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Life is a playground The administrators at a school in Colorado Springs has decided their elementary age students can't play tag anymore. The students can run on the playground, they just can't chase each other. Bummer. Apparently, some children ended up being "it" more than others. And, some children felt they were bullied and pushed and shoved. Sound familiar? I spent a large part of my youthful recesses being "it." I was the slow child, the clumsy child, the easy-tocatch child. I was great at being "it," because I could never out run anyone. My only hope was to sneak up on someone hiding behind a tree, but then I usually tripped over the root. If I was really lucky, I could tag someone on the way down. Hide and go seek wasn't much better. I was too slow to get to the good hiding places first, and I was too slow to get back to base. When I wasn't being "it," I was hiding my eyes against my arm and counting to 100. I was pretty good at that, too. Did I feel bullied or chased or pushed or shoved? Did I feel as if I wasn't quite as good as everyone else because I wasn't a star? I don't remember, but I'm guessing at some point someone called me pokey and I probably fell down as the result of an over zealous tag. Did it damage my psyche for life? Nope. While I could never be the best Red Rover player or keep my pose in Sling the Statue, I was always game to give it a try. I still am. Did I learn that on the playground? Could be. Perhaps picking myself up and dusting myself off at seven gave me practice for harder falls and more difficult recoveries. The saying "failure is not an option" sounds good, but in life, failure is a given. I don't know anyone who has made it through life without failing at something. There might be people who don't want to admit it, but we all goof up at some point. So, isn't it better to learn about our weaknesses and strengths on the playground, to learn that while life isn't always fair, being "it" can have some advantages. While everyone else is running around like a chicken with their head cut off, the "its" of the world can set their own speed. They can mosey across the playground or they can run like there is no tomorrow. They know what their goals are and have the pleasure of figuring out how to best reach them. Everyone else in the game just knows they better run. So, is playing chase a bad thing? Are all childhood games just too tough for the children of today? I don't think so and I'm guessing that the kids in Colorado Springs are pretty peeved that chase is no longer an option.
Being a kid is tough. Unfortunately, many of the things that are hard for children don't go away, they simply take a different form. Isn't it easier to learn things like that at seven when an ice cream cone can cure just about anything?
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