Schools Keep Our Kids Safe from Hula-Hoops Betsy Hart
Chicago Sun Times, September 5, 2008 School is back in session. Beware Hula-Hoops. Seriously.
A good friend told me she witnessed her suburban elementary school have its teachers gather their students and explain, as they sat cross-legged on the playground on their first day of school, the dangers of that 1950s icon, the Hula-Hoop.
The teachers dutifully instructed the young children that one must not swing the Hula-Hoop around one's neck as we all did as kids. Ditto one's arms. Do not roll the Hula-Hoop, similar to a game our grandparents played known as ... "hoops." All such things are off- limits.
Was there some recent death spree involving kids and Hula-Hoops of which I am not aware? In repeating this to my own children, my 9-year-old asked, "What do the teachers think they might do with the Hula-Hoop, choke on it?"
Out of the mouths of babes, and all that.
Actually, the teachers probably think nothing of the sort. If one were able to pull them aside, they would likely agree the Hula-Hoop lecture is as silly as it gets. And no this isn't just about trial lawyers, or our litigious society.
It's about a culture -- including so many parents -- that can't stand the thought of a child scraping his knee.
But there's a downside. As attorney Philip Howard recently wrote in the Wall Street Journal, reducing risk has ... risk. It seems that the black rubber safety matting that's ubiquitous under playgrounds, for instance, was the culprit in children scalding their little feet this summer. "The outrage was immediate," Howard wrote in his piece, "Why Safe Kids Are Becoming Fat Kids." "'How many burn cases will it take," Betsy Gotbaum, New York City's public advocate, asked, "before the city wakes up and acts?" Canopies over public parks are now being demanded by some safety advocates.
Huh?
This is in contrast to the concrete or asphalt floors on the playgrounds many of us had as kids. I well remember the time at about age 10 I fell off a swing at the local park, cracked my head on the hard ground below, wandered home and asked my mom, "Where have I been and how did I get here?" My mom, mother to five, calmly responded, "Go lay down. You will feel better." (Fortunately, I did, but I digress.)
Howard rightly notes that for kids, learning to manage risk is part of growing up. When we teach our kids that to take a risk, to skin a knee, to get a Hula-Hoop injury (sorry, I can't figure out what that would look like) or to bump a head is to be avoided at all costs, might we instill in our children a culture of fear? Deny them opportunities to handle risk appropriately -- or even inappropriately -- and learn from such experiences? (I never did goof around so much on a swing again.) Could we actually be putting them at ever more risk by not preparing them to use good judgment in the real world?
Look, I'm all for seat belts, and bike helmets, and nets around trampolines. If my own child wandered home from the park clearly having suffered a minor concussion, I'd get him an MRI ASAP.
But, I also want to prepare my kids for handling life's surprises, and I certainly don't want to scare them to death with stories of Hula-Hoops gone bad.
More and more there are instances of no running or tag, and certainly no dodgeball on the playground. And when teachers are forced to teach the "dangers" of the Hula-Hoop? One wonders whether we are harming children by trying to do the impossible -- protect them from life itself.
Betsy hosts "It Takes a Parent" at noon Sundays on WYLL-AM (1160).
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