Wednesday, October 18, 2006

Banning Tag?!?

Holy shit. I know there are stupid rules due to fear of lawsuits, but this one really burns me up. Actually, it wouldn't be so bad, and I would probably simply consider it funny sad, except for this:

"Another Willett parent, Celeste D'Elia, said her son feels safer because of the rule. 'I've witnessed enough near collisions,' she said."

First off: her son feels safer? Is he a loser or are the other kids in his school little shits? There were myriad tag style games when I was in grade school and I remember not everyone playing. Hell, I don't think that I played all the time. It went something like this: "Hey, ____, do you want to play tag?" "Not really." "Okay, hey, (someone else), do you..." Sometimes tag was not played. Kids that didn't play were not picked on and ridiculed, well, not for that anyway, kids can be nasty. If any child feels threatened by tag at recess then either they have been raised horribly, or there is zero teacher supervision and a bunch of mini-ass holes.

Second, and this provides us with the likely correct solution to the last statement: she has witnessed enough near collisions? Are you kidding me? What the hell does that even mean? Is this woman so rediculously overprotective that the notion of two kids running into each other is this terrifying? Wait, don't answer that, I already know and the response is "she shouldn't be breeding." They're kids; they play; sometimes they get hurt. So what? It's people like this with absolutely zero sense of appropriate response/risk/fear that allows zealots to strip away our rights in the name of safety.

The sad thing is that it was likely the best decision for the school. If crazy woman's terrified son had ended up with a broken arm/sprained ankle/bruised ego then she would go and sue the district for tens or hundereds of thousands, forcing the schools to decide between heat and books. Also I feel sorry for the boy. His mother probably also keeps the home antiseptically clean, which will induce him to have severe allergies and asthma in the future if not already.

Final note to parents out there: overprotection of your children is counterproductive. It is the freedom to make mistakes, including those which can lead to injury/sickness/embarassment that help us to grow and learn. A 13 year old who learned by five that cuts, scrapes, and bruises hurt is less likely to inflict such injuries on others (and by 13 those injuries could be far more severe). The more insulated the less empathy and the less humane the person.

3 comments:

Biomed Tim said...

"I've witnessed enough near collisions" in the playground area, D'Elia said. "I support anything that makes the playground safer and helps teacher to keep track of them."

If she really believed that, then she shouldn't have her child step on to the playground at all. That would make the playground safest.

There is an inherent risk in everything we partake, but we also do them because there is a perceived benefit. This is a case where the decision makers misjudged the cost and the benefit of the policy.

Michael L. Heien said...

Are you kidding? It is about time tag was banned! I remember once during a game of tv tag, I fell and scraped my knee. I don't think I will ever recover.

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