Classic kids games like kickball deemed unsafe by state in effort to increase summer camp regulation

[The Northerner]

ALBANY - State bureaucrats have identified a potentially deadly hazard facing our children this summer - freeze tag.

That's right, officials have decided the age-old street game - along with Wiffle Ball, kickball and dodgeball - poses a "significant risk of injury."

And classics like Capture the Flag, Steal the Bacon and Red Rover are also deemed dangerous in new state regulations for day camps.

"It looks like Albany bureaucrats are looking for kids to just sit in a corner in a house all day and not be outside," said state Sen. Patty Ritchie (R-St. Lawrence County).

"I don't think Wiffle Ball is a dangerous sport."

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2011/04/19/2011-04-19_classic_kids_games_like_kickball_deemed_unsafe_by_state_in_effort_to_increase_su.html

[Name removed]

1. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[TheWraith]

13. Do you agree with the regulations proposed here?

Is it your position that there is NEVER such a thing as an inappropriate regulation? That no one in government ever goes too far in something?

Or are you just slamming another DUer as a troll?

[blm]

17. That may be, but, the article is written so skewed that it's hard to swallow whole.

and, is it YOUR position that there is NEVER such a thing as an appropriate regulation? That every one in government always goes too far?

Sheesh. What an absurd approach you chose.

[The_Casual_Observer]

2. They'll set up laptops for them.

[bluestateguy]

3. We are pampering and sheltering the next generation

First its dodge ball, and then it just multiplies into more and more PC crap.

No wonder our kids lag behind kids in most other advanced democracies.

[Shiver]

4. Seriously.

Everyone is so overly concerned these days. What's wrong with running around and scraping your knee? I swear, kids today are so damn coddled it's sickening...

[Rage for Order]

6. It's the parents. From the article...

While many New Yorkers scoffed at the idea of tag leading to traumatic brain or spinal injury, Bronx resident Kim Wainwright said it's better to be safe than sorry.

"Kids these days are kinda brutal so I can see those games being dangerous," said Wainwright, who has a 5-year-old. "I agree with it."


:eyes:

[TheWraith]

16. The Lovejoy: "Oh, won't someone PLEASE think the children!"

A classic among the pretentious and the "morally outraged." The people who've forgotten that, despite their rose colored glasses about the qualities of the past, the world used to be a lot WORSE, not a lot better. People see ridiculously rare events on the TV news, and they think that because they see them, they must be common. Like the people who live in fear of their child being kidnapped. You know how many kidnappings by strangers take place in the US every year? Between 100 and 150 on average. The odds against it are so low as to be staggering--but it's on the news, therefore it must happen right under your nose every day.

People hyperventilate in fear of kidnappers, school shootings, and forget that a kid is thousands upon thousands of times more likely to be killed in a car accident, let alone the insanely low odds of being seriously injured playing tag or dodgeball. But nobody is afraid to put their kids in the car and drive them around for whatever minor reason. Because car accidents aren't news, so nobody cares, and if nobody cares, they must not be anything to be afraid of. The media's interest in rare stories ironically makes people think they're more common than the things which actually are common.

[Rage for Order]

32. Or the fallacious, "If this saves just ONE person, it will have been worth it!"

I have no doubt that at sometime, somewhere in the world some poor child suffered a terrible injury as a result of playing tag. People focus on the absolute worst case scenario that is so rare it receives national news coverage when it does occur, but they disregard the tens of billions of child-hours spent playing tag where nobody suffered anything more serious than a skinned knee.

[bluestateguy]

8. I remember in the summers I used to have scrapes, cuts, brusies and gashes on both legs

I played dodge ball, and got plunked a fair number of times, and got my share of bloody noses too.

Oh, and I picked teams too (the self-esteem police won't like that one!).

[Shiver]

11. There was an article I read in Time

About... I wanna say two years ago, about this sort of thing. I don't understand it, honestly. Parents are overprotective of their kids to a level that is almost pathological. They don't want them to ever have to feel bad or lose at anything. Losing build character, dammit! Scraping your knees, competing and playing games... it builds character and teaches them more than not experiencing that stuff does.

I'm only 25, but when I was a kid, playgrounds had metal slides and swings with exposed chains and some goddamn concrete beneath it all - the safer places had wood chips, yeah, but those could still give you splinters...

[Mojorabbit]

38. I had a baseball break my nose in elementary school

and no one blinked an eye.

[NCarolinawoman]

40. I broke my wrist playing Touch Football when I was 11.

It was a neighborhood mix of boys and girls.

When I got my cast, I wore it like a badge of honor. :)

[Confusious]

19. Seriously

i loved dodge ball even though icame out the worse for it.

[Rage for Order]

5. Picture from the story...

:rofl:

[Obamanaut]

7. Sometimes there are threads about why Americans, and especially young ones, are

getting fatter. Here is part of the answer, in the OP. Kids are not allowed to play, run, kick, scream, climb, push, shove, or generally be active.

