You know, I'm really getting tired of kids being punished for being normal kids. But here we go again. First graders at a Maryland elementary school have been suspended for having the audacity to play a good old-fashioned game of cops and robbers.
OMG. Don the Kevlar! Call out the National Guard! Six-year-olds are playing games on the playground!
After a 6-year-old was suspended -- in Maryland as well -- for pointing his fingers at his classmate and saying "Pow," this latest punishment that doesn't fit the crime hardly surprises me. Heck, we have kids being dubbed sexual deviants at 5 for hugging pals in kindergarten. NOTHING surprises me.
But it does depress me. These blatant over-reactions are slowly destroying childhood as we know it and turning kids into something ... jaded? Old?
We're expecting kids to face issues that are far above their level of cognition. We're aging them.
Kids shouldn't know about school shootings and mass murders. They shouldn't know that a game of cops and robbers could upset some adults who see shades of darkness where they see only some innocent horseplay.
I can only wonder what is next if we keep pushing kids to explore topics they're not yet ready to deal with. Is cops and robbers going to be replaced by a game of drug dealers and addicts? Or maybe pimps and prostitutes? After all ... we're expecting kids to tackle more and more adult themes, but they are still just kids, kids who engage one another in play. Turning something into a game is in their nature.
I need no more proof of that than to look to these little boys playing cops and robbers. One of the boys' father is an Army staff sergeant who pointed out that his boy is well aware that his dad uses firearms in defense of this nation. He's a kid being brought up to respect guns ... but he's still just a kid who was playing a game.
Do we really want to take that away from our kids?
Is cops and robbers on the playground really something to be upset over?
Image via EdiSellsTulsa/Flickr
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Comments 21
This is getting out of hand!! the old cartoons we watched had violence and I turned alright. In the old days kids were taught how to hunt. This has nothing to with kids playing it has a lot to do with the wrong people having guns.
It's ridiculous, but I don't see it stopping any time soon. We have gone from a confidant nation, to one that is so afraid of the slightest things. We are afraid of offending people. We are afraid that people are going to misconstrue actions.
And we are actually afraid to let kids be kids and play.
I see these more as wake up calls to parents, on who's kids are likely repeat offenders with discipline issues. Maybe if the parents have to take the day off work to stay home with the supsension, they'll take the kids issues at school more seriously.
In my opinion there are always going to be adults who read too much into simple things kids do. I was labled a sexual deviant in 1st grade or kindergarten because I was as put it at the time pretending to be a crazy horse. basically had seen a rodeo show or something and was trying to mimick the way the horses run and buck. well some stupid teacher thought I was humping the ground imitating sex and that stayed in my school file forever. Another not so similar incident I had as a small child, I was bragging to a teacher about a glitter jump rope mom got me. some how this teacher heard me say (which i never did) that I was going to hang myself with it. I was six what six year old would even know wht that is?
Utterly ludicrous! We played cops and robbers, cowboys and indians, etc....and it was perfectly ok...in fact, it was expected! It kept us entertained, and taught us how to interact with one another, as well as conflict resolution. Recently my 8 year old son was reprimanded by his teacher for telling another boy that he would "hunt him down". The teacher never bothered to find out the context of the statement, and when I later asked him, he said "yes, he was going to hide on me". Enough with the knee-jerk over-reacting! Let our children be children, already!
my god school cukoo now