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.
“And that’s why, instead of doing all that running around and climbing, instead we will be requiring children sit in these soft, cotton cocoons during recess periods, so that there’s no chance of any nasty bruises, scrapes, or exercise.”
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.
Because only if things are supervised are they truly safe. What a wonderful lesson for the youth of today!
“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.”
Social services is on their way to pick up her children, even as we speak.
To the school’s credit, their fear of having the snot sued off of them by dingbat parents is not altogether unfounded.
Another Willett parent, Celeste D’Elia, said her son feels safer because of the rule. “I’ve witnessed enough near collisions,” she said.
No! Not a near collision! Save the children! SAVE THE CHILDREN!!
Do I sense a skosh of sarcasm here, Dave?
Damn. I hoped I was dolloping a bit more than a skosh there …
And to think I spent a good part of my childhood hanging around in an abandoned rock quarry chipping out fossils, or climbing around in a ravine where nobody knew where I was. Guess I did it all wrong.
It is the same reason that playgrounds have had most of the equipment removed.
This has been going on for some time now since I can remember stories of Tag and any games involving kids pretending to use guns and or tag being banned back in the ’90s for various reasons.
Liability being the BIG reason.
The easy solution would be to have parents sign wavers at the beginning of the school year absolving the district/school from liability for injury or death of the children, but this will never happen, so, this is the only thing left to the districts to do.
If the kids aren’t being supervised = lawsuit.
If the kids injure themselves = Lawsuit.
Plan 9 from outer space happens = Lawsuit.
Getting Cooties and no Cootie shot = Lawsuit.
I blame the parents. Someone needs to explain to them that the world is not safe and that and that their children can be injured and/or die at any point during a normal day, and 95% of it is though no fault of anyone but are instead accidents.
But, we need to make the world safe…”For the children”, which is impossible.
Hell, we can’t make it safe for ourselves …
I can understand wanting to hold people responsible for negligence. If kids are allowed to play on the “Teetering Tower of Razor Blades” — yeah, someone should be held accountable.
The problem is sue-happy and irresponsible parents (egged on by contingency-happy lawyers), coupled with juries who feel sorry for someone whose kids have been hurt (or worse) and want to see them get *something*, even if it’s not reasonably the fault of the sued party.
Of course, it’s hard to do anything systemically to stop such silly things without letting Big Chemical Companies Dumping Toxins Into The Drinking Fountains off the hook, too.
Alas, justice depends on rationality and reason, two traits all too often lacking in the world.
Yeah….
Tort suits are the only thing keep U.S. corporations from reverting back to the days before The Jungle.
So… If the kids get hurt while being supervised, the school won’t get sued?
We just have to make sure that, under supervision, they don’t do anything possibly harmful. We’re thinking of investing in bubble wrap …
I am constantly amazed that I survived childhood. Let’s see…no seatbelts in the back seats of cars (nor the front seats, for most of the time!), Tonka Toys made of metal. Chemistry sets that actually had chemicals in them. Playgrounds full of metal and no soft wood chips. A swimming pool made of concrete and paving stones. Actually walking several blocks to school and back (and even going home for lunch!). Living near a highway.
Oh, the list goes on. I won’t even mention playing around the railroad tracks.
And, of course, some people did get hurt, even killed by some such things.
But the answer isn’t to ban railroads.