Speaking of do-gooders. =~(

ALBANY -- Maybe they play Extreme Wiffle Ball in summer camp. According to a suddenly controversial set of safety regulations, Wiffle Ball and other time-honored diversions such as Red Rover, horseshoes, kickball and tag could be deemed sufficiently dangerous to require state regulation under an expanded definition of "day camps."

You can't have it both ways! Our kids are fat so lets declare summer kids' sports unsafe.

http://www.timesunion.com/local/article/Rules-could-be-summer-game-changer-1342724.php

well we better not let them outside. skin cancer, ya know.

And again...

Thats why I dont have kids. It's far to dangerous to actually perpetuate the species.

Wow. I was a fatty as a kid, but I still played wiffle ball and tag and red rover and kickball.

I have one on the way, and I swear to god, if some namby pamby Bob Costas crap like this gets in my way of my kid having a good time, ima mess someone up. Kids these days are already too doughy and soft and protected and not ready for life. They're only going to make it worse.

I'm sure this is going to be extremely unpopular among some folks, but here goes:

My middle brother's wife came from a family that apparently had a less rough-and-tumble approach to childhood than our own, and perhaps not coincidentally they had a whiney, PITA nephew who showed up at one combined family gathering and was a real trial to my tribe's youngsters. He tattled, he cheated, he made late and uncalled-for hits in contact sports, he wept when they beat him at games and complained it was unfair, and was generally a e36m3head.

The adults were conferring about how to approach this problem when we noticed that the pack of kids had moved to the side of the house, out of sight. We peeked around the corner to check up on them, and found e36m3head on the ground, inside a circle of cousins, all of whom had cattails in their hands and poised, while the eldest cousin (then about 8), asked, "Are you gonna do it again?" We heard "noooo," decided the situation was on the way to resolving itself, and retreated.

He shaped up after that.

Childhood is no weak sauce. There's a lot to learn--about yourself, about how you interact with others, and about life in general. It's hard to do that when everything's wrapped in soft wool and all impacts are dulled. Sometimes you just gotta face the raised stick prompted by your own bad behavior--or on the good side, feel the feeling of crashing through that Red Rover line, not because you're the biggest or the toughest, but because you went at it the hardest.

Margie

That post would only be unpopular among idiots and Bob Costas.

In reply to Marjorie Suddard:

I'm not sure who that would be unpopular with but if you have a list we can take them around the side of the house and get them straightened out.

My girlfriend and I differ a bit in our ideas of child raising (I specifically didn't say child rearing, because it just sounds kinda wrong). Basically, she's a Bob Costas. Absolutely scared to do just about anything. She recognizes that it's because of the way she was raised, but sometimes she still reverts back to her Bob Costas ways if we're watching the nieces and nephews. She ALWAYS lets them win at games, and gets mad at me if I beat them. I told her the only reason that I'm good at stuff is because I was always trying to beat my dad at what ever competition we happened to be partaking in. That being said, we balance each other well. She has an irrational fear of everything and I have an irrational lack of fear. If she wasn't around I'd probably have them juggling chainsaws or something.

16vCorey wrote: If she wasn't around I'd probably have them juggling chainsaws or something.

Well, you'd probably be better at them at that too, but I wouldn't let them win... chainsaws in the face = no good.

bring back Jarts.

the right ones too.

you mean it is dangerous out there?

Tennis ball mortars are fun.

Giant Purple Snorklewacker wrote: In reply to Marjorie Suddard: I'm not sure who that would be unpopular with but if you have a list we can take them around the side of the house and get them straightened out.

Could we do it to the politicians first? Huh, can we? Can we?

carguy123 wrote:

Giant Purple Snorklewacker wrote: In reply to Marjorie Suddard: I'm not sure who that would be unpopular with but if you have a list we can take them around the side of the house and get them straightened out.

Could we do it to the politicians first? Huh, can we? Can we?

Only if we can use the aforementioned chainsaws rather than reeds.

ohpleaseohpleaseohpleaseohplease

why all the hate for politicians ? without them just think where this country would be........

I can kinda understand red rover being dangerous but dodgeball, tag and horseshoes really. In what world are those dangerous?

I once had someone tell me that if your son hasn't had a broken arm by the time he's 10, you're doing it wrong. I like that motto.

