On our school playground there are very few adults supervising the kids, and as they are mostly recruited parents, they don't seem well-equipped for the job, not that I blame them - I'm not either. (I do realize it once again comes down to money for schools, but from what I've seen the past few years recess and PE are not going to be a priority for schools any time soon.) If I just think about my own kids, one of them hates recess, the other loves it but so far has acquired bruised knees, scraped elbows and a serious bloody nose from a punch to the face. Isn’t it great they are left to their own devices at recess?
Now cuts, scrapes, bruises, even the occasional punch, I don’t have a problem with that. In fact I'm all for play fighting, superhero battles, pro-wrestling moves...it uses up a lot of energy and boy do my son and his friends love it. What concerns me is kids learning their limits need supervision, although I'll admit sometimes what that amounts to in my house is "you need to stop when Keegan gets hurt" or "I need you guys to do something for the next 10 minutes where nobody gets hurt."
My son’s teacher was “ blessed” with 7 (that's one-third), extremely active boys in her class. She confesses she cannot let them get away with the smallest infraction, because it sets up a chain reaction. One of Donovan’s early “goals” was to stop throwing himself on the floor (in his classic WWW move), as it caused the rest of the children to jump on him like a football pile. She’s great though, as she explains her reasoning to them, and understands they are active boys, not evil monsters like a preschool teacher seemed to believe. So naturally she wants them to get that energy out at recess.
One result of limited resources is the kinders are confined to small fenced-in playgrounds, and total chaos often ensues. Instead of a rousing game of chase or tackle basketball, they play who gets the ball or slide and who gets left out? It got to the point where the yard duty was literally afraid to watch these kids anymore, and out teacher was attempting to recruit a dad to take small groups out and run them around like a bunch of horses.
Why was she so afraid? That brings us to problem 2, the fighting. They aren't allowed to "horse around" leaving them with extra energy and aggression, and with minimal supervision, small problems escalate. Then you've got a fight, but instead of talking to the culprits to find out what happened, they are sent to the office since the lone yard duty can't ignore the other kids. Here's a recent example: Boy 1 left out of game by boy 2 and friends, boy 1 gets mad. Boy 1 pushes boy 2 from behind, boy 2 turns around, boy 1 punches him in nose, boy 2 punches boy 1 in stomach. Both hauled off to principles office and threatened with suspension, with very little discussion of the incident except between the parents of the offenders (shout-out to my husband who took care of the whole thing and only called me later). The punishment was reduced to spending two days in the office. Unfortunately the plan for the boys to actually play together in the office, which we parents thought was a grand idea, went awry when, ironically, they were told the sit in chairs quietly for the hour because nobody wanted to supervise their play and they weren't trusted to play on their own.
I worry that because these kids have punishments immediately thrust upon them without explanation, they don't really learn the proper responses. What should a kid do who's been left out of a game? What about a kid who's been punched in the nose? Clearly I don't all have the answers, and I certainly don't think a fancy private school would solve these problems. I'm just glad my husband was not only able to keep his cool when his son was nearly suspended for defending himself, but also managed to get all the blood out of the "Pizza My Heart" t-shirt.
Original Silicon Valley Moms Blog post
Nicole is the mom of two boys and spends a lot of time nursing wounds. She'll play football with them but refuses to join in the wrestling matches, although she's happy to document them on her blog Not Just a Working Mom.
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