But you might get hurt!

http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/Freeze-Tag-Red-Rover-Deemed-Dangerous-in-New-Summer-Camp-Regs-120195644.html

No wonder kids these days are turning into a bunch of weak, fat blobs. What are they supposed to do during their summers, sit around and discuss how we need to be more culturally sensitive?

When I was a kid, my summers were a lot like the movie “The Sandlot”. Every day, ride my bike up to three miles, sometimes on a busy country highway WITH NO STUPID HELMET to play organized baseball.

After that, I’d ride my bike back home and eat some lunch, and head to the lake. To get to the lake, I’d have my fishing rod in one hand and my tackle box in the other, and ride my bike about 5 miles to the far side of the lake on the shoulder of a narrow, windy road with traffic whizzing by just a few feet away WITH NO STUPID HELMET. If it got too hot fishing, I’d go swimming in the lake with no life guard. I’d usually go home to rest for a little bit from the heat of the afternoon, but then I’d be back out after supper playing ball at the park with my friends until it got dark. My parents’ only rule is that I had to be back by the time the street lights came on.

When I got older and could stay out past dark, the day would repeat itself, but we’d commandeer the tennis courts at the neighborhood park and turn on the lights so we could play baseball at night under the lights. It was like being in the Major Leagues!

In the winter, we always used to play King of the Hill on the playground at recess in grade school. They’d always leave a pile of show, which to my 6 year old eyes seemed to be about a 1/8 scale replica of Mt Everest. One kid would get up on top and the banzai attack would commence.

What resulted was nothing short of a whirlwind of snot-nosed kids in fluffy jackets and moon boots tumbling down the side of the hill as the genetically advanced (for his age) bully stood victorious over his vanquished inferiors. It was fun.

We used to ride snowmobiles to school and park them on the front lawn of the school where the bike racks would be. Hell, we used to bring guns to high school and no one ever got hurt or suspended. Sometimes the teachers would even come out to look at someone’s new gun.*

*It was common to go hunting before and/or after school. A lot of us brought guns and left them in our vehicles. No one ever thought twice about it.

Is there a “Society Reset” button we can push? Things are just out of control.

Sounds exactly like my childhood…But mix in chores in the morning and the evening.

Couldn’t agree more. I get looks all the time when I take my son to the park. Some times he bike with his helmet some times he doesn’t (I leave it up to him, There are plenty of pictures with me with out a helmet and I refuse to have the “why did I have to wear one and you didn’t ” conversation. we’re on a side walk If a car hits us I think we have bigger issues. once at the park he will tend to find the highest point he’s willing to jump from and go at it. He will do anything the bigger kids are doing. heck yesterday when attempting the monkeybars for the 1st time he fell flat on his face and got a bloddy nose. Whiped it off and went right back to playing. If a trip to the ER is needed well then we’ll go.

Doing the things you didn’t know enough not to do was half the fun of being a kid. Heck not sure I know enough now that I wouldn’t get a group of guys together and play king of the hill. ( we had a HUGE sand pit we use to play it! it was awesome) When will tree climbing become outlawed? I did that and broke an arm when I fell once. Never had any injuries from freeze tag, or red rover. Oh wait one broken wrist from freeze tag, but we were playing on the jungle gym and you couldn’t touch the ground. oh well Cast for a few weeks and It’s good as new. As soon as that thing came off I played again.

Let them play the games they are meant to play. if kids can’t take it well. survival of the fittest.

I’m glad I was raised the way I was…if kids are limited to what they can do, they will end up vegetables on the couch watching TV…the people who are trying to get this thing passed are a bunch of rich holes who need to get up side the head so when you say hello to kids in the future they don’t break down and cry (kids at our church that are WAYYYYYYYYY over protected actually cry when you say hi or talk to them. They don’t know how to respond…and they are over the age of 15… )

Anyway, I’m proud of the way I was born and raised. Funny thing I have noticed is I am willing to bet a lot of money that the parents or whoever is for this do NOT HUNT OR FISH in any way.

Just a little thing I have noticed….

