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Generally children are adventurous by nature and they learn through exercising adventures. Also children are naturally injudicious (‘Oporinamdorshi’ in Bangla). They are unaware about dangers in play but never willing to be hurt! Then, why should we deprive them from enjoying superhero plays and limit the scope of learning various skills and developing them? It is our role to guide and support children even in a dangerously dangerous play if they like that. We should not stop a man trying to catch a running bus, but support him in learning the balancing skills.

Don't get me started.......
An ongoing controversy, esp. the gun, sword, weapon thing.
It's a hard call, being a synagogue preschool where we promote peace.
I think we can consider the differences btw. imitative play vs. imaginary play.
Kids don't understand "You're dead", thinking you can also come back to life
whenever.
POWER is a big DAP issue, how does it fit in, how do we redirect or guide this in a
positive way.
Also, as far as "BIG BODY" play, setting limits, a safe zone, who wants to play, who doesn't and respecting this.

I am in total agreement that superhero play has both boy and girl models and can be refocused and emerged into an excellent curriculum model wherein children identify their powers and create stories, drawings, and dramatic scenarios that reflect their ideas. Within this curriculum, the teacher is always present to guide, refocus, restate rules of behavior, and celebrate each child's creativity and passion.

Acknowledging that superhero play evokes a person's need to belong to a group, be powerful (in action and words), work within guidelines, create a dramatic character, and act out feelings and issues, I am more surprised that schools do not eagerly embrace this curriculum rather than denying it.

It is unfortunate when early childhood programs "ban" things. Each moment of behavior the children are giving the teachers insight into what their needs are. Superhero play indicates the need for the children to feel powerful, which usually tells us they are not feeling powerful in their own lives. The teachers could look for new tasks in the classroom that give the children the power of decision-making and helping out in the environment. Especially if he/she knows which children spend a great deal of time engaged in superhero play. If he/she has a partnership with the parents then let the parents know and encourage them to give the child more power over some of the decisions in their life and acknowledge them as competent.

Redirecting destructive play into constructive play is another option. Wrestling is the type of play boys often do with their fathers. It is active play and indicates a need for active play with the authority figures in the life. I do not know enough about this situation to respond directly to it, but if the children involved come from single parent mother head of household homes, its time to engage men in the family with the child or seek a big brother.

Banning anything is a sign that the administration of the preschool had given up seeking solutions to the problem and chose a blanket solution that is not a solution at all and does not meet the needs of the children in the program.

Christine Webster
Child and Family Specialist
Early Childhood Educator

This provocative statement made me ask the question what are the teachers in the early childhood centre there for, if it is not to work with children on the things they are interested in. I think the deeper question to ask is why are the children engaging in superhero play.
The questions that I feel are left unanswered are: Why are the teachers challenged by aggressive play? What else have they done about it?

These have been some extremely thoughtful posts. I have thoroughly enjoyed reading them. I hope that perhaps Exchange might consider devoting an issue (maybe several issues) to the relationships between play, gender, media, the lack of gender equity in the ECE profession, outcomes for boys, the expressions of touch, power and play in American childhood...

