There once was a time when children could walk to school alone, take part in hazardous science experiments, and climb up massive playground equipment without anyone batting an eyelid. As parenting and the world have evolved, those days are long gone. Here are 17 school activities that parents now believe are too dangerous.
Science Experiments
What do you mean parents don’t want their children playing around with potentially poisonous gasses while handling toxic chemicals? If modern parents had their way, school children would be making papier mâché volcanoes and filling them with baking soda and vinegar.
Walking to School Unaccompanied
Walking to school without your parents used to be common for schoolchildren around the world. However, modern parents have been scarred by stories of abduction, leaving only 25% of students walking to school alone, compared to 86% in 1971, according to The Independent.
Snowball Fights During the Lunch Break
The winter snow combined with the immaturity of youth is the perfect concoction for a brutal recess snowball fight, drawing hundreds of students into battle. Unfortunately, to scare parents, a malicious rumor was once spread that children hide rocks in snowballs, which, as all kids know, is strongly against snowball fight etiquette.
Dodgeball
Back in school, dodgeball was the perfect opportunity to relieve stress by pelting your fellow classmates with a red rubber ball. Sadly, parents these days can’t bear the thought of their poor little offspring coming home with the imprint of the ball temporarily tattooed onto their forehead.
Heavy Backpacks
You’d often see schoolchildren walking to school with backpacks larger than their bodies, carrying more books than they could ever possibly need. This is not only unnecessary but also harmful, with a National Library of Medicine study finding that kids carry an average of 15% of their body weight, which causes biomechanical and physiological adaptations.
Climbing in the Playground
When you’re a small school-age child, the large climbing frame in the school playground looks reminiscent of how Mount Everest would have looked to Edmund Hillary. However, for parents, it looks more like a death trap, waiting to leave their poor child lifeless on the bark below.
Tug of War
The ancient pastime of tug of war was a staple of many youths, testing how strong you were, your teamwork skills, and how resilient your hands were to friction burns. Sadly, modern parents don’t like the idea of their child ending up in a heap on the floor with their hands blistered and cracked.
Trust Exercises
Modern parents, for one reason or another, don’t like the idea of their dear child being put into a blindfold and leaning back into a fellow student’s arms. This has, unfortunately, led to the cancellation of trust exercises in schools.
Band Practice
The pandemic has ushered in a new wave of armchair respiratory disease experts. These experts no longer wish for their children to take part in band practice because they believe that droplets of respiratory particles ejected from the instruments will put their children in harm’s way.
Woodwork
Woodwork lessons used to be one of the highlights of the school week, as children worked on creatively minded projects while almost sawing their own arms off. However, as The Guardian reported, parents would rather their children be making cakes in home economics instead. This has led to a decline in practical classes in schools over the last 15 years.
Barefoot Running
Barefoot running bridged the gap between yourself and nature, as you were no longer restricted by the soles of your clunky school shoes. Nowadays, parents have too much of an understanding of germs and the risk of stepping on shards of glass to ever let their children run around barefoot.
Using Glass Science Equipment
Parents are already freaking out over the idea of their kids taking part in science experiments in the first place; just wait until they find out that they’ll be using glass equipment. The thermometers, beakers, and measuring cylinders did always seem as though they could shatter at any moment.
Using Metal Playground Equipment in Summer
We’ve all been there, sprinting into the playground on a hot day, rushing to the slide, only to almost cook ourselves alive while sliding down it. Parents’ reluctance to allow their children on playground equipment in the summer is somewhat justified, as The Washington Post suggests that the metal can reach temperatures of up to 180 degrees Fahrenheit.
Dissecting Animals
One method that schools like to use to scar their students for life is making them dissect a deceased creature’s innards so they can marvel at its arteries while trying not to throw up on the classroom floor. Maybe it’s the sharp utensils that parents don’t like their children being near.
Draconian Teaching Methods
Teaching methods have changed since most parents were in school. Teachers are encouraged to become more hands-on with their students rather than just dictating the lesson from the front of the room. The old-fashioned method of teaching is no longer enough.
Papier Mâché
Out of all the arts and crafts activities, papier mâché was always a firm favorite, a liking not shared by parents who have to try and wash the mess out of their child’s clothes. Understandably, parents would prefer their child to be crafting things out of less messy materials.
Chalkboards
Thankfully, the arrival of accessible technology quickly saw an end to the traditional blackboards seen in schools decades before. Nowadays, there are no chalk dust stains in children’s clothes, nor are there any sadistic teachers scraping their fingernails on the board to get the kids’ attention.