Search the ArchivesNavigation Contact InformationThe Citizen Newspapers For Advertising Information Email us your news! For technical difficulties |
On a school banning a kids’ game It hit the papers last week that a school in Massachusetts banned the game tag from recess. As I read the story, I thought, why couldn’t this have happened somewhere like Delaware. It embarrasses me that this happened in my native state. I couldn’t believe what I was reading at first and then, upon further review, I could definitely believe it. This is just the latest in a war on childhood, a war that featured a salvo against dodgeball several years ago. I want to be sure I phrase this next part correctly, so that my point is abundantly clear. Stop! Just stop! Stop being such wusses! Stop raising bigger wusses! Stop worrying about frivolous law suits and if you are a lawyer that has ever sued a school over a game of “Tag,” take a long walk off of a short pier. This namby-pambification of children has gone far enough and it is up to us, the current parents, to put an end to this insanity. We need to remember that we made it through childhood just fine, despite the bumps, bruises, skinned knees and other random boo-boos that came from playing on the playground. “Recess is a time when accidents can happen,” said Willett Elementary School Principal Gaylene Heppe. Well, duh. Anytime you put even two kids anywhere an accident can happen. My son, Colin, who is 18 months old next Sunday, walked into a sliding door on our recent vacation. Full speed ahead and smackaroo. I saw it coming but was a few steps too far away to stop him. This came minutes after he fell from a slightly elevated seating platform in a hotel lobby. And I was right there in front of him. Upon our return, Colin fell at a theater meeting and cut his lip and got a tiny rug burn under his nose. These things happen. He cried for a grand total of two minutes from all three of these accidents and it didn’t stop him from taking off running once we put him down again. In addition to tag, Heppe also banned touch football from recess and any other “unsupervised chase games.” I’m afraid that Heppe will soon find that kids can get hurt by playing anything, and even house can become an unsupervised chase game to a group of 8-year-olds. Soon there will be a no-frolicking rule on the playground. Heppe will then have to ban mirthful joy and blissful glee, too. I admit that I freaked out when I saw the blood on Colin’s shirt after he bit his lip. It was the first time in his young life that he has bled and it was scary. I will not wrap him in bubble wrap, though, to protect him. He won’t live in a bubble and I will never discourage him from running around and enjoying his childhood. Heck, we try to find a way for him to run around every night. It wears him out and helps him sleep well. All I can do is tell him to slow down and be careful. I’ve said that to him more times in the last six months than I ever thought possible, and I’m planning on having to say it for the rest of my life. I encourage Heppe to suck it up and have the recess monitors say the same thing to all the children at her school during recess. Yes, they’ll have to say it over and over and, yes, kids will disregard it and fall anyway, but falling is a part of childhood. The lesson we all learn from falling is to get back up. The same goes for what happens in those impromptu touch football games. Some people also argue that touch football causes arguments and problems on the playground, but the disagreements that get resolved on the playground by the children are their first lessons in compromise and conflict resolution. Disagreements over who scored a touchdown and who didn’t tend to blow over very quickly, especially when the kids know there will be another game tomorrow. I’m new to the parenting game and I now understand the tremendous amount of fear for your child’s safety that comes with the package, but I also know that I want my child to have a childhood that was as secure and happy as mine was. Even more so, if possible, and I played games in school like “kill the man with the ball,” which was basically rugby on a paved basketball court, and the finger-spraining game that is Red Rover. I ran my bike into a telephone pole while learning to ride (I’m surprised I was still able to have children) and I fractured my wrist learning how to skateboard. I got the wind knocked out of me playing soccer on more than one occasion and my friend and I got into several wrestling matches and fights over basketball games, video games, backyard football games, horseplay in a pool and eventually even girls. We are still best friends today, 21 years after we met. I hold none of those fights against him today. I hope that Colin gets to enjoy all the same things I did and it would be great if he could avoid ever getting injured, but that is just not going to happen. We do no favors for our children by clearing any and all obstacles out of their way. We need to be concerned for their safety and we need to be assured that the other people who watch out for them in life are concerned as well, but they need to be able to grow up without constant interference or hovering over them. They must learn to pick themselves back up when they fall, and if we do our jobs right, they will know that they have a safe place to come to afterwards, where the people they love can kiss their boo-boos and make them feel better. login to post comments | Michael Boylan's blog
|
Copyright 2010 - Fayette Publishing, Inc. | Privacy Policy | Terms of Use Policy
Server 4
