h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

if we could crowbar one off his or her PSII perhaps we might find out?

Hello! I'm older than 11, I don't have a PSII and I have never been to a state school in my life so I've never had to put up with any of these rules. They sound ridiculous to me.

My last school had a huge wooden adventure playground with a climbing frame which was good to amuse the younger children(8-10ish) and 2 tyre swings. It was good but I can understand parents' concerns; one girl fell off, breaking an arm and a leg, and another boy jumped off the swings, breaking an arm.

People could use skateboards at break too. The only rule was that they had to wear helmets. In fact, one of the boys organised a competition after school.

I think the worries about daisy chains and handstands are stupid, though. You can catch more germs from people sneezing and coughing over you, but these things aren't banned, are they?

Children break arms and legs all the time - if they didn't there wouldn't be any plaster casts to draw rude messages on!

"You can catch more germs from people sneezing and coughing over you, but these things aren't banned, are they?"

Don't give them ideas

The above never seem to bother people do they?

Hmm, at my old school they started saying you weren't allowed to stand around kissing in the hallways.

Probably wasn't for health reasons though.

Haven't read the backlog so sorry if I'm repeating things but it seems to me that although this article is sentationalist hasn't this always been the case.

Bulldog was banned in my school as was jumping off the climbing walls and fighting. - didn't stop us though...

I went to an all girls school. There was an all boys school across the road. They deliberately had lunchbreak at different times to stop any and there were frequent stern messages in assembly about couples blocking up the road outside

I was really meaning objecting to it in terms of it's health risk really.
People will turn their noses up at sharing a bottle with someone but will quite happile stick their tongue down their love interests throat at the earliest opportunity...

Public snogging is not really the most attractive site to have to deal with.

What really surprised me was what I heard on Oprah while going through the channels. They said it is very common in some schools (don't know which type, age about 17) in America to have casual oral sex. It seems they organise parties just for that reason. The 'children' thought it was safe sex, that sexualy transferable diseases weren't transferable by oral sex. It was the whole double moral thing all over again too. Guys would get admired if they get oral sex every day of the week from different girls. The girls were considered sluts if they did it.

I know that my son misses being able to take toys into school, he's 7. I can ask if he'd like to be able to do some of these other things, but I don't supposes that he misses what he hasn't ever had.

On another note, they are banning all the solo activities. When you haven't got any friends to play with, and you can't make daisy chains, or play on a climbing frame, what else is there to do but stand around getting depressed? Not something that we want for our primary school children!

When my Dad was at uni, Coca Cola gave out free yo yos. There was many an incident with yo yos flying off because of a broken string and hitting some bloke smack in the middle of the forehead.

Excellent news....http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/2176467.stm

Let's make sure it is not just the small kids that join in - all the "big kids" that grew up without these silly bans (that amazingly enough survived and went on to become *normal* adults) should play too.

I'm even going to "borrow" a friends 5 year old and go to the park to make daisy chains! I think I'll give handstands a miss though!

I was over the park with my wife and kids just last week. She bet me I couldn't do a handstand. So I tried... She was right
*feels old*
(I did manage a cartwheel when no one was looking though!!!)

I don't think it's fair to put all the blame on schools for our kids problems, after all, kids go to school mainly to learn, not just to play. It's important for parents to make sure they get exercise outside of school if they aren't getting enough inside.

That's great news. Perhaps not for the daisies, but for the children at least.

That is much better! It's better for a kid to get hurt in a supervised area where help can be given very quickly, than for them to have no experience, and get hurt while on their own. Let children take risks! Otherwise they don't learn.

Although I can understand why yoyos were banned after Abi's post!

We'ren't yo-yos originally a weapon?

...at least I seem to recall hearing that once anyhow.

So that yo-yo was clearly recalling it's ancient past

That sounds familiar - a hunting weapon though, rather than a violence weapon.

*tries to visualise non-violent hunting*

Or maybe not...
http://www.yoyouniverse.com/cgi-bin/webc.cgi/yoyofaq.html?sid=77vDk30WWHDi6bQ#faq13