School Bans Tag, Other Chase Games

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.
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Bolding mine.


I am a noon-duty supervisor at an elementary school and I can understand not letting the kids play tag "unsupervised" (of course, if they are unsupervised how do the people in charge know whether or not the kids are obeying the rule?) since the kids get really rough with each other. Today, one boy grabbed another in a head-lock and threw him to the ground. He got to go talk with the principal.

The rule at the school where I work is no tag on the playground equipment, but they can play tag on the grass.
 
BPSCG said:
As we got older, we progressed to softball (I got smacked in the eye by a line drive one day) and touch football. Again, with no parental supervision. I know people won't believe me when I tell them nobody ever got killed, but as the FSM is my witness, it's the truth.
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Touch football? What a wussie. My friends and I played tackle pretty much every day after school up until I was in 9th grade. My Mom used to complain and worry about someone getting hurt but as long as my Dad didn't give me the thumbs down I went right ahead.

Fast forward about 3 years and we decide to play football again. Tackle. After about 15 minutes of it we decided touch might be better. On the very first play of touch football, someone popped their finger out of joint and had to go the hospital.

Kids are far too protected nowadays. My wife is one of those coddlers too so I figure between us we achieve some sort of balance for our kids.

Lurker
 
A couple of us used to play stuntmen. Not just play, but do stunts.

Today, I would not recommend some of the stunts we tried, even to professional stuntmen. Some of them were incredibly dangerous and utterly stupid. I kid you not, it was insane what we did at times. Johnny Knoxville is a pussy.

We survived, though. Not without bruises, though. And I sure as hell won't recommend it.

Kids need to be scarred. Yes, I know it sounds terrible to some, but if kids don't learn that you can - and will - get hurt, how will they deal with danger and pain later on? Yes, as you can see, you can break your arm from falling off a tree, so perhaps it is not such a good idea to go base jumping?

It is, of course, not about inflicting pain and suffering on kids. It is about learning about danger in childhood, which we take with us when we grow up. Not merely by being told, but also by experiencing.
 
Luke T. said:
The first sentence in the CNN story:
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Thanks. That should teach me not to comment in a thread without reading the link in the OP first, but it probably won't. I'm sure I'll do it again sometime.

Anyway, if that's why school officials did it, I doubt the school system's lawyers expressed that concern. If they did, then maybe they've got some wacky judges in that part of Massachusetts. Depending on the facts, that kind of BS lawsuit would most likely get clobbered in summary judgment around here.

The duty a school would have in such a situation in traditional tort law would be to supervise the kids appropriately, not to guarantee their safety.

AS
 
There has to be a happy medium between allowing the kid to learn, and minimizing ensuing damage.

I was raised totally coddled, and it took some very kind people at a martial arts school to help me un-wuss.

Blue2 gets to wrestle with her big daddy, and act like a maniac in appropriate settings. When she gets bonked, she gets told to rub it hard and keep going. She has so far learned that you don't do acrobatics on the sofa arm (because you fall on your head) or piroutte in the bathtub (because you do a full body slide which is stopped by the end of the tub).

Of course, that means I have to act much more tough than I am, and rub hard when I get bonked. Damn, I hate setting a decent example.
 
My S.O. and I have always been at odds over our kid's risk exposure.

Were it up to here, they'd never leave their padded bubble.
Were it up to me, they'd never know the meaning of no.

Between we two, all have, thus far, survived -- skin't knees, splinters, stitches, broken bones, etc, notwithstanding.
 
Injuries have a way of teaching a lesson deeper than mommy telling you "don't do that" does. It's part of the learning process, isn't it?

Of course, when I was a kid we never even heard of bike helmets, and if any kid had worn one he would have been treated mercilessly.

But I just don't understand this "we must prevent any possibility of a skinned knee" mentality that seems so prevalent today. I blame it on so many people having only 1 child .
 
We use to play a very politically incorrect game in junior high “smear the queer”, the “queer” was who ever had the foil ball made from our lunch trays (think TV dinner top).
We would have a blast for 20 mins knocking the living snot outa each other.
One day the girls decided to get in on the fun, I suppose they thought we would take it easy on them; we didn’t, the ladies were no happy
 
WildCat said:
Injuries have a way of teaching a lesson deeper than mommy telling you "don't do that" does. It's part of the learning process, isn't it?
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Well unless the kid is lucky and does all the risky stuff with no damage.
 
CFLarsen said:
A couple of us used to play stuntmen. Not just play, but do stunts.

Today, I would not recommend some of the stunts we tried, even to professional stuntmen. Some of them were incredibly dangerous and utterly stupid. I kid you not, it was insane what we did at times. Johnny Knoxville is a pussy.

We survived, though. Not without bruises, though. And I sure as hell won't recommend it.

Kids need to be scarred. Yes, I know it sounds terrible to some, but if kids don't learn that you can - and will - get hurt, how will they deal with danger and pain later on? Yes, as you can see, you can break your arm from falling off a tree, so perhaps it is not such a good idea to go base jumping?

