School Bans "Tag"

[Lisa]

This whole discussion on this subject reminds me of what I see at work every fall.

I work at the local University and in my building we run a small residence.

Over the course of the past four years I have seen young adults come in who have no clue how to wake themselves up for school, do their own laundry, make their own bed, iron their own clothes, etc. Not to mention the struggle they have academically because they have come through a system of not falling on their butts and having to strive for good marks.

It is truly mind blowing to me when parents call asking who is going to wake up their son? Asking when laundry service is and how often their rooms will be cleaned. I find it hard to believe that you would send a child out into university life with very little skills in every day life.

Every parent wants to make everything good for their child. But by not teaching them that there is success and failure in life and not teaching them to strive past it, we do them such an injustice.

We are suppose help our children succeed, not do it for them.

Sorry for the slight off topic, but I see this whole "banning of children's games" along the same lines.

 

[crushing]

If you don't keep score, soccer is just a bunch of idiots running around if a field kicking a piece of leather.

The idiots aren't the ones running around on the field. Believe me, they not only know the score, but they know their record and the record of the team they are playing.

 

[bydand]

The idiots aren't the ones running around on the field. Believe me, they not only know the score, but they know their record and the record of the team they are playing.

Correct! When they get a bit older, kids know where they stand even if the "adults" around them pretend not to. Everybody knows who is winning and losing, not only at sports but acidemics as well. It may make the adults feel better by not having to make a tough choice, but, it does nothing for the kids involved. Sure, it may save a child from having to say they lost at something, but is that giving them real life skills? NO it isn't. If I tell somebody that X,Y,& Z needs to be done by the end of the week so the project can continue onto the next phase, guess what is going to happen to said individual when they get X done, but Y,& Z were just a little tough so they didn't do them. Can anyone say FIRED. I can accept a setback if there is a real problem, I will not accept a setback due to somebody not attempting to finish their job because it is difficult.

No tag, not keeping score, Social grade promotion, etc... what are we teaching our youth? It scares me truthfully!

 

[Andrew Green]

When a child can never lose, they can also never really win. And both are important things to learn how to do.

Kid's are competitive, and they play rough. It's been breed into us for millions of years where the strong didn't always survive, and if you wanted to survive you had to get strong as a kid.

I got a very simple belief that if you mess around with what is natural behaviour and instinctive to people, the results won't be pretty.

 

[heretic888]

Not sure how these twin illusions came to be so widespread...

I would highly suggest reading Boomeritis by Ken Wilber.

 

[exile]

A link to the article in my local paper.

http://www.courant.com/news/local/hc-ctnotag1019.artoct19,0,5577582.story?coll=hc-headlines-local

I found this part pretty interesting:

"Elimination games like Tag or Simon Says are essentially self-defeating," Williams continued, "because the students who are least skilled and fit are usually the first to be caught, banished, punished, and embarrassed, and then given almost no opportunity to improve."Mike

Now try the following on for size:

"Games like tennis or darts or... are essentially self-defeating, because the players who are least skilled and fit are usually the first to be eliminated, and then given almost no opportunity to improve"

Same logic, as far as I can tell. Anything where some standard of performance is involved---something you could test yourself against and measure your improvement and mastery by (and thereby use as training for improvement)---is going to be eliminated if the concept in the original quotation is followed.

We're getting in real life what Garrison Keiler thought he was joking about in Lake Woebegone---all of the children are above average!.

And while they're at it, the teachers might as well eliminate art classes as well, since some students are going to be so obviously better than others at it, and math, since there are a small number of kids with an almost instinctive aptitude for it and a huge majority who find extremely intimidating and difficult, and ... and, ...

Welcome to Planet Mediocrity, folks!

 

[exile]

I would highly suggest reading Boomeritis by Ken Wilber.

Boomers... well, I'm one of them, but I'm not sure how things got to this point. Because as I recall, we were competitive almost to a point that was almost pathological. Boomers are amongst the most obsessive workaholics of all time, and I don't know a single one who doesn't take pride in being really good at some field of knowledge or domain of creativity (and constant sneaking of glances over the shoulder to see how Those Other People are doing---a good pal and colleague of mine, the same age as me, sums up the attitude as, `Success is not enough---friends must fail!')

Maybe it had something to do with having kids? When people are told they have to be the best of the best for most of their lives (first by their parents, then by each other), they can't break out of that training themselves---too ingrained---but maybe they want to go out of their way to make their children less obsessive about it. I've quite consciously done that with my own son, based on my own family experience. The thing is, though, there's a point where a lower demand level for success becomes a kind of free pass to drift. Not good, not good at all... there has to be balance, balance, balance (The Slow Side Kick Principle :wink1

 

[Andrew Green]

It is truly mind blowing to me when parents call asking who is going to wake up their son? Asking when laundry service is and how often their rooms will be cleaned. I find it hard to believe that you would send a child out into university life with very little skills in every day life.

Well if kids can't be left responsible to organize and play sometimng as simple and as natural as a game of tag on there own, how on earth are they supposed to be able to do anything else unsupervised?


The worst part of all of this?

