and never actually harm me.
Exactly. All littermates and social species engage in this behaviour. It builds competencies and social cohesion. The trust fall aspect is an interesting observation and I think super insightful. It builds and demonstrates trust in one another.
They're man-cubs. Boy or girl, male or female, they are still man-cubs, and like all cubs they need to scrap and tussle and learn themselves that way. Bullying is dysfunctional and not to be borne, but kitten-scrapping is as important a part of growing up as learning to tie on...
Breaking news: boys act like boys during free time. Jokes aside, it’s “free time” yet you want them to “sit the fuck down”… what? And how hurt are you honestly going to get, I got a hundred bumps and knocks and bruises from playing and fighting as a kid and I turned out relat...
Ever see two young male dogs together? It’s all fun and games, and then POW! fur flying everywhere. Samesies.
I usually say “throw hugs, not hands”. They laugh, maybe hug it out, and move on.
Honestly, I just tell them to stop because as a staff member it can be hard to tell when people are messing around versus actually fighting... and I try to not make a big deal out of it.
This is just ignorant. Boys have testosterone and this is how they behave. It’s not always appropriate but it’s as normal as breathing.
What do you think puppies do? This is biology.
So, generally speaking, boys and men are touch starved as a way of showing or feeling affection. That play wrestling is a socially acceptable way of getting physical contact.
This is an appropriate time for the saying "boys will be boys". I did the same as a kid as did my dad and I'm sure my grandfather did. I have to imagine it's one of those "primitive brain" leftover forms of "combat as play".
‘Twas ever thus.
This has been going on since the earth began spinning.
This is biological, please have some understanding
We are animals. It’s how you learn to fight for real.
Wait till they are drinking age and sparring in the back yard drunk. I ended up dislocating my buddy's arm once. He popped it back into play on the door frame. Absolutely not the right way to do that by the way. No harm no foul.
We weren't of legal age when we started our backyard brawls, we just had a friend with a "cool mom" who wanted us to at least have a parent who knew where we were and what we were up to rather than us doing it in the deep woods without access to someone who was sober who could...
This is proof of why more boys should join the wrestling team.
It’s just a dude thing, it’s not that deep
The most normal thing ever
It's in our/their nature. I'm not even an aggressive person but soon as my kid wants to wrestle we are throwing hands and he's hitting the couch cushions as hard as I can without hurting him. Bloody knuckles and hot hands were also very popular to play when I was a teen. It ...
Do you ask why every other young animal does the exact same thing?
Its almost like it’s something most male mammals do as a part of growing up.
I feel like of all complaints, this one is a shaking-fist-at-cloud moment. Energetic boys have been playfighting since we had boys to fight.
I swear it’s cuteness aggression. They love each other so much they want to squeeze each other
Tale as old as time. Watch nature documentaries and you see it there too. Adolescents play fight to simulate real fighting to prepare for adult hood.
Any old person on here remember "bag tag"? Some things never end.
Damn, I cringed just reading that.
It's developmental actually. It's still our job to teach behaviour norms and control, but there's a social-biological aspect for sure. Still irritating as hell though. They break all my shit, despite me being on their asses.
... just teenage boys? My best friend in college became my best friend cause he put me in a garbage can when I wouldn't give him back his hacky sack. We're still pals twenty years later. "Guys, thumb wars or after school." is a good line to keep it contained.
Your at the exact age that your body is telling you that only if I’m seen as strong and socially high ranking will I get to have sex. Play-fighting and pushing the limits of it is a way to assert dominance . Its just biology in action and it makes us uncomfortable because its...
As a former teenage but autistic male, I never understood. It was one of the things that made me stay away from the teenage socializing.
It's instinct and testosterone. It has a purpose just like little kids playing builds their skills. I'm no expert, but maybe it teaches boundaries. For as much as we know about human behavior, it seems like it's not taken into account in modern schools.