While banning superhero play in preschool is actually not as uncommon as this article might lead one to believe, it is still a problematic answer to a complex issue. No doubt fueled by media influences, Superhero play nevertheless is an important part of childhood expression - particularly for boys. I agree wholeheartedly that parents have a responsibility to monitor their child's exposure to media. But a ban on superhero play is a misguided attempt at a solution. A sample of my many thoughts follow:
1. Banning Superhero play reflects in part the highly gendered nature of early childhood education appropriate practice (The profession is dominated by women at virtually all levels, the possible exceptions being vendors, maintenance/housekeeping and transportation). The sort of rough, noisy, active, physical play typically involved in Superhero play is traditionally more associated with male behavior. With a paltry 2-3% of the preschool/kindergarten teaching profession made up of men, the masculine perspective is often times absent from considerations involving appropriate practice, best practice, program philosophy and the like.
2. Superhero play is often the entry point for boys initial attempts at socialization in new environments. Along with gun play, rough-housing, ball sports and sensory play - Superhero play is the vehicle through which boys invite others to play. Absent such activities, boys enter an alien landscape when they arrive at preschool. No running, no shouting, no rough play, no jumping, no climbing, no risk, no daring, no scary stories... play with the balls safely, ride the trikes carefully in one direction, don't build the block tower too high...
3. This bias against the culture of boys extends through much of the elementary grades, with increasing limits on recess, reductions in attention, thoughtfulness and funds given to physical education, and the increasing focus on academic attainment at ever earlier ages. Boys, typically slower than girls to develop verbal communication proficiency are immediately dropped into an environment stacked against their propensities, whether these might be natural or socialized.
4. American culture is less touch-oriented than many if not most of the world's cultures. The culture of American maleness is even more touch-limited. Indeed, male touch is often most socially approved through contact related to sports, physical play, and the like. Superhero play provides boys with critical opportunities to touch in ways that are generally approved (at least outside of the early childhood setting). By limiting Superhero play, rough-housing (big body play), wrestling and similar highly physical modes of expression - we place significant limits upon opportunities for socialization and communication that boys favor.
5. The meaning of Superhero play to a young child is not remotely like what older children and adults experience through the Superheroes. To a young child in an unfamiliar setting with new peers and new adult caregivers - Superhero play can provide an anchor of safety, an expression of power, a bridge between his familiar culture of "boyness" and this new place. It is the same expression of power that girls may find in their princess role play, their dramatic play and their well developed language and fine motor skills.

I am a firm proponent of limiting media in the lives of young children. However, I believe that we confound our understanding of the meaning of Superhero play in the lives of young children when we view it through adult, predominantly female, eyes. I fully appreciate that I have tossed around a number of crude generalizations. And yet, I was once a boy. I was an imaginary cowboy even though I was afraid of horses. I shouted along to the POW and BLAM on those early televised Batman episodes. I fought with stick-swords and through dirt clods. I grew up to be a vegetarian, poetry writing, preschool teacher who is still, simultaneously and sometimes conflicted-ly firmly entrenched in traditional expressions of masculinity. Childhood is a complex and difficult but hopefully joyful period of one's life. We must be mindful not to ruin it - even through our best intentions.

NIce quote-here's another take on nice guys and how they finish in the race --
"It's not that nice guys/girls finish last, it's that they are in a different race." wish I knew the author to give credit.

Banning superhero play will simply force rough and tumble play underground. It makes more sense to take the play outdoors, establish guidelines for children so they know who is and is not playing, identify safe zones as well as specific areas for play. Since they mentioned 'in the classroom', I suspect that there is a problem with running in a small space.

Rough and tumble play is useful as dominance is established and there is less fighting later. Children (and other primates) engage in R & T whether it is proscribed or not. It is simply a matter of when and where...not if. This is much safer if it is closely supervised instead of becoming part of the illicit play pattern.

I loved the way we built on this issue at Pound House Children's Center in the '70s-80s - BE YOUR OWN SUPERHERO. I didn't like the stereotyped superhero play, and also I didn't want other kids to have to watch those TV programs so that they could be part of the social group.

In introducing "Be your own superhero," I sat down with small groups of children and took dictation about their individual super characters. They came up with great characters, which they continued to play out and develop over months and years.

The only rule was that the superheroes had to follow Pound House rules. This produced challenging problem solving. For example, you could capture and restrain a bad guy, but you couldn't hurt her or him.

It was fascinating to see how children's characters were projections of their own personalities. The first day, on their way out to the play yard, a Korean boy who was learning English ran by with his arms in the air proclaiming "Bionic dinosaur!" Two best friends hopped by saying "There can be two Super Bunnies Toni, right?" "Right!"

I knew we had it. The principle is How can we support them in playing out their interests in ways that are socially acceptable to us. Remind me to tell you about "Bathroom talk in the bathroom" (-: . Kathy Modigliani

