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QMy husband is a good father except for one thing. He comes home from work, and the first thing he does is chase our 2-year-old son around and around the house, letting him get away for a few times.

When he catches him, he says "I won!" and proceeds to tickle my son unmercifully. My husband holds our son down and he, of course, starts laughing at being tickled but he ends up screaming.

My husband calls this a game, but when our son screams and cries, I think he is being abused. My husband scoffs at me and says I am overreacting to the horseplay that all boys do.

AThere are two classic ways that fathers play too roughly with their children. One is repeatedly tossing a young baby into the air, and the second is tickling a child way past the point of enjoyment and often to the point of tears.

Why do fathers over-toss and over-tickle? Some fathers are especially rough with sons because they want to toughen them up. The father thinks roughhousing keeps his son from growing up to be a sissy. Some fathers simply do not know much about babies and young children, especially how they let us know they have had enough play.

Observation tells us that fathers and mothers tend to play with babies differently. Mothers typically are more gentle with babies. They hold the baby face-to-face and talk to the baby. Fathers are more likely to play games that involve physical activity and play more energetically.

We don't really know whether this difference in play is instinctive or is related to the way fathers and mothers were themselves raised. But we do know that babies need both kinds of stimulation.

And babies have a built-in way of telling us when they have had enough of either kind of stimulation. Even very young babies will turn their heads away when they no longer want interaction with the caregiver. Gaze aversion is the first line of defense babies use when they have had too much stimulation. If this doesn't work, the baby will get irritable, start squirming and finally cry.

Wise parents learn to read their babies' signals. Mothers usually catch on to these signals more quickly than fathers do because they spend more time with the baby and do most of the feeding.

Mothers instinctively jiggle a sleepy baby at the breast. Mothers coordinate the jiggling to the baby's alertness, and the baby reciprocates by reacting to the jiggling. Together, mother and infant learn a dance of interaction that is different for each mother-baby pair. Fathers can and do learn this dance, although it may take them longer.

If the father doesn't pick up signals that the baby has had enough when the two are playing, the mother has another task. She must gently show the father how the baby has his or her own way of saying, "That's all the tossing I want right now, Pop!" She can also suggest that the father read a bit about the early life of babies and watch how other fathers play with young babies.

Mothers must be tactful, not critical, because many fathers feel timid about being near babies and may go into avoidance mode if they think they have made a mistake or can't be trusted with the baby.

What about the father described in today's letter? I get a mixed message. It sounds as though he really wants and enjoys the one-on-one with his son. It's the first thing he does when he comes home.

But he likely enjoys both "winning" and controlling his son. I don't think your husband is guilty of abuse (although I have seen roughhousing turn into abuse), but he definitely is guilty of being indifferent to his son's signals.

This misguided indifference has two downstream consequences. Your son will get to the point where he is conflicted. He loves his dad and wants his attention, but he eventually may avoid him so he won't feel helpless and hurt. He may want to spend more time with Mommy, so Dad's ploy to toughen up his son may actually backfire. Plus he is a boy, and boys learn a lot from their dads about how to treat people smaller than they are. Neither parent wants to see the son mistreat kids in a play group or at preschool.

All your husband has to do is learn ways of interacting with his toddler that they both enjoy. He can read to his son, they can sing songs together, build block towers, play ball with those really soft balls, and even run races where he lets his son win and tickle him!

Show your husband this column. I have great faith in today's fathers who make an effort to have a good and close relationship with their children. All they need is a little guidance sometimes (and wives who don't criticize or laugh at their husbands' initial attempts at participatory fatherhood).