I always tell them, 9 times out of 10, it'll get serious and end up a real fight. They say, "Oh no, he's my friend! Yada, yada, yada!" Then they're in the office- blaming each other!! They always make it weird, STAHPPPPP!! 😒😂🤣😆
Because its fun as hell. I'm 38 years old and dont pay flight anymore but I wish I could. Its just like the urge to jump up and touch the top of the door. Or fake play basketball like I'm Iverson. I'm old as hell so I dont do it anymore. As for why I had the obsession as a ...
As I say a thousand times a year, there is a time and place for that, and this is neither the time nor the place.
Reading all these comments talking about how this is developmentally appropriate, a self-evident biological expression, and just how things are, has me confused. I never did this as a teen. Maybe it's because I'm an only child? I never once felt the desire to tackle a friend...
How else will the children learn to hunt?
They’re humans with varied levels of tolerance to the hormones their bodies are producing. We get concerned about the behavioral changes of 40 year old accountants who raise their testosterone to a lower level. You should honestly appreciate that they’re play fighting. Offer t...
Whats wrong with getting hurt?
boys playfight for the same reason that dogs and cats do. it is part of exploring their changing bodies and establishing a social hierarchy. please let boys playfight on occasion. as long as it stays playful, it is a natural part of their developmental process.
It’s basic biology. The real issue is that kids have lost free time and recess, in favor of more common core bullshit that does nothing for them outside of making the school look better. It’s one of the major reasons why boys are lagging behind girls IMO.
lol my guy friend group in middle school and high school used to aggressively shoulder bump each other in the hallways when we passed. Idk why but it was a lot of fun. Thanks for the nostalgia.
And people in this sub still think that the educational system doesn't have a problem with boys. We playfought because it made us happy and is a crucial male bonding ritual. Finding out that it makes some harpy teacher who needs to mind her own business mad would've encourag...
You must be a women. And a karen at that.
I feel you. Alllllll the damn time I'm asking them to keep their hands to themselves.
And people wonder why boys don't like school. "You're doing something that has a .03% chance of resulting in serious injury! Sit the fuck down and sit still! Read like all the girls do!" Boys have a shitload of energy. Getting testosterone pumped into your body like you'r...
This and the annoying tiktok dances !! Like just stand still for 5 seconds how hard can it be
My dad called this “grab ass” “stop playing grab ass” I can hear him yelling it now😂😂
I think it’s like a tribal evolutionary kind of thing.
It aint fake
Cubs gotta cub
The masculine urge to list your best friend above your head like a barbarian.
It’s a guy thing. Part of it is male bonding, part of it is athletic competition, part of it is learning and improving your self defense skills. We male teachers still tell them to stop it we understand. Kind of like all of the girls constantly cooking up drama.
It's not appropriate at school but its very healthy. A lot of genuinely important social learning happens when kids roughhouse.
When will children stop acting like children? Maybe we can push more medication upon them and get them acting more like the drones that corporations require.
Do you literally not understand? Or do you mean to say that it's infuriating?
It's mostly boys who haven't had a proper education and reinforcement of appropriate behavior in different places. There's a reason the same boys who fight and roughhouse in the hallway or in your class can also go on the sports field and follow a whole host of rules (whethe...
I know people with proper educations who liked fighting, it's just something some people like, and some people like it much more
No rules are going to stop the natural response to hormones.
Teens? The kinders do this too. It. Doesn't. Ever. Stop. -_-
I'm a teen boy myself but I have no idea eitherl I don't even do it, and I have o idea why others do
They are bear cubs. Mine is why are boys touching others all the time?
This is an American/western thing. I lived in Thailand/India/China for a decade and taught in k-12 schools. Guys DO touch each other—they drape their arms around each other, hold hands and sit in each other’s laps. And they’re not (usually) gay. People need physical touch. If ...
My school considers it all real fighting and punished it as such. That “friendly fade” where you and your buddy were “slap boxing” is a 10 day suspension. 5 out of school, 5 in the ISS room. After the 4th or 5th pair they made an announcement about it.
it's fun
It's evolutionary. You've got to practice fighting so you know your limits. You need to know what size of person you could reasonably defend yourself against and who you should run and hide from.
