Ouch!

A school in Massachusetts has banned the playing of tag, touch football and any unsupervised chasing games, according to a CBC report. They have done this for fear of a child getting hurt and the school being held liable. Now, I can understand this somewhat, as we live in a ridiculously litigious society. What I don't understand is this: a culture that wants it's children to grow up in a bubble. By not allowing children to participate in activities where they could possibly hurt themselves takes away from them the possibility of learning valuable lessons, such as, if you're not careful, you could get hurt. This may seem like a bit of a contradiction, allowing people to get hurt to learn that they could potentially get hurt, but come on, it's tag. How seriously can someone get hurt playing tag? I haven't been around a schoolyard for many years now, so I'm not up on the latest manifestations of the game, but I'm guessing it's a lot like it was when I was a kid. Unless the kids are playing tag with guns these days, then forget everything I'm saying.

I realise this is only a handful of schools with such bans, but to me it is just one example from a larger problem. Another example: The amount of kid-proofing that goes into houses with small children seems to me ridiculous. I understand parents want their children to be safe but removing any possibility for even the smallest of injuries assumes that children do not have the capacity to learn from their surroundings and experiences, which is, by the way, a valuable skill to learn. A case in point: those little plastic electrical outlet covers. My house never had those. I once jammed a pipe cleaner into an outlet. I never did it again.

If children aren't allowed to experience any danger, how can they be expected to understand and deal with potentially dangerous situations. How can they be expected to be responsible if they don't learn to be responsible for themselves? How can they be expected to face adversity, and you can be damn sure they're going to have to, if they have never had to before? How can they be expected to learn from their mistakes, if they aren't allowed to make any? It is when they are children that you want them to learn these things, when the situations they are in that they will learn from are relatively minor with the consequences not so great. Otherwise you end up with a culture of people afraid to take risks, unwilling to take responsibility for themselves, and ill-equipped or unable to deal with the crap that life is going to throw at them.