Let the kids live!

Reading my copy of the Metro (a free paper in the UK) about a week ago, I noticed that one story mentioned kids being banned from doing a tug-o-war. For those who may not know, this is a traditional English challenge between two teams of people on either end of a marked rope, sometimes with a mud bath in the centre, sometimes not. The aim is to pull harder than the opposite team resulting in your marker on the rope crossing a line which mean that you've won ... or in the more traditional versions of the game, pulling the other team literally into the drink.

Not only was this banned in this town's celebration of the summer this year, but also flaming torches were banned for being a health and safety hazzard and replaced with lanterns.

Come ON! This is just crazy. Life is dangerous, but it's also great fun. No one's ever been injured in the tug-o-war at this festival we're told, but because of Britain's sue-you culture, the organisers are pulling it out of fear.

If I have kids, I'm going to let them climb trees, play football, comb doll's hair, have gangs/clubs, explore, swim, boat, climb and do all the things that children should be able to do. So what if occasionally they scrape their knee or elbow, that's life. I would rather live and get hurt occasionally, than live inside a medical bubble wrap cell and never live at all.

I say let the children play, if you expect them to grow up into balanced adults with a good appreciation of life and danger; where it starts and stops.