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School Bans Tag, Other Chase Games

Another Willett parent, Celeste D'Elia, said her son feels safer because of the rule. "I've witnessed enough near collisions," she said.
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If she feels so strongly about it, why doesn't she tell her little boy, "I don't want you playing tag; it's too dangerous"? Then the other kids can risk their lives to their hearts' content, and when they ask him why he doesn't play, he can explain to them that his mommy told him he can't because it's too dangerous. The other kids will understand.

Heh. We used to play tag at home when I was a kid. No adult supervision at all - we just ran around in each others' yards, while our parents were inside.

To this day, I consider it a miracle we weren't all killed.

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.

Question. Now that the school playgrounds of Attleboro, Massachusetts have been made safe from the carnage of tag, have other activities such as pummelling the class sissy (whose mommy won't let him play tag), for his lunch money, also been banned?
 
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I weep for your country. Because mine is probably going to follow, too.

What a bunch of sissy douchebags.
 
Er sorry to disappoint people wanting to decry "oh the state of the world today" but back in the late sixties and early seventies "tag" was not allowed in our totally concrete with many sharp edges at kiddie head height "playground".

Now of course we used to try and play it and we did get away with it quite oftem but when we got caught we were punished; and yes several kids did in fact spilt their heads open and suffered a myriad of other injuries caused by being chased and tripped and so on. And at my secondary school (aged 11 and above) even stricter restrictions were in place.

I don't see anything new about this or indeed that it is silly or over protective.
 
Another Willett parent, Celeste D'Elia, said her son feels safer because of the rule. "I've witnessed enough near collisions," she said.


If she has only witnessed near collisions, the kids aren't really trying!!!
 
Darat said:
Er sorry to disappoint people wanting to decry "oh the state of the world today" but back in the late sixties and early seventies "tag" was not allowed in our totally concrete with many sharp edges at kiddie head height "playground"...

...I don't see anything new about this or indeed that it is silly or over protective.
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That's a fair point, assuming that the playground is indeed made of concrete.

At my primary school, we hard large grassy areas to play on and there was very little risk of injury.


I assume this has more to do about making sure the school isn't sued than actually keeping children safe.
 
Darat said:
Er sorry to disappoint people wanting to decry "oh the state of the world today" but back in the late sixties and early seventies "tag" was not allowed in our totally concrete with many sharp edges at kiddie head height "playground".
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That's not an issue here at St. Nerf's Academy for Boys.
 
Cheesejoff said:
That's a fair point, assuming that the playground is indeed made of concrete.
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I agree.

I assume this has more to do about making sure the school isn't sued than actually keeping children safe.
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I wouldn't make that assumption. That's a tired old canard. It really is about genuine safety concerns, in all likelihood.

AS
 
I recently watched a video on Youtube made by some soldiers in Iraq. Back at garrison, two soldiers were using some down time to engage in a boxing match. They were wearing gloves, but they were boxing outdoors and standing on concrete. One of the soldiers landed a pretty good punch to the face, and his opponent went down. Predictably, his head smacked the concrete pretty hard, as he appeared to be momentarily dazed during the fall. The video ends with two other soldiers rushing to pick him up.

I suspect a concussion that may have been prevented by holding the match on a more suitable surface.

AS
 
Near the end of my tenure as a grade school student, they installed a vertical jungle gym shaped like a football. They put it over 1.5" rubber mats, like everything else. A few months later it was turned horizontal. I figured some kid must have fallen and hurt himself anyway, though I never did actually find out why.

Well, if they outlaw flag football, what are they going to do with all those 9th place trophies? :mad: What a waste of money!

"I didn't even know they made 9th place trophies."
 
AmateurScientist said:
I assume this has more to do about making sure the school isn't sued than actually keeping children safe.
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I wouldn't make that assumption. That's a tired old canard. It really is about genuine safety concerns, in all likelihood.

AS
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I was about to make a cynical comment wondering what the death/serious injury rate would be of children playing tag vs. a bunch of lazy children dying of heart attacks later in life, never exercising because either they didn't as kids, or played non-competitive, and thus boring, sports they never kept up as adults.

But then I realized they'd all be taking pills that keep their arteries clean long before they get that far. Testing is going on now for some chemical they discovered when they found a fat, lazy guy whose arteries were clean as a whistle.
 
Hmm, I remember playing 'smear the queer' in my grade school. it was called that, and organized by one of the teachers, who also used to play. It sure hurt trying to tackle him, but boy did we try.

I don't remember anyone getting seriously hurt in these kinds of games, though i did black out for a half second after taking a ball to the head hard during dodgeball. But I do remember Nora's leg being so badly dislocated that her knee was bent backwards, and being carried to the school nurse. She was playing soccer or some other "safe" game that day.

The only thing we weren't allowed to do was climb to the top of the swing sets. We had a game. Shinny up the poles, hang your legs across the cross beam, and move across as the people swing under you, and then slide down the other side. I recognize things seem bigger when you are a kid, but these were pretty high - up into the tree branches. But all that ever happened was you got scolded and told to come down - which pretty much required you to complete the act anyway.

My mother tells stories of her and her friends climbing up to the top of the trestle of the to the train bridges, and then running across. So we were pansies compared to them.
 
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Beerina said:
I was about to make a cynical comment wondering what the death/serious injury rate would be of children playing tag vs. a bunch of lazy children dying of heart attacks later in life, never exercising because either they didn't as kids, or played non-competitive, and thus boring, sports they never kept up as adults.

But then I realized they'd all be taking pills that keep their arteries clean long before they get that far. Testing is going on now for some chemical they discovered when they found a fat, lazy guy whose arteries were clean as a whistle.
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To clarify, I'm not saying I agree that tag is or isn't safe on concrete; I'm merely doubting very seriously that possible legal liability issues are the driving force behind the decision. I suspect it's far more likely that concerned parents, rightly or wrongly, are the driving force, not the school system's lawyers.

AS
 
AmateurScientist said:
To clarify, I'm not saying I agree that tag is or isn't safe on concrete; I'm merely doubting very seriously that possible legal liability issues are the driving force behind the decision. AS
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The first sentence in the CNN story:

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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Several school administrators around Attleboro, a city of about 45,000 residents, took aim at dodgeball a few years ago, saying it was exclusionary and dangerous.
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I think we should also ban hide and seek. It encourages kids to be anti-social and run away and hide from those who are categorized as "It".
 
I think we should encourage more and more violent versions of tag to be played in increasingly hazardous playgrounds, thereby forcing the evolution of a tougher breed of kid.
 
Marquis de Carabas said:
I think we should encourage more and more violent versions of tag to be played in increasingly hazardous playgrounds, thereby forcing the evolution of a tougher breed of kid.
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Are you kidding? Do you really want to have a bunch of tough 18-year olds to run around when you get middle-aged or older?

No, what we must to is to teach our kids to be sissies that can't even beat their own 102-year old great-grandmother who's blind and in a wheelchair. That way, we can subdue them to do all the necessary chores for us while we spend our retirement (starting at 45) doing nothing except what we want to do.

That's the problem with grown-ups today. Thinking that sissy kids are a problem instead of an exploitable possibility.
 
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