I stumbled on an article that made me shake my head, but not too hard, I didn鈥檛 want to risk personal damage. It seems that on a school ground in Toronto, an adult was supervising noon hour activities and was smacked in the head by an errant soccer ball and suffered a concussion.
The administration of the school quickly called a meeting and they decided, to avoid any possibility of litigation, they would act by the use of all inflatable balls on the school ground. Boy, I can just imagine the group surrounding that table.
No doubt the majority had suffered some traumatic playground experiences in their youth, getting pounded in dodge ball, getting stuffed in lockers, or being beaned at the plate during a game of noon hour baseball. Now was their chance to get those dreaded balls off the playground.
In other cases, games of tag have been banned so as not to 鈥榖ruise anyone鈥檚 self-esteem,鈥� and in even more drastic cases, playgrounds have been removed altogether so that no one gets hurt. Of course the child psychologists had to become involved.
One professional expert noted that risk taking is important in the development of children and that children learn to overcome fear gradually by being able to measure their own abilities and learn new ones by successes and failures.
For instance, if you throw a punch and end up on your butt with a black eye, you learn to write poetry instead of buying boxing gloves. If you can鈥檛 climb the rope in the gym all the way to the top, you pursue a more academic curriculum, and if you keep getting smacked in the head with an inflatable ball on the playground, you spend more time at administrative meetings instead of supervising outside. The playground is very educational.
The point is, children have to be allowed to test their skills, face their fears and eventually learn how high they can climb, how fast they can run and far they can jump. The same experts tell us that children who are hurt in scrapes and falls before the age of nine are less likely to be afraid to fall or get hurt as teenagers. Who would have thought that saving our kids from harm could be harmful?
The fear of someone getting hurt drives the paranoia of lawsuits and too often people overreact, fearful that it will cost them. Boy, was I an idiot. Many years ago I was coaching Little League and called for the boys to throw in the ball, not knowing two boys had baseballs. One hit squarely in my glove. The other broke my nose and knocked me out for a minute or two.
After a crunching nasal rearrangement and some stitches, I apologized to the boy and his family. I was an adult coach in charge of these kids and I should have been paying attention. I could have sued them and made a bundle, but in the old days, games were games and we learned as much from our losses as we did from our wins.
Yes, I did end up writing poetry with an administrative job. You shouldn鈥檛 have to be hit in the head too many times to learn where you belong.
To all you administrators and lawyers out there, spend more time on your budgets and your felons and let the kids be kids. At least, that鈥檚 what McGregor says.