I don't find that it's a majority of boys, less than a quarter of them. And about the same number of girls. But it's freaking annoying when they do it at inappropriate times or ways. It's ALWAYS the same boys going on about other, quieter boys being "gay." And it can escalate,...
Much better to fake fight in a classroom rather than fight for real in a bathroom.
Yeah, boys love to touch each other. I work with elementary schoolers and it’s the same. Play wrestling or just poking , slapping ,grabbing each other they love it. I don’t know what it is.
Remember in the 90s when we would 3D (WWE wrestling move for rhe nerds) our classmates into a table during lunch!
So. This reminds me of a conversation I had with one of my aunts a couple of years ago. She made her name as a teacher, had kids of her own, and now provides important support with the grandkids as well. She has dealt with a lot of children. Fantastic at creating and maintaini...
I’m guessing OP is female…but yes, your point is valid.
Im almost 37 years old and consider myself to be fairly mature but my dog routinely gets hit with a stone cold stunner or a peoples elbow. Its just in our souls.
I’m way unqualified to speak on this but my understanding is that physical play releases oxytocin at a comparably rapid rate, it’s part of the reason why males who traditionally spend less time with their kids engage in the roughhousing more often. Essentially they need to “ma...
The last time I playfought with my friends I was like 28. It’s fun to fight each other and use your body a bit, and it’s a bonding thing as much as anything else. I’ve fought most of my friends (for fun). Might seem a bit macho (I am not macho at all) but I think boys shoul...
Was once one of these boys. Its the way young men henpeck. And also has some gender attitude enforcement functions that sociologists have written more extensively on. Its of course not gender exclusive, but a more common method of social "checking" that happens constantly ...
Testosterone increases skin sensitivity and muscle fatigue sensitivity. Literally they're kinda itching to feel deep pressure, high vestibular input and impact. Reason football is so popular, you get smacked, get to flip and be thrown sometimes, praised for it. Their body need...
This has been the case since the dawn of time..
For the same reason any animal plays at all. Play is a form of practice differant types of plays practice differant things. Play fighting is no differant. It will teach balance, coordination, getting hit, hitting, stopping, and a host of other things. This mechanism is a...
When I see my students doing that it always makes me think of puppies.
Kids are full of energy and need to be able to be kids. They have way less opportunities than ever to rough house, play, get into scraps, be outside, stay active. Watch a movie about kids from the 80s and you'll see what theyre missing. Then adults go and say "why are kids on...
Yeah when I was that age I never understood why boys did it. I always found it weird, and I'm a guy.
This was more common in the lower grades in my experience. It becomes actual fighting in later years, but perhaps they are maintaining the play fighting from boyhood into later years due to overall less maturity across the board. Lots of animals do this kind of thing, male gor...
Animal nature. Male dogs do the same thing.
Probably bottled up energy from sitting and doing a whole lot of nothing. I know when I was younger, I'd get so bored out of my mind listening to my teacher drone on and on, and have to sit and be quiet, that I just needed to do something, anything to break up the bored monoto...
One of my cousins made a fortune fake fighting for a living. Started in the 80’s. My brother would be in on it too. They would do this for hours! Body slams in the pool. No peace for me, the only girl!
Fake fighting can lead to injuries and real fighting. In our school, it was banned.
They can't stop touching each other. Or shut up.
Annoying. However… nature… and it’s spring. “Aww they are hugging” is my equivalent to throwing cold water on them.
nah that's nothing we want striking
It’s an incredibly natural and evolutionarily necessary part of Mae adolescence. At what point in human history have young men full of energy been made to sit still all day with hardly any physical activity? Sports and physical education were supposed to provide this, but t...
I was oblivious to this when I was their age too so it’s extra weird to me
lol hormones. I dont get why everyone didn’t wrestle around all the time.
Aye man we was doing 15s in the bathroom when we was kids. Slapboxing also so this nothing new and will never change lol
Spent all my adolescence and teens sparring with friends because we all learned martial arts. Its just something innate with males tbh.
