You know that line that separates the sensible protections of our children from the absolutely insane, our kids should walk around in armored bubbles, protections? Well it has been crossed in a BIG way.
Officials at an elementary school south of Boston have banned kids from playing tag, touch football and any other unsupervised chase game during recess for fear they’ll get hurt and hold the school liable.
Recess is “a time when accidents can happen,” said Willett Elementary School Principal Gaylene Heppe, who approved the ban.
Are you KIDDING? TAG?!?!?!? You ban a childhood game played since we crawled out of the ocean because someone might fall down and scrape their knee? Is it any wonder that our children are obese? I can see it now – recess will be a time when you sit outdoors and do…. nothing. Except gain weight.
Some parents are just as incredulous as I am, but it doesn’t seem to have mattered much.
“I think that it’s unfortunate that kids’ lives are micromanaged and there are social skills they’ll never develop on their own,” said Debbie Laferriere, who has two children at Willett, about 40 miles south of Boston. “Playing tag is just part of being a kid.”
So is playing any other type of game or sport. Accidents happen. Kids get hurt which is a terrible thing. But at what point do we say enough is enough? Are we really willing to ban activities millions of kids love in order to prevent a handful of injuries? That may sound crass when talking about kids because any kid that is hurt is a tragedy. However, when we stop being rational about things, we lose something. Like childhood games.
And just to be clear – I partially blame our lawsuit happy society for this along with the over protective parents and school administrators since you know this grew out of some lawsuit somewhere where a school got sued because Johnny fell down and broke his arm playing tag.
How sad. And this is coming from a kid who usually got plastered during dodge-ball. It was still fun trying to out fox the jocks throwing the balls at Mach 3. My kids play soccer, football, tag, and many other games during recess. I can’t imagine how bored and hyper they would be in class in the afternoons if they didn’t.
October 19th, 2006 at 8:42 am
[…] However, critics such as On the Pitch argue: Accidents happen. Kids get hurt which is a terrible thing. But at what point do we say enough is enough? Are we really willing to ban activities millions of kids love in order to prevent a handful of injuries? That may sound crass when talking about kids because any kid that is hurt is a tragedy. However, when we stop being rational about things, we lose something. Like childhood games. […]
October 21st, 2006 at 2:32 am
Unbelievable as it sounds, our district has a district-wide ban on chasing games…also, I had to testify in a hearing where a little boy was chasing a girl, and knocked her down, then pulled down her panties. They were kindergarteners! I hate the thought that our kids are working so hard in the classroom, and then are also going to be controlled during their recess time…why do they think childhood obesity is such a problem? Maybe they could just go and sit in the library and do some nice safe reading during recess-oh, wait, someone might get their finger slammed in the book.
October 21st, 2006 at 6:25 am
It has gotten completely out of hand. The kids are so regimented (Gotta teach that test!) that recess has become almost the only ‘free thinking’ time they have. As for the kindergarteners – I’ll never forget when we got a call from the school because my daughter had held one of the little boys hands or something on the playground. They thought it was ‘inappropriate’. I almost lost it.
And I don’t just blame the districts because much of this is pushed by parents who think their kids are going to be in some bubble while they’re at school. Safety of our kids is very important but when did we lose our common sense?
October 31st, 2012 at 6:12 pm
[…] critics such as On the Pitch argue: Accidents happen. Kids get hurt which is a terrible thing. But at what point do we say […]