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I love all these posts and agree 100%. I know some of my grandkids are real couch potatoes and I worry about their physical development.
Some of my best memories are of playing hide-and-go-seek after dark. The parents and neighbors sitting on the porch, talking and sometimes telling scary stories. I remember getting "clothes lined", doggone near killed me, while running through the back yard after dark. My voice was croaky for a couple of days. It was just part of the hazards of being a kid.
We made sack swings out of crocker sacks, filled with moss, tied up with a rope that was probably several inches around. We would climb up a tree, start the rope swinging and jump off onto the sack portion, sometimes swinging double......
We made forts out of citrus crates in the groves when the fruit was still green on the trees. Then we would have green orange wars. That could hurt because they were as hard a baseballs. Yeah, fruit was lost but no one said anything, there was so much of it. I ran from an opponent once and ran smack into a barbed wire fence. I still carry the scar @70 on my thigh where the barbed wire cut a gash about 3 inches long. Didn't go to the doctor, didn't show it to my mother, as she was working. Went home, put some merchirochrome (sp) or iodine on it and went back to play. Granted, it wasn't a hugely deep cut but enough to leave a scar.
I have one scar on my thumb from notching a bow with a knife that had a broken tip, to play cowboys and indians. That one did require a clip as it cut a little vein. I have one on each thumb, exactly the same.
We turned endless cartwheels, practiced back bends until we could come up without using our hands. Headstands to see who could balance upright the longest, same with handstands. In total awe when someone could walk on their hands. <s> Races against each other, playing chase, jump rope.
It was a good time to be a child (50's).
Lol, we must have grown up in the same area! Green orange fights, swimming in sand mines! I feel so sorry for the kids of today. We got to have FUN!
Geez, cuts and scrapes were a part of childhood. Who didn't get them? A lot of us have scars from childhood accidents and survived. I couldn't imagine my childhood without playing alley baseball. All us kids would get together all ages, boys and girls whatever equipment we had and played. The bigger kids got the schoolyard.
I used to see kids in my present neighborhood playing outside but I don't see that much anymore. When I do, they seem to just be playing with chalk drawing on the sidewalk. I wonder if they even know how to play kid games anymore. When I was a kid, the little kids learned from the older ones. Tribal knowledge learned in the schoolyard and the neighborhood. There were all sorts of games that revolved around those that were banned by this school. Computer games will never replace those.
I don't blame the lawyers, I blame the politicians and bureaucrats that go overboard, and I blame juries who see a sad situation and conclude that someone with deep pockets must pay regardless of it being an "accident".
I blame the idiotic parents who hire lawyers to sue everyone within a hundred miles anytime their precious little darling gets hurt doing what kids do. It all starts with stupid parents - take them out of the equation, and the lawyers never come into play.
I blame the idiotic parents who hire lawyers to sue everyone within a hundred miles anytime their precious little darling gets hurt doing what kids do. It all starts with stupid parents - take them out of the equation, and the lawyers never come into play.
That's a good point. Maybe the school is afraid of being sued. But it still is mostly the fault of the parents. If the parents are going to hire the attorneys to sue, the attorneys are going to take the cases. It's their job and they're not going to turn them down.
I think it's just the mindset of the parents because they somehow have instilled in them that their kids are made of glass and cannot be exposed to the chance they might get hurt like maybe they did when they were young.
Some things do make sense though. When I was a kid a young classmate of mine of about twelve was killed riding her bike on the street when a car door opened and threw her off her bike. She suffered a head injury and died. Maybe if she were wearing a bike helmet she would still be alive today. Wearing a bike helmet makes sense. Wearing protective gear playing football and other rough sports makes sense too. But it seems that this school is taking it to extremes by taking the ball away so the kids can't play at all.
Boy, I can probably rep every post in this thread!
Honesty, this is beyond ridiculous. And sad. And scary, for the future of our children. it is going to back-fire big time. Already does.
It is incomprehensible, really, the fact that a lot of schools don't even HAVE an outdoor recess and, at best, there is only ONE recess of any kind and a fairly short one, at that. When the kids aren't allowed to do... anything? Anything fun?
Like somebody had said, just stare at each other? Or draw with chalk? Or walk, single-file hands, behind their back (true story only difference that they were going to the cafeteria that way, not recess - in our school). And then we have all kind of problems. Computer games. Obesity. Social awkwardness. Inability to pay attention in school, being restless, because the "play" and "work" time are not clearly differentiated.
Everything is regulated, no room to explore, to imagine, to create
This is BS, but the commenters here seem to be BACK IN MY DAY nostalgics.
And why not? Some of us are grandparents and even ::::gasp:::: great-grandparents. Back in our days we were allowed to be relatively carefree children. That is a status largely denied today's younger generations. It's a real pity. They know not what they miss. Worst of all, they never will and it's impossible to recapture.
What has been left out of the many conversations and some of the reporting is that the school is undergoing construction and the playground space has shrunk during the construction and there isn't the space for some of the previous activities not overlapping. One thing to be in the ball game and paying attention another thing to get whacked from behind. Unfortunately full reporting isn't the most entertaining.
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only difference that they were going to the cafeteria that way, not recess - in our school). And then we have all kind of problems. Computer games. Obesity. Social awkwardness. Inability to pay attention in school, being restless, because the "play" and "work" time are not clearly differentiated. 
