TAG! YOUR SELF-ESTEEM IS IT!
Willett Elementary School, in Attleboro, Massachusetts, put a ban on playing tag, as well as other chase games (like touch football), last week citing fears that children may get hurt playing and that the school will be sued by the parents. According to the parents, another factor is their concern that, according to Time magazine, "such games could hurt self-esteem if... one kid were always 'it'."
*sigh* Where to start?
Currently 30.3 of children ages 6 to 11 are overweight and 15.3 percent are obese. 30.4 percent of children 12 to 19 are overweight and 15.5 percent are obese. Since we've apparently made a collective goal to make America the fattest country in the world, it's best we limit the amount of exercise our young people get during the day. McDonalds prints pro-exercise ideas on their wrappers and schools are banning running around. Mc"We Invited Super Sizing"Donalds is doing more to have fit children than our SCHOOLS. Recess was invented for the kids to run around and burn off steam, and now we're telling them they shouldn't be running around? Yeah, I don't know why Jimmy won't sit still and pay attention in Math class. Oh wait, I've got it, lets pump him full of mood altering drugs. That'll solve everything.
And why? Because kids might get hurt? I've got a newsflash for you, kids get hurt. Most kids spend the age of 6 months-20 physically hurting themselves, then from 21-35 hurting themselves emotionally. That's how they learn things. You learn not to play on ladders by falling off one. You learn not to run on ice by slipping and falling. I broke my pinkie when I tried to put my bare hand in my glove before the ball got there. I never made that mistake a second time.
Kids get hurt. That's what they do. They have a magical ability to do it. You could wrap the entire playground in Nerf and put all the kids in oversized plastic gerbil balls and they would still come home covered in dirt and scrapes. You got hurt when you were a kid, right? Do you think you're so much tougher than your own children that they can't handle falling down and scrapping their knee? Cause you weren't. Trust me, we have the pictures on record.
Lastly, the self-esteem issue. Ahhh, self-esteem. We need all of our children to feel like winners. If we don't let all of our children feel like winners then they'll be crushed beyond all repair. On the inside. So let's make sure everyone does well. Look, I even brought an EXTRA chair for musical chairs.
It must be awesome in the fantasy world these people live in. I mean absolutely awesome. Where every baby is loved and candy is better for you than salad or exercise. Where Osama Bin Laden is serving a life sentence in a glass prison inside the Washington Monument and politicians make less than ball players who make less than teachers and doctors.
Here in the real world though, life is not fair, and everyone doesn't win. Wait till these elementary kids get to high school. Wait till they apply for a college. Or better yet, a job. For every person in the world there is someone better looking, smarter, funnier and/or richer. Just be glad we live in a civilized world. If we were gazelle those 30% I mentioned earlier would be lion chow by now. At what point do we tell someone "okay, now you're ready to fail, we're not going to protect you anymore"? Just like you have to learn how to read or tie your shoes at an early age, you have to learn how to fail early on. How can you be expected to lose gracefully as an adult if you were never allowed to lose as a kid?
Keeping kids in a world where they're told they shouldn't be active, they shouldn't be hurt and they should always at least tie is cruel and unusual. It's not realistic and it doesn't help prepare them for the outside world, which is one of the main functions of our educational system.
So please, let your kids be kids. And encourage them to suck.
*sigh* Where to start?
Currently 30.3 of children ages 6 to 11 are overweight and 15.3 percent are obese. 30.4 percent of children 12 to 19 are overweight and 15.5 percent are obese. Since we've apparently made a collective goal to make America the fattest country in the world, it's best we limit the amount of exercise our young people get during the day. McDonalds prints pro-exercise ideas on their wrappers and schools are banning running around. Mc"We Invited Super Sizing"Donalds is doing more to have fit children than our SCHOOLS. Recess was invented for the kids to run around and burn off steam, and now we're telling them they shouldn't be running around? Yeah, I don't know why Jimmy won't sit still and pay attention in Math class. Oh wait, I've got it, lets pump him full of mood altering drugs. That'll solve everything.
And why? Because kids might get hurt? I've got a newsflash for you, kids get hurt. Most kids spend the age of 6 months-20 physically hurting themselves, then from 21-35 hurting themselves emotionally. That's how they learn things. You learn not to play on ladders by falling off one. You learn not to run on ice by slipping and falling. I broke my pinkie when I tried to put my bare hand in my glove before the ball got there. I never made that mistake a second time.
Kids get hurt. That's what they do. They have a magical ability to do it. You could wrap the entire playground in Nerf and put all the kids in oversized plastic gerbil balls and they would still come home covered in dirt and scrapes. You got hurt when you were a kid, right? Do you think you're so much tougher than your own children that they can't handle falling down and scrapping their knee? Cause you weren't. Trust me, we have the pictures on record.
Lastly, the self-esteem issue. Ahhh, self-esteem. We need all of our children to feel like winners. If we don't let all of our children feel like winners then they'll be crushed beyond all repair. On the inside. So let's make sure everyone does well. Look, I even brought an EXTRA chair for musical chairs.
It must be awesome in the fantasy world these people live in. I mean absolutely awesome. Where every baby is loved and candy is better for you than salad or exercise. Where Osama Bin Laden is serving a life sentence in a glass prison inside the Washington Monument and politicians make less than ball players who make less than teachers and doctors.
Here in the real world though, life is not fair, and everyone doesn't win. Wait till these elementary kids get to high school. Wait till they apply for a college. Or better yet, a job. For every person in the world there is someone better looking, smarter, funnier and/or richer. Just be glad we live in a civilized world. If we were gazelle those 30% I mentioned earlier would be lion chow by now. At what point do we tell someone "okay, now you're ready to fail, we're not going to protect you anymore"? Just like you have to learn how to read or tie your shoes at an early age, you have to learn how to fail early on. How can you be expected to lose gracefully as an adult if you were never allowed to lose as a kid?
Keeping kids in a world where they're told they shouldn't be active, they shouldn't be hurt and they should always at least tie is cruel and unusual. It's not realistic and it doesn't help prepare them for the outside world, which is one of the main functions of our educational system.
So please, let your kids be kids. And encourage them to suck.
posted by Matt Worzala at
3:02 PM
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