For Crying out loud...they are children.

[Shannow]

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,22503895-2862,00.html

[quoteCHILDREN are being banned from dressing as their favourite superheroes in Victorian kindergartens and preschools.

Batman, Shrek and Wonder Woman are being outlawed in pre-school care in a clampdown on childish behaviour.

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They're children. They are supposed to dress up and display "childish behaviour".

Our daughter's preschool teacher has some pretty strong views on the issues, and laments what's happened to their "playground" as a result of "zero harm" rules.

They had a slide around 3' high. She loved it because it taught the children turn taking, gross motor skill, balance, (and yes consequences if they mess up).

Slide is now gone. If they want a slide, they have to build an earth mound with a slide down one face...

They can have a balance beam, but no higher than a couple of inches. As she says, the children lose their balance and step off. No challenge (and yes no lessons for mucking up).

No climbing equipment, no swings.

She reckons that the consequence learning part is a fundamental of being a 3/4/5 year old. They learn some painful lessons in a controlled environment, so they understand the potential when they are out of their parents' sight, and climb their first tree.

She also reckons that the injuries have gone from a handful of sprains (and occasional broken bone) to head and face injuries from children in a sterile environment who do nothing but run full tilt around the yard until they run into each other.

When you see how much fun children can have playing dress-ups, it's pathetic to ban it.

[/rant]

 

[ToyotaNSaturn]

Fiction holds nothing on reality nowadays.

It's amazing that in the world of intelligentsia, there's too much thinking.

 

[Julian]

Here's another article along the same lines ripped from the internet news world. Might generate some discussion, dunno:
http://www.americanthinker.com/2007/09/banning_boyhood.html

 

[Master ACiD]

my sisters husband babies their kids that same way. the kids are not allowed to do anything fun. which means nothing even slightly dangerous. when i was their age i was out riding atv, skateboarding, bike riding, etc. these kids never get to really "play" so they dont know what real pain feels like. sure they must get hurt a little bit once in a while, but i guarantee these kids have never had a sprain or any cuts requiring stitches.
so what i came to realise is that since these kids dont know the meaning of pain, they are nearly fearless. i was making dinner at their house one time and the older one comes over and grabs the handle of a pot of boiling water on the stove. he almost pulled it onto himself except that i saw it and smacked his hand VERY hard with mine. so what happens? the kid starts crying saying i hurt him and im not suppose to hit kids. then my sisters husband comes over and tells me that "we dont abuse children in our household" and that "i can only use the burners nearest the wall and the pot handles must face away from anyone standing there".

basically the kids get babied so much that in spite of their agres (3 and 5) they have no fear of pain. all the corners in the entire house are rubber padded. theres carpet and padding everywhere so that no one can get hurt. any normal 5 year old knows what hot water feels like and would not willingly try to dump a pot of it on himself. this kid is 5 and was going to scald his skin! i come to find out that their bathtub is rigged to only provide lukewarm water. you cant make it hot even if you try.
the thing that really got my goat is the notion that i was somehow at fault. as if its my fault for using the wrong burner on the stove, its my fault for having the handle pointed the wrong way?
to sum things up quickly because im sure im wasting everyones time who bothered to read through all this, i wont baby sit for them again. that was the straw that did it for me. actually i try to not even go over there at all if i can help it. the whole situation freaks me out when one of them snots can run up and smack me in the balls and go unpunished.
the thing is, i feel bad for these kids because when they grow up they are going to get a really hard dose of reality the first time they are away from my sisters hudband and no ones there to tell them what hurts and what doesnt. kids NEED to get occasionally hurt. they need stitches and sprained ancles. its part of growing up. in the mean time their parents are going nuts and rarely have company.

 

[tigrpal]

I've been an elementary school teacher and principal for 26 years in schools that have three year olds through eighth graders. At my school we still have swings and slides. The 7th and 8th graders play dodgeball in the gym or play a form of tag outside on the climbing equipment.

I have lamented the feminizing of the American boy for a long time ever since the 80's when boys were growing "tails"(remember the long strands of hair growing out of the center of their necks?). I listened to their mothers saying how cute they were with their fathers standing with their hands in their pockets saying nothing. I wanted to shake those dads and say, "What are you allowing your sons to become?" It wasn't the hairstyle that bothered me. It was the mothers' control and desire to make their boys look cute rather than handsome. Many fathers have shirked their responsibility of raising their sons. Children today are crying out for strong, responsible male influences in their lives.

I could go on and on about both of these articles. Preschoolers need to play dress up. They need to use their imaginations. They need to play role playing games like cops and robbers or play house or play superheros. These are developmentally appropriate actvities for preschool and primary age children. It develops their minds in preparation for learning to read. It builds connections between the right half of the brain, the creative half, and the left half of the brain, the logical half.

 

[Lonnie]

In LA a 1st grader was sent home because he drew a picture of a gun during craft time. The teacher said it may hurt the feelings of other students. At 1st grade in LA kids know about guns. Another child a 2nd grader was expelled because she had finger nail clippers in her purse. That was the zero tolerance weapons policy. She will now have this on her records for the rest of her school career. The school principal said that they have to draw the line somewhere and can't make exceptions. This is the same law that was applied to a high school student that same week that was caught with a sawed off shotgun in his back pack. In the eyes of the principal these two violations have the same weight and the school system applied exactly the same punishment to both parties. I don't know about you but in a dark alley I think I could handle the 2nd grader pointing a finger nail clipper at me a bit easier than a teenager with a shotgun.