I now get to remember "The good old days" when, as kids, it was expected that we "Go out and play, but be back before dark".... expcected... it was enforced, spending the entire week in front of the TV or a Atarii / Nintendo was not allowed, we got sent to the park.

I feel old... and I am not old enough to feel old... what has the world come too, this is supposed to be all about me, and I don't wasnt to feel old, so let the kids play!

 

[Kacey]

This bounces around the email ring from time to time:

People over thirty should have died as kids because...

"Our baby cribs were covered with brightly coloured lead paint"

"We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets"

"when we rode our bikes we had no helmets. (Not to mention the risks we took hitchhiking.)"

"We would ride in cars with no seatbelts or airbags. Riding in the back of a pickup truck on a warm day was always a special treat."

"We drank water from the garden hose and not a bottle."

"We ate (unhealthy things) and we were never overweight because we were outside playing."

"We shared one soft drink with four friends from one bottle and nobody actually died from this."

"We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the street lights came on. No one was able to reach us all day. No cell phones. Unthinkable!"


"We did not have Playstations, Nintendo 64, X-Boxes, no video games at all, no 99 channels on cable, video tape movies, surround sound, personal cell phones, personal computers, or Internet chat rooms. We had friends! We went outside and found them. We played dodge ball, and sometimes, the ball would really hurt."

"We fell out of trees, got cut and broke bones and teeth, and there were no lawsuits from these accidents. They were accidents. No one was to blame but us. Remember accidents?"

"We had fights and punched each other and got black and blue and learned to get over it."

"We made up games with sticks and tennis balls and ate worms, and although we were told it would happen, we did not put out very many eyes, nor did the worms live inside us forever."


"Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment. Some students weren't as smart as others, so they failed a grade and were held back to repeat the same grade. Horrors! Tests were not adjusted for any reason."

"Our actions were our own. Consequences were expected. The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke a law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law. Imagine that!"

Now, I'm not saying that all of the changes are bad - certainly, getting rid of lead paint is a good thing - but think about the things we were able to do as kids that kids today can't do because of fear on the part of adults - fear of injury, of lawsuits, of the unknown. It scares me that this is what our society has come to.

 

[heretic888]

Boomers... well, I'm one of them, but I'm not sure how things got to this point.

I will have to reiterate my earlier suggestion.

Read the book I mentioned. This goes a LOT deeper than people babying their offspring or being too litigous. Much deeper.

Laterz.

 

[exile]

I will have to reiterate my earlier suggestion.

Read the book I mentioned. This goes a LOT deeper than people babying their offspring or being too litigous. Much deeper.

Laterz.

OK---I will put on my stack, up towards the top---thanks for the reference!

 

[Lisa]

I found this article regarding the importance of free unstructured play and being important for children and thought I would share it as part of this thread.

 

[Makalakumu]

As long as we are recommending books, I'll give my pick...

Last Child in the Woods by Richard Louv

From Publishers Weekly


Today's kids are increasingly disconnected from the natural world, says child advocacy expert Louv (Childhood's Future; Fatherlove; etc.), even as research shows that "thoughtful exposure of youngsters to nature can... be a powerful form of therapy for attention-deficit disorder and other maladies."

Instead of passing summer months hiking, swimming and telling stories around the campfire, children these days are more likely to attend computer camps or weight-loss camps: as a result, Louv says, they've come to think of nature as more of an abstraction than a reality. Indeed, a 2002 British study reported that eight-year-olds could identify Pokémon characters far more easily than they could name "otter, beetle, and oak tree."

Gathering thoughts from parents, teachers, researchers, environmentalists and other concerned parties, Louv argues for a return to an awareness of and appreciation for the natural world. Not only can nature teach kids science and nurture their creativity, he says, nature needs its children: where else will its future stewards come from? Louv's book is a call to action, full of warnings—but also full of ideas for change.

Book Description


“I like to play indoors better ’cause that’s where all the electrical outlets are,” reports a fourth grader. But it’s not only computers, television, and video games that are keeping kids inside. It’s also their parents’ fears of traffic, strangers, Lyme disease, and West Nile virus; their schools’ emphasis on more and more homework; their structured schedules; and their lack of access to natural areas. Local governments, neighborhood associations, and even organizations devoted to the outdoors are placing legal and regulatory constraints on many wild spaces, sometimes making natural play a crime.

As children’s connections to nature diminish and the social, psychological, and spiritual implications become apparent, new research shows that nature can offer powerful therapy for such maladies as depression, obesity, and attention deficit disorder. Environment-based education dramatically improves standardized test scores and grade-point averages and develops skills in problem solving, critical thinking, and decision making. Anecdotal evidence strongly suggests that childhood experiences in nature stimulate creativity.

In Last Child in the Woods, Louv talks with parents, children, teachers, scientists, religious leaders, child-development researchers, and environmentalists who recognize the threat and offer solutions. Louv shows us an alternative future, one in which parents help their kids experience the natural world more deeply—and find the joy of family connectedness in the process.

In my opinion, the same factors that pull our kids away from green spaces and other areas in the "rough" are the same factors that pull our kids away from tag.

This book was one of the better books I've read this year and as a parent of young children, I have to say that it greatly influenced how I want to raise my children.