With the full support of our parents and classroom community, we delved into a 4 month project called Good Guys/Bad Guys, and explored this superhero play in depth. It was rampant in the classroom, and rather than to ban it, we embraced and explored it. This play is age old, deeply ingrained in terms of our need to develop important social skills, empathy and reasoning. With careful analysis, planning and curriculum development, became our most important project of the entire year. The threads from this investigation continue to run through the classroom day, and we often refer to this project, it's language and the context as we problem solve and create calm from chaos. From the exploration - "Children in this age group are living in a world of black and white. In order to begin to experience the grays and see the nuances, we believe this type of play is very valuable, and absolutely necessary. Without embodying the bad, it is difficult to internalize the good. Children are developing empathy, morality, and a personal and classroom conscience. Superhero play, the good guys vs. the bad guys, allows children to see a variety of perspectives, take on challenging social roles and see what effect their actions have on others through play. Ultimately, this begins to form their world view and shape their skill as friends, problem solvers and negotiators." If you're interested, the whole note is on out Facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/notes/garden-gate-child-development-center/exploring-power-control-and-conflict-why-superhero-play-is-so-valuable-in-the-cl/510792542264129. I think we have to be brave and thoughtful and meet kids where they are. We need to trust them - their engagement in this play has some value, and to ban it because of our personal level of discomfort denies them what might be a valuable learning experience.

My first reaction--This is ridiculous! I have a seen a super-hero 'lesson' be quite successful with 3-5 year olds. The teachers can certainly channel this type of play into something creative and worthwhile if they tried. I am a director, so I was not active in the planning, however I supported it and saw it work. I know my teachers would be happy to share their success story with anyone that would like to try it. They worked with the children to distinguish 'pretend' super powers (flying like Superman, etc.) with 'real' super powers (helping to set the table, etc.) and each child discovered their real super power, made a book about it, made capes, etc. It really channeled the children's energy into something positive. My high school age son even visited the class dressed as Captain America and told the children that being this character was his pretend super power, but his real super power was helping his sister by picking her up from school each day. It makes me sad to think this school feels like their only option is to ban something rather than trying to find a way to turn it around to be successful for the children.

I run a preschool program and recently sent home a similar letter to our Pre-K parent. Our teachers work hard to teach children children conflict resolution skills that support a positive classroom community. After a year of weekly exposure of positive conflict resolution skills through stories, role playing and activities it was the children who had continuous exposure to characters that use physical responses to conflict who would resort to that method in the classroom to deal with the conflicts with their friends. It was a year of us working pro-actively with the children to practice higher-functioning conflict resolution skills and discussing among ourselves and the parents to come to the decision that "play fighting" is not aligned with our philosophy. A letter went out to parents explaining this and asking for their support in limiting exposure to characters who used physical responses to conflict. As the program in this story stated, their policy came out of desire to address the injuries children were receiving during this play. That was one of our concerns as well, in addition to the fact that most of the children would be moving to elementary school with a no-tolerance policy for any type of "fighting" that leads to injury and that the children who did not have that exposure to play fighting at home were perceiving the invites to play as hostile. Most of our families responded positively to our letter and were thankful that we were addressing what they considered to be an unhealthy experience for their children. While I think that the wording of the above programs letter was unfortunate, their intent was correct.

Staff at the child care center (and others who might agree with their policy) need to read Alison Gopnik's book - The Philosophical Baby (2009) which address brain development from birth through age five. As Frank J Sulloway's review states: it's a "richly provocative and endlessly insightful story that unites the endearing other-worldliness of children's imaginations with some of the oldest and most profound questions in philosophy."

There are so many layers that require reflection in creating a developmentally appropriate position statement on superhero play. Banning the play deprives us of the opportunity to offer support and guidance to parents, educators and children. An alternative would be to embark on a learning journey towards understanding what the attraction of superhero play is to children; offering parents a safe place to explore their values and beliefs and including educators in this important dialogue so that they may share their expertise around boundary-setting and keeping things DAP.

Thank you for bringing us this food for thought.

I agree that some forms of imaginary play are associated with challenging behaviors, but banning the play will not solve the problem. Where ever children gather, we will always have rough play and other issues that fatigue teachers and worry parents. I view the superhero play problem as one of redirection. First, we need to find ways to make the superhero play into a physically and emotionally safe learning experience by helping the children create ground rules and intellectual challenges within these games. Second, we need to provide safe outlets for the rough play, which like imaginary play, is essential to healthy human development. Third, we need to share our rationale with parents, so that they can support it at home. These are hard tasks, but short cuts won't make them easier.

This is a shame as the children need this type of play as an outlet for experimenting with power in their life. Research does not show that there are more injuries during this type of play. The teachers have a responsibility to help guide this play and make sure the children have a 'stop' word when the play have gone to fair.

