[Shared by Yummy Mummy? Really?]
My daughter’s infant school have gone straight from ‘not expressing an opinion on scooters’ to ‘banning them from the playground entirely’. There was no middle ground. No gentle request that parents ensure to keep an eye on their own children and ensure they weren’t ramming the ankles of other parents or crashing into other children. There was no recognition that scooting is currently preferred to biking as a method to encourage children to walk to school (yes, walk) rather than get in the car. There has been no view expressed on whether bikes (larger, harder to control) also come under the ‘too dangerous for the playground’ category.
You may be able to sense a little frustration in this post. You would be right.
I am sick and tired of ‘health and safety’ and the ‘litigation culture’ effecting our children’s ability to just BE.
How are they going to learn how to look where they are going, avoid collisions, do those amazing mental calculations that happen automatically when you see someone coming towards you at speed and you have to work out if you have enough time to keep walking in front of them, or if you need to change direction. These mental calculations need to be practised on scooters, bikes, skates, basically anything with wheels, in order for children to have half a chance of taking that ability and applying it to the oncoming cars when they attempt to cross the road.
Apparently children do not have the mental ability to assess speed and distance accurately enough to safely cross the road on their own until they are 11 years old. (If anyone at the Times can point me in the direction of the link for the article I read this in a few months ago I’d be grateful.)
If it takes them until they are 11 years old to master that skill now; what age will they be if we take away their opportunity to practise that skill with slower wheeled vehicles?
I suspect that the schools ‘banning’ of scooters in the playground has occurred either because one child has bashed into another child, or because a parent has had their ankles bumped. I would humbly suggest that any child that has bashed into another on a scooter would be far less dangerous a rider after the event than before because, dare I say it, they will have learnt that if they don’t look where they are going it will HURT.
So now the risk of accidents has actually decreased overall.
Hmmm. It’s funny how, despite being such a risk adverse person, I still want our children to be children. Even if I have to put knee and elbow protection pads and a helmet on my child riding a scooter, I’d much rather they RODE THE SCOOTER.
Hey, maybe that’s an idea? Maybe the school could change their rule to “No scooting without helmets and pads”. At least the kids would have a chance to be kids.
What do you think? If you were in charge of the school would you have immediately placed a ban? Does it depend on what circumstances (that we may not be aware of) have happened? Should they have issued a ‘warning’ first? Do your children walk, scoot, bike, skate to school? Do they wear any protection?
I totally agree. Health and safety has gone mad.
Recently I was told I couldnt ride a merry go round with my son as it was “1 person per horse”
and also told I need to be escorted upstairs in the lift at a childrens centre as it was unsafe for me to go up the stairs whilst carrying my son!
Clearly I have a lift in my house for such occasions!
Its no scooters in our school playground too.
We have a no bikes and scooters rule in our school playground too but having seen some of the littlies getting knocked over by the bigger children whizzing down the hill (the playground has a slope) I think it is a good thing… children aren’t disuaded from using them to get to school just that they should be left in the car park when they arrive and not taken through to the playground.