Banning tag games in elementary school is ridiculous
In a nation where headlines about battling childhood obesity have become commonplace, one would think it would be considered ludicrous to ban physically active recess games.
Common sense does not always prevail, however. Case in point: an elementary school near Boston has banned children from playing tag, touch football or any other unsupervised chase game at recess. Their reasoning: the school does not want to be a liability, should an accident occur.
There are several problems with this.
First of all, what do they mean by “unsupervised” chase games? Isn’t recess generally supervised by at least one teacher?
We’re not talking about a Lord of the Flies scenario where kids are running wild with no one to help them if someone gets hurt. They are on a playground, at school, where they can easily and quickly find a teacher if anything happens.
Secondly, children need physical activity for a variety of reasons.
Childhood obesity is a growing cause for concern. Physical activity is an effective remedy for this. Kids need breaks from sitting in classrooms. They need time when they can do whatever it is they need to do to get rid of their pent-up energy and just be kids.
Also, while it is certainly possible to get hurt playing tag and other similar games, that is not a sufficient reason to ban them.
Getting a few scrapes, bumps and bruises from playing physically active games is a normal part of childhood. Plenty of people grew up playing games like tag. They probably had their fair share of slipping on wet grass or colliding with other kids. I have yet to meet anyone who has sustained permanent physical or psychological damage from a skinned knee.
It is not adults’ responsibility to protect children from everything bad that could possibly happen to them. It is our job to teach them to deal with the challenges life will bring them.
When we micromanage their lives and essentially confine them to the proverbial plastic bubble, we are depriving them of their need to explore their world and deal with the possibility that, at times, might have unpleasant effects. We are no longer allowing them to just be kids.
Yes, we do need to protect children from things that could kill, seriously injure or permanently damage them. But playing tag is highly unlikely to do any of those things.
On the contrary, it has several positive effects: it keeps them active and teaches them to play with each other and even resolve conflicts at times.
As long as an adult is nearby to keep things from getting out of hand and tend to the occasional accident or collision, I can’t see why anyone should have a problem with kids playing a game children have been playing for several generations with no serious consequences.
Columnists' opinions do not necessarily reflect the views of The Spectrum