From the Associated Press:

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. –

An elementary school has banned tag on its playground after some children complained they were harassed or chased against their will.

“It causes a lot of conflict on the playground,” said Cindy Fesgen, assistant principal of the Discovery Canyon Campus school.

Running games are still allowed as long as students don’t chase each other, she said.

Fesgen said two parents complained to her about the ban but most parents and children didn’t object.

In 2005, two elementary schools in the nearby Falcon School District did away with tag and similar games in favor of alternatives with less physical contact. School officials said the move encouraged more students to play games and helped reduce playground squabbles.

This story reminds me of something I’ve been wanting to write about for a long time, except that other issues–such as the upcoming presidential election, Mormon movies, and the weather–have been preoccupying me. 

OUR neighborhood school banned tag.  Princess Zurg came home from first grade and informed us that there was a rule against “chasing.”  I thought she must mean that there was a rule against unwanted chasing.  Because surely they still let children play games, like tag.  No, she said, all chasing games were against the rules.  This really bothered me at the time, but I never complained about it because I was too busy complaining about their inadequate accommodations for disabled students.  I just had to shrug my shoulders and say, “Oh well, paranoid public schools,” and make a mental note to find other opportunities for my children to engage in such innocuous activities. 

Then Mister Bubby came home from kindergarten and said there was a “no running” rule.  Even Princess Zurg–who didn’t have much of a problem with the “no chasing” rule because it was, after all, a safety issue (you can never be too careful)–was incredulous.  “You mean there’s no chasing,” she said.  “You can run, just not chase.”

“No,” MB said, “you can’t run OR chase.”

“Maybe that’s a rule just for kindergarteners,” she said. 

“No, it’s a rule for the whole school,” he insisted.

I was incredulous myself.  But again, I was preoccupied with other issues, so while I was certainly upset in the philosophical sense, I could not spare any moral outrage on behalf of tag, especially since MB seemed to be taking the whole thing in stride.  But even if it doesn’t bother my kids, it still bothers me, for one simple reason:

IT’S TAG!

I understand that some children don’t like to be chased.  Some kids are okay with being chased at some times and not at other times.  Some kids are a little too aggressive with their chasing.  Sometimes when you “tag” someone, you might be overzealous and maybe hit them.  You might trip.  You might trip someone else.  I understand all the risks.  I just don’t understand the remedy.

Just how often children have to be hospitalized for tag injuries?  I’m sure there are freak occurrences, like two kids run into each other head on and one of them gets a concussion, maybe even sustains some brain damage.  I would not put that outside the realm of possibility.  Someone could trip over a tree root and break a bone, maybe.  Someone with a heart condition maybe shouldn’t play tag.  I don’t know.

But safety concerns apparently aren’t the issue in Colorado Springs, where they banned tagged after some students complained about being chased against their will.

Here’s an idea:  why don’t you make a rule about not playing tag with people who don’t want to play tag?  “Only willing participants may play tag.”  That sounds like a good rule to me.  A little more complicated than “no running.”  A little more nuance than some school-age children are prepared to deal with.  But here’s another idea:  why don’t we stop micromanaging children’s games altogether?  Not that recess should be some Lord of the Flies free-for-all.  But would a tiny step in that direction be such a bad thing?

I’m totally against bullying and harassment.  When I was in grade school, one of the boys in my class and his buddy used to throw rocks at me on the way home from school.  That was uncool.  Okay, they weren’t big rocks, and they weren’t aiming at my head, but still, it was annoying.  That’s what I recall thinking at the time.  “This is annoying.  I’d like to walk home without having rocks thrown at me.  I wish they’d go do something else and leave me alone.”  And yes, I was ignoring them.  I’ve always been good at ignoring people, or at least pretending to ignore them.  But they still kept throwing rocks at me, and I was still annoyed.  So I told my mother, and since we didn’t know the boys’ parents, my mother talked to the principal.  The principal talked to the boys’ parents, and the parents punished the boys.  (I’d like to point out that at no time were the police or the district attorney’s office involved.  Shocking, I know.)  The boys were reasonably annoyed with me for getting them in trouble, but they didn’t throw any more rocks at me.  I wish I could say we all became good friends and that I eventually married one of them, but that would be a fiction.  (I’m sure SD threw some rocks at girls in his youth, too, but that’s neither here nor there.)  We didn’t stay enemies, either.  We lived happily ever after in mutual indifference to one another, which was just fine with me.

See, that’s an incident of harassment that didn’t even occur on school property, yet the school did, I think, play an appropriate role.  As far as I know, the boys never received any school discipline, which was fine, because none of this occurred during school hours or on school grounds.  If they were throwing rocks at me at recess, I would have expected them to get, I don’t know, detention or something.  Have to stand in a corner or clap erasers or something.  Write “I will not stone innocent bystanders” a thousand times.  How did they punish us in elementary school?  I don’t know, I was always a perfect angel.  But I digress.  That was then.  Nowadays I’d expect that maybe the whole student body would be barred from walking home without an adult escort.  Because nowadays the world is crazy.

At PZ’s school they are not allowed to pick up sticks.  I assume this is because they don’t want anyone hitting or poking others with sticks, or running and tripping and accidentally impaling themselves with sticks.  (As far as PZ knows, kids are still allowed to run at her school.)  That makes sense.  I can understand telling a youngster who’s running with a stick, “Hey, stop running with that stick!  You could trip and fall and impale yourself!”  I can also understand telling youngsters who appear to be engaging in a mock sword fight with sticks, “Hey, put down those sticks, you could poke each other’s eyes out!”  (I’m not saying that I would be so uptight, mind you, but a reasonable amount of uptightness is tolerable, I think.)  I definitely understand telling a youngster who’s beating another youngster with a stick, “Hey, stop beating that other kid with a stick!  And get thee to a principal’s office, go!”  That is all reasonable stuff.

Telling a kid that she can’t pick up a stick to write in the dirt or build a home for the ants or some other non-violent act seems a little…excessive. 

I don’t tell PZ this is a dumb rule, and I don’t complain about it, because I understand why these rules are made.  I do.  It’s the same reason I end up screaming at my kids, “Aaaughhhhh!  That’s it!  No more talking!  No more touching!  No sounds!  Only breathing!”  It’s simpler than saying, “No screaming, yelling, teasing, whining or threatening!” and “No hitting, kicking, poking, scraping, or smashing!” and “No fake flatulence!”  It’s also simpler to say, “No picking up sticks.”  “No fighting with sticks” and “no running with sticks” and “no striking menacing poses with sticks” is unnecessarily complex. 

Likewise, “No playing tag” is simple.  “No running” is even simpler.  But isn’t there a better way to deal with children’s conflicts?  Something that doesn’t suck all the fun out of childhood?

Just wondering.