A complaint common enough to now be boring is that children these days are so dominated by safety-obsessed parents and schools that they face no risks. often this leads to the observation that this leads to a dull childhood, but probably more important, it leads to a lack of ability to handle adversity when it inevitably comes. Here are two  news stories that come at this topic from different directions:

When one New Zealand school tossed its playground rules and let students risk injury, the results were surprising

Fewer children were getting hurt on the playground. Students focused better in class. There was also less bullying, less tattling. Incidents of vandalism had dropped off.

Shocking. Sentient creatures turn out to be able to administer a smidgeon of self-control. Who woulda guessed.

And the other news story deals with a middle school in Connecticut.  Now, I don’t know for sure that this is one of those safety-Nazi dominated facilities, but the chances seem pretty good.

School Warns Parents About ‘Eraser Challenge’ Game That Has Students Harming Themselves

Short form: the kids invented a very basic “game” that involves rubbing the skin off their arms with pencil erasers and comparing the damage, presumably for bragging rights. principal and parents duly freak out.

When you take away the *fun* ways for kids to hurt themselves, they’ll invent stupid ways to do it. But they will hurt themselves. That’s what kids do. That’s what kids *should* do. Teaches ’em not only how to handle pain, it also teaches them a sense of proportion. But only when the pain and damage are produced via something that makes some measure of sense, like falling out of a tree. Ten years down the line, when Junior is trying to get an office job, the faint scars from when he broke his arm  racing in the soapbox derby won’t stand against him.  But the scar that spells out “FART” on his arm from when he scarified himself with an eraser? That might be problematic.