It prepares them for a lifetime of sitting on the couch, wondering why they feel out of breath when they bend over to tie their shoelaces.

Good post. Rec.

[inwiththenew]

9. LOL, this reads like an article from The Onion

n/t

[BobbyBoring]

10. Maybe they don't make kids like they used to

When I was a kid, we were durable as hell! We fell out of trees (or jumped) threw rocks and snowballs at each other, got shot with BBs, hit with base balls, etc. We took our lumps and went on being kids. OH forgot, we also had bike accidents and occasionally fell off the skate boards that we made out of roller skate wheels and what ever wood we could find. I guess banning bikes and skates will be next? We're turning kids in to wimps!

And while we're at it, what's with the "Everyone wins" thing in kids competitive sports these day?

[Confusious]

20. Fell in rivers and lakes an nearly drowned

Seriously i did. twice.

[frebrd]

12. How in the world will these poor little hothouse flowers.....

ever be able to deal with life when they grow up?

Disgusting!

[Igel]

39. They don't.

I've seen a lot of kids look at the teacher talking, fail to get it on the first try, and just say, "I don't get it." Then they try to go to sleep.

I interpret "I don't get it" to mean "I give up." Resilience? Not a bit of it. It's like trying to bounce silly putty.

[PeaceNikki]

14. BOOO!!! HISSS!!!!!!!!!!

ugh. fuck these loons.

[alphafemale]

15. At one of my summer camps we waged "war" by lanching water balloons at each other with catapults.

The field we were playing on soon downgraded to a slippery slick muddy pit.

It was one of the best times at camp ever!

[SoCalDem]

18. People sue camps for injuries

Camps want to be proactive in case they get sued..

The sad thing is that kids like to play, and sometimes kids get hurt.. 99.99999% of the time, a tissue to wipe the tears and a band-aid will do, but helicopter parents get lawyers & attempt to put the camp out of business..

[MadHound]

37. That's why camps have liability insurance,

For that freak, once in a century wiffle ball accident.

[Bravo Zulu]

21. Watch the pros play!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8YrAILSxbq0&feature=player_embedded

[frylock]

22. wiffle ball?

WIFFLE BALL?!! ffs......

[JackintheGreen]

23. What about "Smear the *****"?

I don't even feel like I can call it by it's name anymore (but it rhymes, and I grew up in the midwest in the early 1980s, so please don't harass me about the name). We also called it "kill the man with the ball."

The game went like this: get a ball (any ball will do, though footballs are best). Throw the ball up then a bunch of kids run batshit crazy to grab the ball. Then everybody else tries to get the ball and flee. Repeat. There was no scoring, no winning, just kidney-punching and bruising. It was easily the BEST. GAME. EVER.

Is that still OK?

[KittyWampus]

27. sounds like rugby

:)

[bluestateguy]

41. Great game, offensive name

But yes, a hell of a lot of fun.

[bikebloke]

24. Crab Apple Fights

With crab apple trees in the neighbourhood, we were always having wars. Also, it seemed I always had scraped and scabbie knees. I survived.

[BobbyBoring]

25. I'll go you one better!

Hedge Apple fights! Those fuckers REALLY HURT!

[Rage for Order]

34. We had fights with rolls of fiberglass insulation! LOL

They were building a new subdivision behind our neighborhood over the course of 2 or 3 summers so there was never a shortage of nails, scrap wood, scrap metal, fiberglass insulation, shingles...it was a adolescent boy's dream!

[Odin2005]

33. Whacking people with horse chestnut conkers, now THAT was fun!

:rofl:

[phantom power]

26. If you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a ball.

[Rage for Order]

35. Are you angry now????

:rofl:

[JoePhilly]

28. Why not switch to Lawn Darts??

[Odin2005]

29. And people wonder why so many kids are obese?

Here in Fargo it is against the law for a kid under the age of 12 cannot be outside unsupervised. This is insane, I was born in 1986 and when I was little I was walking around my hometown when I was 7. People complain about kids sitting in front of TVs playing video games, but what else are they to do? Nowadays if a bunch of kids showed up at a park baseball field without parents the police would be called and CPS would be investigating the parents.

[cali]

30. lol. the stuff that I let my son do while he was growing up would horrify them

(and probably some DUers)

[The Straight Story]

31. Next thing we know - adults who want to do legal things together, like smoke and drink, will be

illegal.

We need to protect everyone from everything - because it is the job of government/religion to make choices for others to protect them.

Your body/your choice has turned into your body/our choice...all in the name of saving the sinners...err people from making choices that could possibly maybe harm them.

I applaud this, as I do recent laws about abortions, as I think people need others to choose for them where they work, what they eat, where they drink, what games they play, etc... (yes, there is a lot of sarcasm in there).

[auntsue]

36. The whole point of the story is to add new places to

call summer camps - that way they can collect the $200 "camp" fee. They use the "dangerous game" tag as a hook to get the fee.

[Kievan Rus]

42. This is stupid. Kids need exercise, period.