http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061018/ap_on_fe_st/playground_tag_ban ATTLEBORO, Mass. - Tag, you're out! 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. ADVERTISEMENT Recess is "a time when accidents can happen," said Willett Elementary School Principal Gaylene Heppe, who approved the ban. While there is no districtwide ban on contact sports during recess, local rules have been cropping up. 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. Elementary schools in Cheyenne, Wyo., and Spokane, Wash., also recently banned tag during recess. A suburban Charleston, S.C., school outlawed all unsupervised contact sports. "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." Another Willett parent, Celeste D'Elia, said her son feels safer because of the rule. "I've witnessed enough near collisions," she said. --------------------- so the pussyfication of our children begins. why even bother taking your kids out of the crib?
It happened when I was in elementary school over 20 years ago. Anytime someone got hurt playing football, basketball or anything else not related to playground equipment, we were forbidden to do it again...until the next year.
Begins? You mean continues. I'll play tag with my son if I have to. What the hell is wrong with contact? What the hell is wrong with a skinned knee or a little bruise? This quote alone is just plain sad. Near collisions? You have near collisions every day when you drive your car. Is there anyone here that agrees with this in any way, shape, or form? I'd be curious to see why. Then I'll proceed to tell you why your kid will weigh 300 lbs by the age of 10 and have no personal/social skills.
This is just stupid. Flag football is too rough??? If we're not careful, our children are going to grow up to be.......Houston Texans. I'll be here all day, folks. Be sure to tip your waitress's and try the veal. I hear it's delicious.
Elementary schools should focus more on banning childhood obesity, early-onset diabetes, hypercholesterolemia, and poor school performance secondary to tv watching and video games.
Oh my god....NEAR COLLISIONS!?!?!?!? I got into a near collisions while driving home from work the other day...That's it, all driving should be BANNED!! Personally, I think the risk of papercuts from text books is too high, so all textbooks in school should be outlawed. School lunch?? I don't think so, not with the risk for food borne illnesses. Those school bells are way too loud, also. They could give our precious children hearing problems later on. The teacher should quietly inform the students that class is over or is beginning. And now, the most nefarious, unsafe aspect of school, yes, I'm talking about... The pencil. I mean, look at how sharp that thing is!! I got stabbed with a pencil accidentally when I was in high school, but I was one of the lucky ones and survived this tramatizing ordeal. Please, for our childrens' sake, we must start a grassroots campaign to rid the educational system of pencils...pens, too! They're just like pencils, except they have deadly ink flowing through them like snake venom.
A Nation of Wimps Parents are going to ludicrous lengths to take the bumps out of life for their children. However, parental hyperconcern has the net effect of making kids more fragile; that may be why they're breaking down in record numbers. http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/pto-20041112-000010.html Long but good. Should be required reading for parents.
I'm still trying to figure out how us older folks ever survived our child hoods. We were out all day, all over the neighborhood and didn't have to come home until the street lights came on. We didn't have bike helmets or skateboard pads. We played "tackle the man with the ball" every day at lunch. If the coach or principal decided we needed a paddle'n, we got a paddle'n. We played on rickety, splintery playground equipment. I guess our parents didn't love us.
Well one thing one could argue (and I'm not) is that some of that attitude from our childhoods is what's turning these newer parents into the over-protective parents they are. Maybe they remember the paddlin's or the exclusionary nature of some of the activities and don't want it to happen to their kids.
I'm still pretty young but I remember those days. I got my glasses smashed when we played tackle football at lunch. And the days of dodgeball with volleyballs on concrete surfaces where everytime someone with remotely decent power hit you, you were probably going to be bleeding because you fell on the ground. Also, the lead paint-laden rickety equipment where you knew if you pushed the swing a little harder you just might make the whole thing collapse. Also, we plaed a game where we had a ball and the goal was to nail a specific person that was running around. If you managed to hit the person, then you would become the target and run around. And we played with fully inflated volleyballs that would create bruises if it hit right. God I miss elementary school. And kids growing up today are really missing out on a lot of fun. Hell back in the day (which really isn't so long ago), they were so non-chalant about everything in elementary school. I think one kid broke his leg because someone thought they were marco materazzi and slide tacked a guy with full force and the next day we were playing soccer again.
this is ridiculous we used to play smear the queer all the time at recess during elementary and middle school and it was all in good fun. sure people got hurt, ( i myself got battered up bad one day, broke my glasses when i had the football) but that is all part of growing up. heck i dont have any kids but if/when i do if schools are like that i am taking him out to the park and play real football with him so he isnt some pansy soon teatherball is gone because its a high speed object that may hurt kids hands when they hit it...then soccer...then baseball/softball...basketball i mean seriously it can go on to no end. i cant remember the last time i heard about a kid breaking a bone playing tag
In Junior High (6th - 8th grade), we had one guy go all three years without ever getting a swat. On the last day of school, the coach gave him one just for good measure. No exclusions there!
Awesome! We were definitely scared ****less of our elementary coach's belt with quarter-sized holes in it!
Good, let them do it up north. As long as this isn't happening in Texas.. then about 20 years down the line, we'll see who has the best football teams ^_^ UH will regain it's glory.. or.. just gain..
So in less than 150 years we've gone from American children working 15 hour days as soon as they turn 12 to not even being allowed to play because its bad for them. Ridiculous.
They should start banning swings too. Kids are swinging way to high nowadays, and they could get seriously injured if they jump off. And don't forget about slides. Sliding down towards the ground at uncontrollable high speeds can be dangerous.