It is, of course, not about inflicting pain and suffering on kids. It is about learning about danger in childhood, which we take with us when we grow up. Not merely by being told, but also by experiencing.
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Um, I did too.

This probably clears up REAMS of speculation about why we are how we are......and one of us should be scared.

Heh, heh, heh, it sure was fun, though!
 
WildCat said:
Injuries have a way of teaching a lesson deeper than mommy telling you "don't do that" does. It's part of the learning process, isn't it?

Of course, when I was a kid we never even heard of bike helmets, and if any kid had worn one he would have been treated mercilessly.

But I just don't understand this "we must prevent any possibility of a skinned knee" mentality that seems so prevalent today. I blame it on so many people having only 1 child .
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Here here! I agree!

I think the 1 child thing is a factor as well. I know a few young boys who have no siblings. They are "mammas boys", have no friends and spend all of their time sitting at home. Limited evidence of course.

I rarely see kids playing football in the neighborhood streets, or at the schools after hours. Me and my friends used to play team games every damn day, or get on our bikes and go! I loved the freedom of having a bike.

I can't imagine not having my sister. As a parent, wouldn't it be great to just say "Go bother your brother! I have a headache!"

edit: or is it "Hear hear"? Or perhaps "Hear here!" as in "Come hear over here!" ;)
 
We tread the uncomfortable path between being overprotective single-child parents and raising a street-smart and self-sufficient human. There have been some horrid things in our area lately, including the rape of a 15-yr old in her own house by someone who watched the household pattern, broke in and waited for her. We also don't live in a neighborhood with sidewalks, so bike riding is hazardous even for adults. Play dates are de rigeur.
 
bluess said:
We tread the uncomfortable path between being overprotective single-child parents and raising a street-smart and self-sufficient human.
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All good parents tread that path. Seems you hear more and more about the former these days, though.

Friends of ours just sent their one and only off to college in Buffalo, NY, from Dallas, TX (now there's culture shock for you - the kid saw more snow just last week than his parents have seen, combined, in their entire lives). They attended an orientation for parents this summer and were introduced to the term "helicopter parents," people who monitor their kids' every move from afar, and are ready to swoop in and rescue them at the slightest sign of difficulty. Our friends fortunately, are not like that.
 
HarryKeogh said:
That's not an issue here at St. Nerf's Academy for Boys.
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Would that be the 14th century St. Soixante Nerf, patron saint of buggerers and pederasts or the 18th century St. Nerf Plastique patron of toys made of soft materials that may be swallowed for a pleasing choking effect?:)
 
schplurg said:
Here here! I agree!

I think the 1 child thing is a factor as well. I know a few young boys who have no siblings. They are "mammas boys", have no friends and spend all of their time sitting at home. Limited evidence of course.

I rarely see kids playing football in the neighborhood streets, or at the schools after hours. Me and my friends used to play team games every damn day, or get on our bikes and go! I loved the freedom of having a bike.

I can't imagine not having my sister. As a parent, wouldn't it be great to just say "Go bother your brother! I have a headache!"

edit: or is it "Hear hear"? Or perhaps "Hear here!" as in "Come hear over here!" ;)
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Aren't you the dude who manages that strip club? Just wondering if any of the young ladies slip and fall off the pole while dancing?

;)
 
bluess said:
We also don't live in a neighborhood with sidewalks, so bike riding is hazardous even for adults.
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No one over the age of 14 should ride a bike on the sidewalk. And it's the law here in Chicago.
 
In middle school we weren't allowed to run around because it was paved, (really just a glorified corner of the parking lot) but then again, middle school recess isn't for playing tag, it's for playing Pokemon and talking with your friends.
 
steverino said:
Aren't you the dude who manages that strip club? Just wondering if any of the young ladies slip and fall off the pole while dancing?

;)
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THis does happen, especially when alcohol gets involved. My ex dislocated her knee and sprained her ankle in a stripping accident. Since strippers are independant contractors, liability is far more limited than it would be for kids in school or employees, though.
 
Not to further make this into a thread of "in my day," but in my day the elementary school I went to had a playground (jungle gym, swings, etc) on concrete. We had a game on one piece of equipment, shaped like the skeleton of a rocket, where a kid hung from the inside of the nose cone and the others would swing out, wrap their legs around them and try to drag them down. If they fell, it was a good 15 ft drop, and managed not to hit the sides (made of metal bars) they would hit the concrete. I cringe looking back at that now, but it was loads of fun then.

"At summer camp we used to play a game called 'Sink the Titanic.' A kid would swim out to the diving raft, and the others would try to get on. The kid on the raft would then hit them with huge blocks of ice. At least that's how I played, everyone else looked pretty surprised."--Mark Bailey
 
WildCat said:
No one over the age of 14 should ride a bike on the sidewalk. And it's the law here in Chicago.
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We don't have sidewalks. We have maniac drivers who ignore the fact that they are driving in a residential area with no sidewalks.
 
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