The game of tag, like many children's games, offers many benefits to the development of a child. With the proper approach, tag can be a valuable learning experience. The outright banning of the game does a great disservice to our children, and is one more sad example of those responsible for the education of our children shirking their duties. With this essay, I intend to demonstrate the potential benefits from a game as simple as tag. These benefits are physical, social, and emotional.
The most obvious benefit of tag is physical fitness. Children have an incredible amount of energy to burn, and instilling the value of physical fitness at an early age is important. Children who are physically active are more inclined to remain physically active as they grow older. A healthy body lays the foundation for a healthy mind and soul, leading to a happier, more well-rounded individual.
Any physical activity, safely undertaken, benefits the body. Tag is a game that can be played safely if it is played properly, and safety is a skill that needs to be learned. To ban the game for safety reasons only serves to prove we are too lazy to teach them lessons in safety. Why take risks when we can just avoid exposure to risks altogether, right?
This brings me to the second benefit of playing tag. If we recognize risks and take measures to mitigate them, it is called risk management. Educators could do very well by teaching risk management at an early age. It is a form of critical thinking, a concept that is all but left out of our public education system. By learning to apply risk management to playtime, children are building essential skills that will serve them later in life.
Another lesson the game of tag offers children is sportsmanship. Any game of competition allows us an opportunity to teach our children about fairness, courtesy, graceful losing and honorable winning. Sportsmanship can be boiled down to one universal human value, respect. Games played in the spirit of good sportsmanship can help teach a child respect for others and for themselves.
There seems to be a growing movement to protect our children from the possibility of losing for fear of damaging their self-esteem. This is a noble but misguided endeavor. Self-esteem is gained when a child makes a genuine accomplishment in a fair contest, like running faster than their peers. Learning to cope with failure is also a key component in building self-esteem. To ban game because it threatens a child's self-esteem is to set them up for failure in life.
In summary, tag should be allowed, but approached responsibly. Ensure the game is played in a positive manner and use it as an opportunity to teach valuable lessons. Our children's activities are already restricted in many ways that are perfectly reasonable (to adults at least). There's no need to restrict activities solely because we can't be bothered to teach them the right way to do them.