Part of their neurodevelopment, kinda like how puppies have to play with each other so they have better social skills as adults.
35 and I still do it and I also train in martial arts
I'm assuming you are not a science teacher. It's one of the effects of testosterone, as a former teenager, we all had the urge to compete and test our strength with each other. It's really healthy if done properly, I remember it used to feel great, testing how someone's str...
I’m in my 30s and a millennial. But I don’t recall at all play fighting like the kids do today. I teach middle school and I see it literally every single day. But when I was younger I never saw it
What's there not to get? Play fighting is fun. I'm a grown woman and even I enjoy fighting. I was always play fighting as a kid. Now I do martial arts and get to fight for real. I'll randomly start play fighting with members of my family all the time.
Its completely natural and even healthy for boys. I teach them that in class, it's unacceptable, and to keep the horsing around for outside.
I'm a nearly 40 year old blue collar worker and me and my homies still play fight all the time.
American children are becoming touch starved. It's a real thing that can absolutely destroy human development we learned about due to some horrific orphanages. Trying to create punishment around touching is going to accelerate this problem. I thought childhood development clas...
I always tell them I’ve seen play fighting go to real fighting in 2.1 seconds. “Oh nah… stop it miss, you’re just saying that!”
I was a total nerd in high school I still ended up breaking my fist 40 years ago play fighting. It was a total accident and nobody else's fault. He was a friend before and after. It's just part of being a teen guy I guess. At least for some guys.
I’m a mom who grew up wrestling and now roughhouse with my kid. It’s nice to be able to play fight with people you know it’s unlikely to turn into an actual fight with. It’s also exercise and mental stimulation because you have all these inputs and have to think quick. It also...
Fighting for fun, is fun. Source i was once a teen boy myself and I have been drop kicked off a trampoline :)
Often have to stop myself from making comments about boys need to touch each other. Or look at each other or stand near each other. All in the way, that when i was at school, I would with a girl i fancied.
As a former teen male…I can’t explain it. But the urge was always there.
I ask them "why are ya'll touching on each other" and they generally stop LOLLLLL
It’s ingrained in their DNA actually. Also because of their testosterone surge at this age.
I teach 8th grade, and yep. I can give them about a 3-minute break midclass (we teach blocks) and that’s it. Any longer and it goes off the rails.
Because they are Labrador puppies learning how to operate their new weird giant bodies
Pretty sure it’s called testosterone
Play fighting is one of the purest and awesome things a pubescent primate can do. It’s soooo good for them.
We're animals. Watch the behavior of any teen\* male mammals that live in social groups and you will see play fighting. School rules are a meager weapon against evolutionary biology. Same reason abstinence only sex ed leads to more pregnancy. \*developmentally teenaged......
They just want to hug.
Maybe you can take advantage of the situation. If they keep fighting, then you can really get them into trouble.
One of my friends got married last June. As day turned into night, things got chaotic and we all decided we're going to wrestle and box. It's a lot of fun and hearing everyones respective partners cheering us on was funny. We're all 30 years old and have careers. Fun fact, we...
It's normal boy behaviour for most mammals.
It’s simply the human need for touch
I remember my school had a fight club
Puppies, kittens, gorillas - most carnivore and omnivore mammal species seem to play fight as young. Instead of trying to tamp it down, redirect it into safe channels like sports.
Play fighting is engrained into our dna.
I agree. Why do they need to touch each other so much in general?
Its because your not allowed to hit kids anymore.
They never do it without an audience present. It's all posturing.
Ya know, because sitting in school all day is confining and boring and some of us have lots of energy and need more physical stimulation. I say this as a one of the boys who are talking about who now has a PhD in education
yo teach, its biology
Left over monkey brain stuff.
We desperately need more male teachers
man these fish are too damn wet
As a former teenage male, it's because it's fun! Hell, I'm 38 and I still play fight, only now it's with my nieces and nephew (one is 6 and the other is 11). They love it and will, more often than not, initiate it with a drop kick to my arm (on the sofa). It's a fun, relati...