The boys were about her age, the adults were upstairs. When Caitlin Crawshaw was 8, she was playing with two brothers from her school in the basement of their grandparents’ house when they began to tickle her. It’s so common there’s a term for it: “tickle torture.” It’s easy to see how tickling can become a form of bullying, or even abuse. When the child is saying ‘Stop’ while laughing, the stop is ignored.” “You’re not tuning in to the whole child. The worst kind of tickling is forceful and continuous, Dr. When we tickle children without their buy-in, we’re teaching them that it’s OK to be touched and to touch others in ways they don’t like. The reflexive laughter can disguise discomfort, and even pain. Lawrence Cohen, Ph.D., author of the book “Playful Parenting,” said that tickling can overwhelm the nervous system and make children feel helpless and out of control. The case against tickling is a strong one. So what do parents need to know? Is there a right way to tickle our kids, and what are the dangers if we get it wrong? How do we tickle without violating boundaries? And should we be tickling at all? Tickling backlash Tickling sends her into fits of delighted giggles. Yet plenty of children, my 3-year-old daughter included, genuinely seem to enjoy it. The idea of unwelcome tickling dates as far back as Socrates, who said it brought more pain than pleasure. Many of us have memories of being tickled in a way that made us feel annoyed, uncomfortable or even violated.
“It felt like there was an unspoken social contract that adults were supposed to tickle kids to make them laugh, and kids were supposed to like being tickled.” “I didn’t like it, but also there was this pressure to like it, so it put me in a weird position,” said Austrew, a freelance journalist who lives in Omaha, Neb. This game, she said, felt “safe, fun and funny.” Tickling was common in Austrew’s family, along with other kinds of roughhousing, such as a game in which her dad would pretend to sleep as she and her two sisters tiptoed around him, and then he’d pop up and playfully grab one of them. More than once, she rolled off the couch and hit her head on the coffee table. He thought they were having fun - the tickling made her laugh, after all - but she dreaded it. When she was a young child, Ashley Austrew’s father would hold her down and tickle her so hard she felt momentarily paralyzed.
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