Game of tag banned!

Great Debates
1

Just read this story that seems to be saying that the game of tag has been banned at this school because it causes self-esteem problems, especially in the weaker and slower children.

So, I thought that this might make for some interesting discussion. Also, I have some questions. They are:

[ul]
[li]At what point is this kind of thing going to far? It seems the compassionate thing to do to try to make reasonable accommodations that enable the majority of children to succeed. In also seems to me that kids can be very cruel to each other and that (classically) adults do not pay enough attention to this. However, at what point does this become a disservice. I do not have a referee looking out for me here in the workforce when a bigger stronger person is competing for promotions/jobs and so forth. Are we deliberately selecting against successful competitive behavior?[/li][li]Is bullying worse now that when I was a kid? Admittedly, I am not a spring chicken anymore and so it has been a while. What is the consensus?[/li][/ul]

I may think of other things as this debate progresses, but I thought that this is interesting fodder for discussion.

2

This has gone too far. Life is not fair. Are they going to ban all sports, because someone has to lose, and that’s not fair! Kids will grow up thinking they are owed something because they are here, having never met the crushing reality of life. And then they will fail, hard, and never recover. In closing:
Tag! Your it!!

::Tars Tarkas gets hauled away in chains::

3

Of course, the “fox news” (we report, you decide) didn’t give the entire story, as shown here

A. the game was not banned totally, just that it had to be supervised by an adult (ie not to be played during lunch recess when there was inadequate supervision),

B. while they mentioned self esteem etc, the reasons given also included (and conveinently missing from the Fox account) :

So, the principal wanted to minimize physical injury to the students which occured mostly during unsupervised chasing games. Of course that doesn’t make for as splashy of a story.

(Note - I’d heard this through a morning conservative DJ who had the same take on it as FOX, but read later on news accounts. I also find it interesting that neither a CNN nor ABC search turned this story up at all)

4

Even with the non-Fox News spin on it, I’m still not sure I buy this. What are kids supposed to do during recess, sit quietly on the blacktop? These are small children; during recess, they’re gonna run around a lot. (And don’t Americans need excercise these days?) And why are elementary school school kids permitted to do anything at all at recess without some sort of adult supervision? Surely they have an adult or two keeping an eye on things while the little bra-- uh, darlings run around in circles until they get dizzy and experience all the other joys of childhood.

OK, concussions and broken bones are pretty serious. Still, kids do break things, and it’s not the end of the world. (OK, I never did, but I was always the bookish type.) But come on…“bumps, bruises and scrapes”? Oh, the horror! Small children skinning their knees! Ban all physical activity! Henceforward, recess will consist of everyone sitting in a dark, quiet room, surfing the Internet (but visiting screened and approved Web sites only, of course).

5

Sometimes, you just have to watch with kids. We were allowed to play tag, perhaps. But after a while, we’d start pushing, shoving and roughhousing, and kids were getting hurt. So, we abused our priviledges and lost them.

My mother works as an aid at an elementary school, and she says it takes very little for kids to get out of hand. I mean, they’re allowed to play tag and all that. But as soon as things get rough, you have to step in.

6

Obviously, as a gay kid growing up, I could write a few novels about bullying and low self-esteem. I feel for the kids that still go through this. And I would never want to see a kid get seriously hurt, although I really dont think “cuts scrapes and bruises” apply.

At the same time, some of these childhood experiences helped me develop a slightly thicker skin that has proved to be quite helpful in life. I think in a way, we are doing a disservice to our kids by over-protecting them.

My boss has a kid that plays soccer. They do not keep score because then there would be winners and losers. At the end of the season, they all get trophies, because everyones a winner. Well, you know what, thats not how life plays out. The winners are ones who go the extra mile, who work the hardest, and who do the best. Will a kid that is used to always winning be able to compete in the job market? Will he/she cry the first time a co-worker puts down their work. Will he/she handle the rejection of falling in love with someone who isn’t interested in him/her? I think there are some important life lessons that need to be learned and this hinders that process.

Having said all of this, I think an acceptable midway point is as **guin ** mentions. If there are kids who can’t follow rules, they should lose their priviledges to play a particular game. But, for the most part, let them be kids.