The same holds true for female's 'power play' which is based on belonging to a group and being shunned because you don't have the correct shoes or the right pink headband. Because the children are not physically hurt in this type of 'power' scenario it goes unnoticed, when actually cutting words and exclusion from a group can hurt much more than physical bumps and bruises. It is more long term as well.

Teachers need to be trained to properly guide all play of children in their care. Not permitting some types of play does not solve the problem of needing power and learning how to regulate it.

GARBAGE IN-GARBAGE OUT!! The kids saw these acts of rough physical contact somewhere and it was not at the Pre-school. The children were acting out the actions of the questionable things shown on TV shows witnessed somewhere. It is sad that the parents have to be advised that children have witnessed super heroes engaged in physical activity that leads to personal injury to children. I am so old we had to be reminded by our parents that do not play Superman and jump off roofs of garages and/or out windows. Once again-where are and what are the parents doing in regards to taking responsibility of raising and teaching their children?

Wow - it's my whole career flashing before my eyes! Star Wars, Ninja Turtles, Spider Man, Power Rangers, He-Man, Star Wars again, Spider Man, Hulk, Batman, Spider Man again. I've had co-workers ban these too. It DOESN'T work.

Better to channel those energies and use this as emergent curriculum. Harness that interest and teach the children the how to analyze their attraction to the superheroes. Talk about problem-solving tactics. Simultaneously, encourage the big body play which the children crave and need. They need to take some risks. They need to learn about boundaries. They need to know about positive touch - how to give it and receive it. (Being a children's yoga teacher, I of course know that active partner yoga can help with that.)

Superheroes, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. Use them in your curriculum!

I think we should re-evaluate classroom management of the teachers. Obviously the program cannot effectively handle what is developmentally appropriate. Use the children's interest to plan activities for a child inspired curriculum.

I would consider waiting to ban! Finding the good in superheros was found during Stonework Play in a museum setting and in future preschools.

At the Providence Children's Museum a group of boys with caps,( looked like from a birthday gathering), were running through this beautiful outside enclosed area where we were doing stonework play and I asked if they want to give 'stonework' a go. The first response, "na, no" I said 'Do you think you could make your heroes out of stone?' As they were running away they ran back. They immediately gathered their stones and created their characters. All of a sudden, Spider-man was replicated and many other heroes. The boys shared their stories of the good their characters were doing, like saving a child from a burning building. It looked like a story board. You can continue with providing paper to draw out their stone stories and then write a story or dictate a story.

I recently conducted a workshop on Stonework Play for Early Childhood Professionals from the Center for Childcare Careers, Family Services from Central MA. These are thoughts of how it could be used.
1. In the class, sensory table, for quiet play to use the strength & calming abilities of stones.
2.As a creative outlet. To help kids learn sharing, spacing & storytelling
3.At rest time, for calming, as a team activity/parent activity
4.Use stone art as a redirection and open manipulate in the classroom
5.This was very useful to experience and I feel certain that I will incorporate the knowledge in my preschool groups.
Please pay attention to #4.
At the end of our session we got together and I asked how they imagine using this experience. They readily brainstormed their concerns with super heros and that they thought stonework could help redirect their children. They shared that stones can be gathered and chosen,
Stones are strong like super heroes and one of a kind like super heroes and thought so many lessons and morals could be explored while making super heroes out of stones. Even the act of sharing stones and borrowing one that you really like from another can make a difference. Once their super hero is made they can place it in cement block and make their super hero as permanent steps at their preschool.

Let the heroes live with a little help from nature that has been here since the beginning of time. Superheroes.. this too will pass.

It strikes me that the problem was not superhero play specifically, but overly rough play. We need to be careful about implementing over-broad policies and instead focus on solving the particular problem at hand. It's a natural tendency to do this - and not just when dealing with children - but it often creates more problems than it solves.

So ridiculous! They may as well ban "going potty" because children are wetting their pants. Children naturally play very roughly with their bodies, and with good reason: this rough play contributes positively to every single aspect of their development and well-being, with research showing that children who did not play roughly are not as smart and socially competent as their rough and tumble counterparts are. Does this play - including superhero play- need supervision, coaching, and modeling from us because young children are still learning and growing in and through their interactions with their peers? Absolutely. Banning wrestling and superhero play is a way to avoid the active supervision needed to promote skill proficiency, the kind of skill proficiency children need to play roughly together in positive and productive ways. Better to train staff in how to implement this play style than ban it.