What happened?!

My son got in trouble at school today, that's not a terribly uncommon occurrence for him, but today it was different. He got in trouble while on recess for playing army man with his friend and using his fingers as a gun. He actually got set down and talked to about not being able to do that, and then got put on the bench and made to write "no guns in School" until the end of recess. Usually I'm not the kind of parent to get upset about my child being disciplined, but in this case I find it absolutely ludicrous. Since when is it not alright for a 6 year old to use his imagination on the playground pretending to be an army man? It probably comes from the fact that I've been playing Battlefield 1 on the Xbox recently and Griffon loves to watch it, but regardless of the reasoning behind his recent fascination with being an "army man" I still find this to be crazy.

I titled this post what happened because I want to know what happened to us as a society. When did we as Americans decide to become cry babies about everything. Why is it now more socially acceptable to be scared of everything than it is to pretend you are a tough guy on a playground. Part of this is me venting about the current state of events and part of it comes from the things I read on facebook and see online. I'm tired of being politically correct just for the sake of not upsetting some delicate snowflake. Its time that we stop coddling children and start raising young adults. Its time we stop coddling college age students and start to tell them the hard facts of life, you have to get a job and make something of yourself. We will not continue to grow as a society if we don't hold our younger generations to a higher standard. I'm not saying that we need to throw our children in labor camps or beat them into submission, but stifling their imagination because it doesn't agree with a particular social agenda isn't going to help them to grow, in fact it will do the exact opposite. Now my son will think twice before he pretends to do something on recess for fear of getting in trouble, and I find that troubling. We need to allow children to play, that is how they learn to manage themseves, I often times have to force myself not to say something to my son when I know he is going to do something stupid. Stopping him from making mistakes keeps him from learning the valuable lessons that come from it. Unless a child is actually in physical danger, or harming another child I really don't see why another adult should feel the need to step in and tell them how they have to behave while playing. They are learning social skills from each other, they are learning how to interact with one another. In a classroom setting I could see it as justified if a kid is being rambunctious to set them down and tell them that they need to behave, but telling a kid how to play or not to play on a playground when nobody is in danger is absurd. Let kids be kids, and keep your personal opinions out of doing your job as a teacher.

I would like to say this rant is over, but I'm sure I could go on and on. I'll leave it at this tonight because I'm frustrated and nothing I write beyond this will be without emotion.