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. Modified versions now include softer balls and ways for children to re-enter the action.
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.
I just don't know what to think about this. Once again, the courts and government aren't letting kids have the chance to be kids. Something like this is going to make the kids scared to even go to the gym or outside at recess for fear they'll get hurt. It will probably make them afraid to play with their little friends at home, too. They'll turn into little recluses.
In this time where everyone is lawsuit happy, the fact that schools are wanting to CYA doesn't really phase me much. The part of this article that really trips me out is about a school modifying the rules of dodge ball to let kids that are out get back in the game. That's almost as crazy as other schools not letting the kids play contact games because they're afraid of lawsuits. What is this teaching the kids? They need to know that life is like that - sometimes there's no re-entering after you're out, and in life there are usually no do-overs, either. You usually get one chance and that's it. When I was a kid, if you got hit in dodge ball and were out, or if you were playing tag or any other game and were out, you were out; there was no elementary school version of the ACLU to whine to or complain to about being discriminated - you just dealt with it and went on and played something else.
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