Let children run and play at school

last updated: September 05, 2007 08:54:48 AM

If you want to know one reason why we have obese, fidgety, restless kids who can't concentrate in school or resolve conflicts with their peers, look to the school playground.

Yet another elementary school has banned tag on the playground, this time in Colorado Springs. The assistant principal said tag "causes a lot of conflict on the playground." Many schools already have eliminated dodgeball as "exclusionary" and "dangerous." Other targets for elimination include kickball, red rover and duck-duck-goose. Some schools have abolished all unsupervised playground games that have physical contact, such as soccer.

Contributing to the problem is that few children walk or ride their bicycles to school because of safety concerns. And skateboards are taboo on the sidewalks.

Have Americans really become averse to children falling down, getting hurt, competing and learning to deal with all kinds of kids and behaviors? Schools do no service in trying to protect kids from the ordinary rough-and-tumble of life.

But even more disturbing than the bans on particular games is the trend toward eliminating all unstructured play and games -- by eliminating recess altogether.

Those schools are seriously underestimating the role that recess breaks play in improving kids' concentration in class. And they seriously overestimate fears of bullying and problems on the playground. University of Minnesota researcher Anthony Pellegrini reports that physical and verbal aggression actually accounts for less than 2 percent of all playground behavior. Where it's a problem it's typically because of a lack of supervision.

We're headed toward a society where kids have no idea how to deal with free time or conflict and increasingly choose sedentary, solitary games -- many of them hooked to a computer or TV monitor. Bring back not only recess and spontaneous games for kids but adults who get it: Playground supervision is anything but a nuisance.

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