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Behaviour Expert On 'Good Morning Britain' Argues That Kids Shouldn't Play-Fight

Behaviour Expert On 'Good Morning Britain' Argues That Kids Shouldn't Play-Fight

Lorrine Marer thinks it could influence the way that children interact with strangers

Tom Wood

Tom Wood

Ben Shephard seemed to get pretty riled up on Good Morning Britain today after a discussion with a woman who wants to ban parents from play-fighting with their kids.

The debate was supposed to be between behavioural specialist Lorrine Marer and Al Ferguson from male parenting forum Dadsnet. The two were arguing over whether kids play-fighting with parents influences the way that they interact with strangers.

Lorrine argued: "There are so many ways of bonding with your children other than play-fighting.

"I think kids have difficulties switching off, so here we are in this rough and tumble situation and mum and dad says 'okay that's enough' but he's enjoying it and doesn't want to stop.

"So, he's going to keep going, and suddenly somebody's on their way to the hospital with swollen parts of their body.

"I've seen kids where they come in the house and the boy child runs up thinking play fight and he jumps on that male, who is the visitor, because they think play fighting works [for anyone]."

OK, so she might have a point there. We've all met kids who do exactly that, right?

Well, GMB host Ben Shephard didn't like that one tiny bit. He ranted back at Lorrine, telling her that his two sons - aged 11 and 13 - still love play-fighting against their dad.

Ben Shephard says his kids love play-fighting with him.
ITV/Good Morning Britain

He said: "My boys are 13 and 11 now and last night they were doing their homework, and I said we're having a discussion tomorrow over whether we should ban play-fighting with your dads and they were aghast at the idea of this.

"I said 'what have you learnt then that makes you realise you can't do that then?'.

"They said 'well you've always been very clear about when you say stop we stop, and also we understand we can't go do this with our mates, we do it with you, we do it in an environment that's organised'."

He continued: "Is that not the important point?

"And actually, my boys are 11 and 13, the idea of them not doing it, they said we love it, it's great fun, my 13-year-old is bigger than me now and he still wants to have a play fight, still wants to mess around.

"They say it's a really important thing, but they would never want to overstep the boundaries at all."

Behavioural specialist Lorrine Marer says play-fighting is problematic.
ITV/Good Morning Britain

Again, Shephard makes a fair point. Lorrine responded: "I don't think there's anything wrong with it per se, I'm not looking at you or you, I'm looking at the big picture. At some kids who actually don't know when to stop.

"Some parents who will start the process and after five minutes, say 'okay let's stop'. I'm trying to get the message across that there are so many other things we can do than play fighting."

Obviously, there has been quite a bit of a response from Twitter as well.



Suffice to say, much of the internet seems to be on Ben Shephard's side, despite both parties making some valid points.

Featured Image Credit: ITV/Good Morning Britain

Topics: UK News, TV and Film, TV, UK