7

How old is the child? This seems to be pretty common in the leagues near me for children below the ages of seven or eight. (In the last year that they do not officially keep score, I’ve noticed that the kids do keep score.)

I don’t have a problem with it as I have seen it. The little kids get used to chasing the ball and doing drills and having fun. About the time that their competitive urges begin coming to the fore, the league rules change to accomodate them.

8

When I was in 1st and 2nd grade, I played Tee-Ball. After our first game, I asked my dad who had won. “nobody did,” he replied. “What?” “We all won.” I was so angry. You mean you just made me play this stupid game in the middle of the hot sun and nobody even won!?

As for the rest, playing tag did hurt my self-esteem. And then I grabbed my book and said, “Eh, fuck 'em. I have better htings to do with my time…” Of course, I understand that not all children remove themselves from potentional and actual harmful situations, and after all, they shouldn’t have to. It’s the adults jobs to make sure htey aren’t harmed in anyway…if banning tag from recess play is the best way to do that, so be it.

9

Sheesh, I hadda go read the article just to find out where these hyperactive kids ARE. At my kids’ school, you can’t pay the kids to go play tag at recess–the Recess Activity of choice, for all ages, from Kindergarten through 8th grade, is “standing around”. :smiley:

10

It is not an adults job to see to it that a child is never harmed in any way. Pain is a part of life and you’ll do your child more harm by sheltering her then you would by letting her live. Throughout childhood and the rest of their lives there will be times when they are hurt emotionally and physically. Coddling them will only ensure that they are not equipped to deal with such things when they are older.

Keep in mind that I don’t advocate intentionally inflicting pain upon anyone. I simply think that by living life we risk pain and pleasure. The world isn’t made of Nerf and sometimes people do get hurt. That’s just part of life.

Marc

11

Well said, Marc

12

There’s a huge area between seeing “that a child is never harmed in any way” and intentionally inflicting pain.

There are times that an adult supervising a kid or group of them should recognize that the potential for either physical or emotional pain in a situation is too great and do something to lessen it.
In other words, I agree with Guin

13

Gee, I grew up in a time when us kids orgainized our own play. And although I could describe myself as being on the margins socially, ( I rarely got invited to birthday parties), I was always accepted for participation in school yard games. Even as eight year olds, we had a fairly good concept of democracy and the rule of law. Bullying was generally from older kids, and off the school grounds.

I’m afraid that the restrictions imposed on the kids here will kill this tag activity, and further isolate some of the less popular kids, thereby resulting in an outcome completely contrary to the stated goal.

14

The elementary school I went to as a child has banned nearly everything fun. For example, no running on campus - you can still play kickball, football, tag, what have you, but you may not run.

If kids cannot run on campus, WHY did they make a lawn to play games on?

15

**

Certainly, but I wanted to make it clear that I wasn’t an advocate for inflicting pain. There are some sadist who think picking on kids, making them play in dangerous situations, or being mentally abusive is going to toughen them up. I just didn’t want to come off as sounding like one of those people.

At some point maybe our desire for protection will hamper the development of our children. When I was a kid we played all sorts of games at school with minimal interference from the teachers. Usually we’d organize the games ourselves by breaking into little groups. Tag, four square, dodge ball, tether ball, and of course the playing on the playground were all popular activities.

Did I ever get hurt? Sure, playing four square a kid once kicked the ball right in my face knocking me to the ground. And I’ve gotten scrapes, cuts, and bruises doing what I’d consider normal childhood activities. What’s so different about todays kids that they need strict adult supervision to play tag? I don’t recally much potential for serious mental or physical injury in a game of tag. Are the kids of today monsters or are the adults wimps?

Marc

16

Tag’s an example of a game that’s especially fair to non-athletic kids. The faster kids use to move in to tease the slow ones and “give them a chance”, and sure enough one of them would end up getting tagged. Also, as I recall, slower kids became quite adept at pretending they were slower than they actually were, etc.