The same here. We played rough and all of us got bloody noses, broken bones or sprained joints and plenty of bruises and cuts all over and what we were doing was fun.

We got an idea one day of a faster way out of the upper limbs of a tall maple and we were clear to the top. You know kids they think dangerous more often then mom and dad would like to see but our way out of the tree was slide down on the outer limbs and hope our hands could grab one going to the ground, we bounced like baboons from the limbs bounceing. Our eyes were always peeled for exciting new things to do, life as a kid was pretty boring sometimes if we didn’t. Occasionally we were almost knocked cold and see so many stars the universe hasen’t got that many. I don’t know how many grass burns we got from sliding down a neighbors hill on a cardboard sled and we’ed wear the grass down to the dirt. How many remember burns from rubbing bare parts on the ground and it would take the top two layers of skin off and huge scabs for the next 2 weeks. Three too a bicycle was common especially if it was a new one, one on the rear fender and one on the handle bars plus the kid peddeling. Mom and dad would send us out of the house, after asking, and tell us to go play in the traffic but we knew what they really meant, just go be kids and my dads favorite sayng was don’t get hurt so bad they have to take you to the hospital, they knew. Once in awhile someone would get hit by a baseball bat and were almost knocked unconsious. We played rough and the guy who was the catcher once in awhile was in danger and made contact with a bat, on accident but it did happen. If I would have asked my dad for a helmet for eigther a bicycle or baseball he would have said what do you need one of those for, just be more careful.

Getting older we’ed skip school not alot but occasionally and go to the river at the age of around 15. Building rafts or pushing a log into the water and floating down the river on that for awhile, hunting clams and thier cool shells or catch crawfish and I brought my kids up the same way and thier both doing fine. We did have a few guys that brought thier shotguns to school and no one even cared or thought about a crime becaused they figured they were going hunting after school anyway. Boy times have sure changed.

Some people in this world are just soft.. I am only 19 but when I was younger me and my friends would ride or bikes and make jumps. We played wiffle ball and got into trouble like most kids. We would in the fall and winter play tackle football no pads.. As well as hockey. If you ask me different parts of the country grow up differently. We still hunt and fish like most kids. I just don’t understand how some people can sit inside all day and play video games. I have trouble sitting through my hour long calc class with out having to get up and move.. Also in the summer I think there is maybe one day that I’m not playing baseball or on the lake.. I just don’t understand it.

If you were raised on mac & cheese, your crib was covered with lead based paint, road a bike with no helmet on gravel roads, your parents had no child proof crap, you got spanked when you were bad, had 3 TV channels you got up to change, school always started with the Pledge of Allegiance, you drank water out of the creek or a water hose and still are alive……………………..

I grew up in the 50’s and if a guy didn’t get scraped up a little in his day to day antics he was a [censored]. If ya got busted up some you just dummied up and went right back at it.

Video games and computers at too early of an age. I see in our tonight’s news paper that a couple neighboring small towns are introducting IBooks to their students….great, now they don’t have to learn to read. They already can’t count back change.

The worst part about a raspberry was not getting it,but was when Mom or Dad saw it and put on Bactine! OUCH!
A broken arm was nothing for pain compared to that stuff.

oh and I forgot WIFFLE BALL??? REALLY? I once hit a kid (the same kid, I swear he was a ball magnet.) in the face 3 times in one summer. His parents were there for the 3rd one. it was all unintentional, and his parents didn’t even so much as yell at me. But these yahoos are worried about wiffle ball? Lets get a hold of this kid I kept hitting and see what he thinks. I bet he would have given anything to be hit with a wiffle ball.

FYI if you are ever pitching to me DO NOT sat “Don’t hit me in the face” EVERY TIME that is exactly what happened.

I grew up without seatbelts or helmets. We rode our bikes down to the pond to fish. If we got a box brought to the classroom, the teacher would come over to one of the guys they knew carried a pocket knife to borrow it to cut open the box.

I now have to tell my 10 year old if anybody ask while he is driving our boat that he is twelve…………

How did I ever live to be as old as I am??

