So anyway, here's my question:
Has your kid's school banned particular movements during recess, "for your child's safety?"
Our kid reports that cartwheels, handstands, and backbends are now forbidden, even when done in wide open spaces. I'm pretty perturbed about this for a whole lot of reasons, and am looking for advice on how to approach the school.
*caveat that yes, I have confirmed from others that my kid isn't making this up.
4. Policing totally fun, normal, kid-like movements such as cartwheels is a slippery slope toward policing other things about their bodies.
5. There are FAR more dangerous things about school than the risk of pulling a hamstring or breaking a bone doing a cartwheel. IDK maybe we can start with guns, cars, mold, COVID, book bans, assault, bullying, hell even chocolate milk in the lunch line.
I'm maybe overly sensitive to this because my kid HAS gotten hurt at school. She got hurt when a wooden rocking chair fell off a table onto her actual head. There was lots of blood. She was absolutely traumatized. The school made zero effort to minimize the chance this could happen again.
So don't you dare come at me with "your child can't move her body in this completely natural way because she might get hurt doing it"
to be fair my kid did learn an important lesson about potential energy that day
@DrTCombs the #SpatialEducation of #children requires activity and interaction with the natural and #BuiltEnvironment.
#Proprioception develops through the use of the body as vessel, tool and means to inhabit space via sensory input and increasingly appropriate response to stimuli.
So, that is a fairly concerning institutional approach.
@DrTCombs I'm just back from the trampolining and tumbling national competitions with young kids throwing themselves in breathtaking ways. A few slight hurts but nothing seemingly needing treatment bar hugs for the disappointed
I’m trying to understand what reasonable scenarios might involve a wooden rocking chair *on* a table, but my imagination (usually quite robust) fails me.
@DavidM_yeg chairs on tables at night to make life easier on the custodial staff. and I get that, but I do think there could be exceptions for wooden rocking chairs.
we could also teach kids to assess risk better though. yeah, I was pissed when it happened because it was entirely avoidable and seemingly zero concern from the school admin (they thought it was minor), but now she knows to be more careful around precariously balanced heavy things.
Ah… I see. Chair on tables at night assumes no children present. Seems like that should change during the day, when kids are there 🤷♂️
@DrTCombs That honestly sounds completely ridiculous. Maybe you can approach them with research showing that free movement is important for children's development, and ask them to provide the data that shows that these movements are unsafe? Chances are it's just someone's feeling/opinion. Do you think they'll take such a request seriously?
@DrTCombs that’s really messed up. Kids (and humans in general) will keep piling on risk when you forcibly try to limit the risk. Kids fall off slides so they made the slides into tunnels. What do kids do? Climb on top of the tunnels of course! Same applies to helmets in football and automobile safety features. Kids need to test risk boundaries and the lower the risk threshold the better, so basic body movement like cartwheels is about as low as you can get
@DrTCombs My children's primary school didn't have that as a policy but would in practice tell children off for cartwheels. This might be at least partly because there wasn't really any suitable space, though - it was an inner city school with no fields, just crowded asphalt playgrounds.
@DrTCombs for disagreements with schools generally I've relied either on their own policies (often published on their website) and guidance published for schools - it might be worth looking if your state publishes any guidance requiring schools to "encourage physical development" or similar.
@DrTCombs School policy, like pretty much everything else nowadays, seems to be dictated by lawyers. Limiting liability is everything even if it's detrimental to the long term effect on the kids. They can't be sued for those long term effects. My son was at a school that had a huge grass field but they weren't allowed to play there because they couldn't be supervised closely enough. So they just had to stand around on the pavement during breaks. 🙄
It's perturbing because:
1. Kids need movement. It's important not just for their wellbeing in the moment but also for neuromuscular development.
2. If certain movements pose risks to other kids, then kids should be encouraged to develop ground rules for those movements. Having kids learn how to have fun while also caring for others is a skill, and what better way to develop it?
3. Banning certain movements deprives kids of the opportunity to develop their own judgment about their capabilities