Compare that with an organized sport like baseball or football, where at a minimum you have to be in reasonable shape, have equipment, have a dad (or mom or siblings) who spent hours and hours teaching the basics. A kid who’s behind there never catches up. Kids in my group simply went to find other sports.

17

I work a lot with kids.

The question is not whether this is fair, but rather what has caused our kids not to play fair? Why haven’t we taught our kids to respect the smaller one, the weaker one, and give them a turn?

I look at my mom’s grade one class. They play tag. They’re fair. They give little Pheobe, who is not the fastest on her feet athletically (and who is a tiny little peanut) her chance. All the time. They are concerned about how the other kids feel.

Then, by the time they hit grade 4, they seem to forget this “play fair” skill. WHY? What are we teaching them along the way that changes that?

One answer may be found in talking to the kids themselves. I have a drama class that is made up of grade 4 to grade 6 age kids. From listening to them, I found that they’ve been drilled into believing that their “self-esteem” comes first, that THEY come first, no matter what, and no matter who tells them otherwise.

We’ve taugth them to be such individuals that, along the way, they forget how to be compassionate. We’ve taught them that they are allowed to their opinion, and that it’s always right because it’s theirs. We’ve taught them to answer back, we’ve taught them to be brash and over-confident, we’ve taught them to negociate their way out of ANYTHING, including consequences for their actions.

It’s scary.

So in the end - we have to wonder - what did this principal do? She probably tried to avoid having kids being sent in for being bullies, avoid having kids crying after recess because “billy is always mean to me”… and she’s not the first to impose a partial-ban like that. A few years back, our local schools here banned Pokemon cards from the school grounds. Kids would play against bigger kids, lose, and cry or be upset… and then the PARENTS get involved because their little darlings were hurt… :smack:

Yeah.

With all the lawsuits everywhere, who knows if someone’s little darling won’t be hurt (physically or mentally!) by a game of tag… and who ends up in a mess for not preventing it from happening? The school. The principal. The teachers. Ask any teacher: you don’t always fear the kids will be hurt. You usually fear the reaction of the PARENT. Their little darlings can do NO WRONG. EVER. And if they have the money, they’ll sue. Or threaten to. As an educator, you have other fish to fry.

It all goes back to my statements on how we are raising our kids - if someone does something to you, don’t worry, mom will defend your rights, even if that means we sue everyone for discrimination, disrupt the lives of many other people… all that doesn’t matter because you come first, honey!

Elly.

18

I think Elenfair makes some good points. This seems to me to be a case of treating the symptom instead of the disease. If children truly are playing more roughly/less fairly these days, outlawing tag isn’t going to do anything to change that.

I also think that our society has changed in ways that are detrimental to our children’s learning process. Older folks will complain about how kids don’t know how to play and it’s just plain true. I am in a significant minority among the parents in my (white collar, suburban) neighborhood because I send my kids out to just “play.” So many of the children in our area go to preschool earlier and for longer hours and take “classes” for everything. They spend all their time in same-age groups, under the direct supervision of adults.

How can we expect these children to know how to adjust their play to account for the varied abilities of the children they play with if they are 1) always with the same kids and 2) an adult is always there to tell them what to do? A mixed group of children (who have the experience to know how to do this) will come up with all sorts of inventive ways to accomodate all parties. If there aren’t enough people (or there are too many) to play a particular game according to the “rules”, they will change the rules. Or, they’ll come up with something else. Unless, of course there is an adult standing over them, directing their play.

And the big problem there is that what an adult considers fun/educational is not necessarily what the children would choose. If you watch a group of children playing unsupervised, a lot of what they do seems silly to an adult sensibility. They don’t do things efficiently. Sometimes the process is far more important than the goal. It is all, though, important to the learning process. And it’s not happening when adults can’t resist interfering.

19

Why are you folks still discussing the banning of tag, when this was already shown to not be the case?

I don’t see that requiring supervision is a bad thing, particularly when the students have already proven that to allow them to do otherwise is dangerous (causing notable injuries in students).

You can whine that this is for ‘self esteem’ gone rampant but in actuality it seems to be a case of punishing everyone because a privilege was abused.

20

That suckx