by Tim Peters

Created on: September 28, 2009

The problem with the game of tag is not the children who play it. Tag has been played more or less the same way for generations, and it doesn't look like that's about to change. Instead, the problem with tag is the parents of children who play it. Because of their insistence that any consequences of tag from inappropriate touching to personal injury demand compensation from someone, banning the game of tag on school grounds is a necessary safeguard against litigation and harassment.

Tag isn't as innocent a game as you would think. Consider the primary rule of tag: whoever is It must tag someone else, who then becomes It. There are a number of problems with this rule. The biggest problem is the psychology behind tag. The fastest children generally do best at tag for obvious reasons. Conversely, the children who end up It the longest are the slowest ones. All things being equal, every child would in theory have a chance to be It. But more often than not, there's at least one child who always ends up It longer than others, probably the reason why one principal from California cited the game as potentially damaging to self-esteem.

Even if you don't buy into the psychological impact of tag, the physical impact is the primary reason why schools ban the game. A tag can be anything from a light touch to a shove. In the case of the California school, children have even been run into who weren't even playing the game at the time. In some cases, such as in one Arizona school, children have gone much further, seriously injuring other children during a game. Even in the best cases, adults supervising children during games of tag can make mistakes that incite disgruntled parents to seek forms of recourse that could easily be avoided by simply banning the game of tag.

Of course, even if tag is banned, it won't be detrimental to a child physically or even socially. Children are by their very nature creative and inventive, especially when challenged by an adult. If an adult tells them, "You can't play tag here," two things can happen. Most likely, they'll try to find a way to play tag in a way that they won't be asked to stop. Or they could find any number of other games to play instead. Banning tag won't stop children from having fun. If anything, it will only make them more determined to find new games to play.

It's unfortunate that a game as timeless as tag should have to be banned on school grounds because of parents. Not children, who have been playing the same way - aggression and all - for the countless years the game has existed. Instead, adults unable to properly raise their children or accept responsibility for their own mistakes have left school officials with few alternatives. If tag isn't banned on school grounds, schools will be more vulnerable to lawsuits and legislation that would further hamstring an educational system already suffering from financial problems. Perhaps then children won't take the game of tag to the extremes that their parents did.

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