This thread made my day, i wish i was was a kid again.pretty much everything i did as a kid would be something that “these type of people” would consider “dangerous” but i wouldnt change it for the world.
Now im all grown up and still have some nice big scars from when i was a kid but every scar has a great story,
stories that remind me of my childhood and i have never said to myself gee wish i never did that

P.S. I also had one of them kids down the block who had to wear a helmet and noone else did on the block and when he would show up wearin that thing he would get a bunch of crap from all us, So if your a parent who makes their kids wear a helmet please stop

I grew up fishing summers by the Hutchinson dam.

Right AT the low head dam and with in hand washing distance of the water going over the “drowning machine”. The city finally fenced off that side making it all but impossible to fish that side and just a few years ago removed the dam completely.

Almost forgot…the City Swimming Beach was right above the dam…which they closed down due to a drowning. Not from someone going over the dam, but because someone hit their head on the diving platform.

As a current Elementary PE teacher, well what can I say? Kids these days have increasing obesity to deal with yet some pencil pusher thinks some of their favorite games are too dangerous? Great….Just what we need…more restrictions for these kids and more reasons for them to just want to sit inside on the computer or in front of the TV.
The youth are in trouble…that much I do know…

“So if your a parent who makes their kids wear a helmet please stop”

A couple years back,I watched my then 4 year old daughter fly over the handle bars of her bike and land face first on the pavement while we were on a camping trip. Because she was not only wearing a helmet, but also wearing it properly, I gotta say that thing saved her teeth, nose and who knows what else along with us not having to take her to the hospital. Call me over-protective for making her wear it when she rides her bike but any way I can prevent her from getting injured without taking the fun out of whatever she’s doing, I’ll do just that.

We all learn from our mistakes and spending a lot of time in the ER growing up, I am hoping to teach her from some of mine. I once cut the bottoms off of all my toes because I wasnt wearing shoes and crashed into a friend while we were on bikes. Talk about pain! you think I am going to ever let her ride barefoot? probably not when I am around!!

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We all learn from our mistakes and spending a lot of time in the ER growing up, I am hoping to teach her from some of mine.

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That’s the problem, though. Kids aren’t being allowed to learn their own lessons. My dad could tell me all day long not to climb trees because he fell out of one as a kid, but until I fell out on my own, I didn’t understand why. I learned way more lessons on what not to do by actually doing it and suffering the consequences than by being told what not to do and obeying.

Kids are made of rubber. At least they were back in my day. Sure we took some bumps, but we bounced right back and we learned a lesson from it.

I guess I’m not up to date on my helmet capabilities, but I thought the helmet only protected the head. Unless she was wearing a football helmet with a face mask, how would a helmet prevent losing teeth or breaking her nose? Seems to me more like a lucky landing.

I grew up about a mile form a great park for playing whatever sport was in season. Football season was tackle football, no pads. Baseball season was baseball. They flooded the park in the winter for a great skating rink. We would all ride our bikes to the park after school chose two captains and pick teams. Sure there were injuries. I took a baseball to the side of the dome while pitching, out cold, I lived. There were stitches, broken bones, and the occasional disagreement about a call. With no refs or umps we always came to a compromise.

A few years ago I bought a house across the street from this park. Once, in the 5 years I lived there did I see a pick up baseball or football game going on. They stopped flooding the rink 3 years ago because of budget cuts.

My time in this park helped me learn a lot more about life than I ever could have known at the time. Without an ump or ref or grownup around we had to learn to handle disagreements, we had to man up and knock on the crabby neighbors door when our ball went in their yard. I guess what I am trying to say is we had to learn how to deal with people. It seems to me kids are so sheltered now that they don’t learn these skills. It’s too bad really.

~SKINEBOY~

I agree with you Phishirman and it probably saved her teeth. Accidents do happen and for the worse sometimes and it doesn’t hurt to help your kids. I know boys are more resiliant then girls as a whole and I think boys could grow up with a few missing teeth easier and without bothering them as much as a girl. It doesn’t hurt to protect your kids sometimes.