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School Bans 'Tag'
GillBates0 writes "CNN is carrying a story about a school in Boston which has 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. According to the article, some elementary schools in other states have similarly banned "unsupervised contact sports". A parent was quoted as saying that her son feels safer now and that she'd witnessed enough 'near collisions.'" See, it's not just dangerous virtual games that are harmful to children!
..generalizations, I do. But I have a 2.75 yo son and I take him to the playground 3-4 days per week (his mom, the rest of the time). There's a fairly significant divide between how men and women treat their children at the playground. Dads tend to hang back, contributing support and help as kids need them (and to be sure, too many fathers hang on the park bench the whole time and can't be bothered to participate at all). Mom's hover, ensuring the kid never suffers a risky moment.
Those kids tend to have less certain notions of what's possible, what isn't, and what's just plain stupid. Some of those kids certainly got it in the nature-equation - meaning those parents may, in fact, have some reason to be fearful. Plenty of other kids are developing much shallower skills with respect to falling and not falling.
So, to wrap up with another generalization, it's more likely a mother would feel relieved at this ridiculous development than a father.
How the hell can any school know so little about children but have them for so long..
It's much the same in the UK, and I'll bet there's the dank and clammy hand of the insurance industry behind this. To be fair, schools are probably wistfully nostalgic of the days when they could spend money on books and stuff, rather than having to shell out for lawyers every time some chancer with a bruised kid hires a shyster. This sort of initiative is probabably a desperate attempt to reclaim those halcyon days, regardless of how ridiculous it looks. They'll lose, naturally, but democracy seems to involve letting insurance companies dictate the rules of acceptable behaviour. In theory, this should be left to legislators, but they've got less money and don't seem able to hire the talent.
Hey, tag is a dangerous game. Just think, CHILDREN ARE TOUCHING EACH OTHER!!11ONE1one1! The next thing you know they will be screwing each other like rabbits in the playgrounds!
Ok, kidding aside, I actually did manage to end up with stitches in my eyebrow from a game of tag when I was young. I went for one of those high speed turns where you grab a pole and whip around, and another pole ran right out in front of me. The last thing I recall was seeing the school upside down, sometime after that I woke up on a couch in the office. I ended up with several stitches in my left eyebrow. (Is it just me or does the needle they use to do that look awfully similar to a fishhook?)
So, would I stop kids from playing tag because they might hurt themselves? HELL NO. It's a ton of fun, it gets kids out and running. Which, when you consider all of the health risks of kids being obese, I'll take the trade off of one or two of them getting knocked cold now and again. Also, any parent who sues over this sort of thing should be taken out and shot. Kids are going to run around and play, they are going to fall and get cuts, bruises, they will require stitches and they will break the occasional bone. This is why you have health insurance, to keep those occurances from breaking the bank. Use it as a teaching opportunity to explain why you need to be careful and GET OVER IT!
Necessity is the mother of invention.
Laziness is the father.
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I hear that. If I have kids, I'm gonna make sure there tough as nails. "Whats that? You dont like green beans? Well I guess you dont want dinner tonight. Oh you want them now? Timmy wanted them.... there gone now." They'll never complain about anything. Ever.
Most people aren't thought about after they're gone. "I wonder where Rob got the plutonium" is better than most get.
You guys have nothing on California. A local school here has a "peaceful playground," which doesn't allow competitive playing or running of any sort.