Lynda Loveland: Overprotective and overdone

We all want to protect our kids, but good grief, things have gotten out of hand, WAY out of hand!

A New Hampshire school district banned dodgeball as part of their anti-bullying campaign. We all grew up with dodgeball. We were all a target at one time or another. Give me a break! Maybe we should take away Nerf guns and water guns while we’re at it.

Let me clarify something though. Real cases of bullying need to be dealt with. I think the term bullying is used far too generically to describe incidents that are just normal kid behavior. I can’t even begin to count how many times in elementary school I was teased for being freakishly tall. While it may not be nice, I betcha it’s happened for hundreds of years. (Remember Nelly picking on Laura on Little House on the Prairie?)

Schools in the UK are banning kids from having best friends. They’re encouraging kids to play in large groups. Why? So nobody gets their feelings hurt.

How stinkin’ stupid is that? Banning best friends??? What would you do without your best bud? There’s always someone we tend to bond with more than others, someone we want to spend time with. Plus, if you ban best friends what do you do with all those necklaces?

And a middle school in Massachusetts banned awards ceremonies because the principal didn’t want the kids who didn’t get anything to feel badly. Are you freakin’ kidding me?

So the kids who worked their butts off don’t get recognized for fear some of the other kids who didn’t lift a pencil all year would be sad? Absolutely ridiculous!

Guess what? That’s life! If we don’t start letting kids fail, fall and freak out, they’ll enter the adult world without a single coping tool. Parents are setting themselves up to follow their kids around their whole life to make everything fair and happy for them.

Is that how we’re supposed to raise our children? Heck no! We’re supposed to raise them to be independent and responsible members of the community.

Enough of the extreme coddling!