Let's make our kids bigger wussies.

[MikeK]

Goodness, how did people like principle Heppe make it through childhood. Maybe she still has some unresolved issues about being picked last or always being it.

Not It! Mass. Elementary School Bans Tag

By Associated Press

October 18, 2006, 10:00 AM EDT

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.

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.

Copyright 2006 Newsday Inc.

[Bill Glasheen]

"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."

That about sums it up.

But this kind of micromanagement does not occur in a vacuum. Sure, there will be ridiculous restrictions on what kids and teens can and cannot do "in their best interest." However, consider the following (emphasis my own).

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.

And that's the thing. As long as there are parents out there with a blame someone mentality and slimebag attorneys who smell a money opportunity, you will see this kind of obsessively cautious behavior. Ultimately people make decisions based upon their financial self interest. One high-profile case - guilty or not guilty - can send a chill through the community. There are no consequences for frivolous suits (unlike what some have posted). Whether in the right or in the wrong, anybody can sue anybody. And there are way too many flakes in this world.

Choose your participants in your groups wisely. Make informed consent standard operating procedure. And vote in favor of people who believe in personal responsibility and basic human intelligence.

- Bill

[Stryke]

[Stryke]

theres something very wrong with a system that prevents childrens play .

wonder how long before some frustrated kid picks up a ...... you know you can finish that sentence huh .

[Mary Chant]

My dad, who is 73, said the worst thing to ever happen to youth sports was adult involvement. Now, that's an over-simplification, but his point was valid. In his day, and even in my day (oh, to be old enough to have had a "my day") kids played, fought (verbally and sometimes physically), worked it out, played, fought, worked it out, played, fought, worked it out, played..... Now, everything is orchestrated, mediated, facilitated and regulated. Aaaaaaaaghhhh!

That being said, we all need help working stuff out sometimes, and there are those who for whatever reasons, regularly need extra help in navigating through conflict, learning how to stand up for themselves, socializing, etc., and I certainly want this help to be avaialble to them. But, the answer is not lowering the norm so that absolutely everyone can participate in absolutely everything and absolutely no one can fail at anything. We can accommmodate those with additional needs by setting up additional resources, but let's not eliminate opportunities to excel, or equally important, opportunities to fail and move forward, in the process.

The development of those strengths and areas in which I excel is in large part due to necessity; I had to figure out a way to compensate for my shortcomings or weaknesses in an area. If there is no opportunity to see a shortcoming, how can I learn to overcome it? Now, have these situations been embarrassing, even depressing, at times? Absofrigginlutely. But, we survive these things.

That's what I want my daughter to know. I want my daughter to know success is not about never falling down but about always getting back up and doing our best. Everybody falls down. The most impressive people are those who just got up one more time than they fell down.

Thanks for letting me ramble.

Mary

[AAAhmed46]

Everyone sueing everyone else just ruined school for kids.


Damn you lawyers.


Damn you i say.

[CANDANeh]

vote in favor of people who believe in personal responsibility and basic human intelligence.

Fortunately still a few around but in time they may become fewer in numbers as many who reach voting age lack basic skills including intelligence to keep them in office.
TAG...Someone else is it now.

[f.Channell]

I don't think they should ban any particular games but have the playground monitors and teachers actually supervise the play rather than sit and drink coffee and talk about who's winning on survivor.

I know a school nurse and everytime it rains and they have an indoor recess the nurses sigh relief.

Otherwise it's who's battered or broken. I had a student break his arm badly in the playground and was out of Karate for 8 months.

And look at it from this point.

You have a child, no health insurance.

He breaks his arm and gets sent away in an ambulance.

What's that cost you? How many thousands?

Our parents maybe a couple hundred.

F.

[Icebladeraptor9]

Teachers break up almost everything fun at elementary grade school levels, so I, being a brat, did everything possible to annoy the crap out of them, running around too fast, sliding on ice, crawling around in the snow, being excessively loud, etc. I also beat the crap out of some kid in fourth grade who punched me during tag because he had really gotten on my nerves, but that was long before karate.

Adults need to stay the hell out of kid's sports/activities unless one kid is about to seriously hurt another kid. When I beat that kid up, I had winter gloves on, so it wasn't like I was uppercutting him in the face with bare knuckles while he slapped me with his jacket sleeves (I had on a winter jacket, his defence was real effective )
I didn't do any permanent damage or anything like that, but the teachers never saw it to break it up, he ran away and got a teacher, and it was settled in the principle's office, stuff like that now would mean an immediate break up of the fight and parents would be called, at any grade level.

The whole system is fracked up, anyone but a little child can see it. My parents are too nice to sue anyone, unless one of them or myself was permanently injured or paralyzed, they would never sue. All these retarded people and parents are sueing over the stupidest things now.
Little kid: "Mom, I got a paper cut at school today"
Overprotective stupid stereotypical American Mom: "You F***ing what? I'm gonna F***ing sue those MothaF***ing dips*** teachers, where the hells the phone, I have to call the damn lawyer the 8th time this week"

Thats what our beautiful country has become, I wish I could have seen it back when we weren't a greedy, fat, lazy, stupid nation.

(I assume everyone here knows what I censored, but if its too much, I can fix it if anyone is offended or if I broke a rule)

[f.Channell]

I'm trying to figure out if I met Justin at Gary's last weekend or not?

I know I met Matt.

It's true the lawsuits are crazy. I was talking to Mall management at my job today about ice melters. On one hand the tree hugging whackos won't let you use one that works because it will get in a river and kill mosquitoes. If you don't use one some lazy out of shape idiot will slip and fall and sue you.

If I though I couldn't walk across a Mall parking lot in the snow I'd stay home.

I love it when skiers fall and sue the ski area.

Hello!! Your skiing down a frozen mountain in the winter.......

F.

[Icebladeraptor9]

I wasn't in the black belt test so there was no way for you to have met me and I was in too much awe to go to any of the test board and say hi well, that is if you were one of the test board and Mr. Khoury didn't say the names very clearly. I was there watching, I was the dude with the black shirt with a duct tape smiley on it.

Wearing a ski ticket makes the ski mountain not liable for anything that happens to you, so the lawsuit should be thrown out of court.
The tree huggers go to far, mosquito's annoy the crap out of everyone, plus tree huggers are hypocrites, they eat plants, but won't eat animals because its cruel, who says plants don't have a way to feel pain?

[f.Channell]

Skiers sue anyway.

They say the trail should have been marked/closed or something.

The warning was on the back of the ticket, I wasn't warned.

Blah blah blah

Ticket price goes up.

F.