Does that mean my 11 year old can't clean the roof any more. OMG I just realized I let my 11yo and my 7yo shoot their BB guns unsupervised this weekend. Oh the humanity. Call DSS quick.

What a crock.

When I was between 7 and 11 years old a group of neighborhood kids would get together and play "old man western". We would get a bottle of Vernors ginger ale and some shot glasses. We would sit around in the backyard table drinking shots and playing cards. Soon we start brawling, just like the old men in western movies. It could be pretty rough, which is why we stopped at 11-12 years old. I am certain our parents would be having conversations with child protective services now. I would still feel pretty confident having one of those other "kids" back me up today.

This just in. NY isn't as stupid as we thought.

From the AP as of an hour ago.

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — Maybe they're risky, but day camp games like tag, Red Rover and kickball are no longer at risk in New York after state health officials yanked a proposal that threatened the future of those mainstays of child's play.

Towns, villages and other camp operators had begun revamping upcoming indoor summer programs after the Department of Health sent out a long list of familiar games and activities it said presented a "significant risk of injury" and needed to be regulated more closely.

But after a state senator's call Friday for a delay in the regulation generated a buzz of news reports, the department reversed course Tuesday, saying the rules proposed under the previous administration were too specific.

"The practical effect is that we are not going to get that detailed and into micromanagement," department spokeswoman Claudia Hutton said of the decision.

She said the department will continue gathering information during a comment period that ends May 16 and will formulate new safety regulations that are broader and deal more with potentially dangerous conditions than specific games.

The regulations are required under a 2009 law meant to close a loophole that allowed indoor day camps to operate without the same state oversight applied to outdoor day camps, targeting "nonpassive recreational activities with significant risk of injury." The law took effect April 1.

State Sen. Patricia Ritchie of Watertown sent a letter to the state health commissioner asking for reconsideration of the regulations after hearing from a local mayor.

"It's overregulation by the state of things that have been around for years and years," Ritchie wrote.

On Tuesday, Richie, a Republican whose district includes three mostly rural north-central New York counties, said she was pleased by the reversal.

"At a time when our nation's No. 1 health concern is childhood obesity, I am very happy to see that someone in state government saw we should not be adding new burdensome regulations by classifying tag, Red Rover and Wiffle Ball as dangerous activities," she said. "I am glad New York's children can continue to steal the bacon and play flag football and enjoy other traditional rites of summer."

The proposal would have revised the definition of a summer day camp to include potentially risky organized indoor group activities like archery and rock climbing — as well as things like kickball, tag and Wiffle Ball.

Ritchie said that would have required camps in many smaller towns and villages to add staff such as nurses and pay $200 for a state permit. Other critics argued the regulation was a hysterical approach that stood to take all the fun out of summer.

"I never got hurt; maybe scraped my knee once in a while, but that was it," Kimberly Baxter of Queens, a 27-year-old mother of a 1-year-old girl, told the Daily News of New York.

Associated Press writer George M. Walsh contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

93EXCivic wrote: I can kinda understand red rover being dangerous but dodgeball, tag and horseshoes really. In what world are those dangerous?

Dodgeball? Ever gotten whacked in the twig and berries, that hurts.

Tag? Come on, you weren't REALLY trying to push down the little Bob Costas that snuck up on you last time?

Horseshoes? Children throwing large, heavy pieces of metal toward each other?

God, there is a lot of "I love..." in this thread.

I came from a big brood. 5 marraiges between parents. 8 half and step brothers. 8 whole, half and step sisters. Siblings that were in the Air Force, Navy, Army, University of Pennsylvania, Florida Instiute of Technology, University of South Florida, Michigan State, Heidelberg College, Grand Valley State University, Cincinnati Reds farm league and a bunch enrolled in the school of hard knocks. I willl admit I was the celebrated whiner of the bunch, My parents were done raising kids long before I was born and it showed. I know how the kid felt on the other end of the reeds... and I know that he is likely a "low functioning genius" just like me!

I never "let" the kids win, I bark when they do something wrong, I shoot straight with them and I believe that I am making responsible men out of them. Leann is hard on them though ;)

And then there was the guy this morning on the news that said parents have little effect on how their kids turn out. He wrote a book on it. His premise was that parents should sit back and lets kids do whatever they want and learn from them...crazy...

what's wrong with people these days...common sense is no longer acceptable it seems.