 

[ToyotaNSaturn]

Quote:

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The school principal said that they have to draw the line somewhere and can't make exceptions. This is the same law that was applied to a high school student that same week that was caught with a sawed off shotgun in his back pack.

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Context matters. Those that think they know better make laws that don't discriminate between a 2nd graders with clippers and an older student with a sawed off shotgun.

But were told not to discriminate or to judge others. Those that claim to know better and make laws like these really don't know much at all.

But don't judge!

 

[DrinkDuff77]

Quote:

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I've been an elementary school teacher and principal for 26 years in schools that have three year olds through eighth graders. At my school we still have swings and slides. The 7th and 8th graders play dodgeball in the gym or play a form of tag outside on the climbing equipment.

I have lamented the feminizing of the American boy for a long time ever since the 80's when boys were growing "tails"(remember the long strands of hair growing out of the center of their necks?). I listened to their mothers saying how cute they were with their fathers standing with their hands in their pockets saying nothing. I wanted to shake those dads and say, "What are you allowing your sons to become?" It wasn't the hairstyle that bothered me. It was the mothers' control and desire to make their boys look cute rather than handsome. Many fathers have shirked their responsibility of raising their sons. Children today are crying out for strong, responsible male influences in their lives.

I could go on and on about both of these articles. Preschoolers need to play dress up. They need to use their imaginations. They need to play role playing games like cops and robbers or play house or play superheros. These are developmentally appropriate actvities for preschool and primary age children. It develops their minds in preparation for learning to read. It builds connections between the right half of the brain, the creative half, and the left half of the brain, the logical half.

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Bravo Sir!! I want to send my son to your school in a few years.

 

[oilyriser]

Might as well castrate the boys, if their parents don't want them to grow up male.

 

[Gary Allan]

Quote:

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n the eyes of the principal these two violations have the same weight and the school system applied exactly the same punishment to both parties.

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I see

Quote:

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I don't know about you but in a dark alley I think I could handle the 2nd grader pointing a finger nail clipper at me a bit easier than a teenager with a shotgun.

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Perhaps that principal needs to be in that alley to get the proper perspective.

 

[Shannow]

Julian,
not a bad read.

Stretching the topic further to the over-representation of young males in the road toll (and causing the toll of others).

My brother and I had many many hurts on pushbikes, that we privately nursed (Never wanted parents to know just how far we pushed the limits, so we just kept quiet).

Nowadays, the first serious accident a kid gets in is 200km/hr around a telephone pole.

My brother's scariest firearms incident was going "hunting" with a bunch of mates whose first exposure to firearms was at 18 years old, when they could get a licence without their parent's permission.

 

[wantin150]

Once again, I'm scared for my son.

During play at his daycare, he took a header into the gym floor. A trip to Urgent Care and a cat scan later, he turned out to be ok. We didn't overreact here, he exhibited some signs of a serious head injury. What did he learn? Don't spin around until you're silly dizzy and get your bell rung.

A week later, he was running in the gym. Went down face first and cracked (literally in half) his two front teeth. Once they fall out, he'll be toothless for a couple years till the perm teeth come in but he's a boy. Stuff happens.

Children must fail in order to learn. They must hurt themselves in order to learn. Fact of life. We are getting to be a society of pansies.

 

[GeaugaFletcher]

Master ACiD, your sister and her husband will pay the price later on...oh boy will they ever!

In the meantime, I thoroughly agree with your decision not to babysit their kids anymore, good gravy boats!

 

[benjamming]

We'll all pay the price for these kind of things.

 

[MarkC]

"We are getting to be a society of pansies."

Getting to be? I think we're already there. We seem willing to let fear dictate everything these days.

 

[CBDFrontier06]

I lost all hope for society when spanking became 'abuse'. Probably the only thing that kept me from growing up to be an adult h-e-l-l-i-o-n was the belt, the switch, and the occasional hand swung at high velocity towards my behind. I'm not advocating beatings or closed-fisted striking, but come on....pain is a far more effective deterrent than a 'time out' or 'no video games for 3 days'. Protecting children from hurting themselves or taking steps to completely prevent stupid moves is only going to cause them to grow up and do really stupid things later in life. They need these lessons early in life, parents. Stop trying to instill reason and login into a 5-year-old...it doesn't exist yet. Do you know how foolish you look while you're rattling off psycho-babble in a baby voice?

Ahh well, what kind of entertainment would the nightly news and the Darwin Awards provide if it weren't for the adult children of overprotective parents?

 

[adam123]

I well remember when I was playing football at my Middle school. I hit my ankle on a conrcrete step up, broke it around the joint (Very painful). After it healed I still played football but if I ever got near that step up again my attention wen't 100% to it. I learned a lot from that accident. That's something that Iam afraid a lot of kids aren't going to experience now.

 

[javacontour]

I remember having a similar discussion with my now ex-wife about letting kids do things and learning from their mistakes. My step daughter was about 6 or 7 years old at the time and was trying to shimmy up the pole that supported the basketball goal.

My ex-wife was having a cow. I explained to her that her daughter would learn one of three things:

1. How to climb up the pole.
2. That she cannot or should not climb up the pole.
3. Or that she should hang on when attempting to climb the pole, because falling hurts.

No one wants to see kids get hurt. By the same token, some lessons are only learned with a little (or a lot of) pain.

 

[moribundman]

A 6 or 7 year old doesn't know falling hurts?

 

[javacontour]

See, they have to learn these things.

Actually, falling doesn't hurt, it's the landing when you stop falling, suddenly! LOL