Our initial thought when we heard that the game of tag had been banned from recess at Nashua’s Charlotte Avenue Elementary School was, we imagine, the same as a lot of other people: Sounds a little extreme.

Our second thought was more a series of thoughts. What next? A prohibition on “1-2-3 red light?” No more “giant step?” Will some school somewhere go so far as to ban “Simon says” because a child could get carpel tunnel syndrome trying to pat their head and rub their tummy at the same time, or because it’s exclusionary? We suspect Uncle Gus Bernier – who finished up his iconic children’s television show on Channel 9 every day with a huge game of “Simon says” – would spin in his grave if that happened.

Once we processed all of that, however, and considered the news in earnest, we decided that school Principal Patricia Beaulieu deserves credit for having the safety of students in mind. No parent would want it any other way.

In a letter to parents, Beaulieu said the problem is “the force with which students ‘tag’ varies greatly, and this game, in particular, has been banned in many schools in the United States due primarily to concerns about injuries.”

Nobody wants to see a child get hurt and the potential for injury must always be part of the equation when evaluating childhood activities. That’s especially true in this age of heightened awareness about concussions and bullying. Those factors are real and must be respected.

At the same time, educators need to bear in mind that kids getting hurt playing children’s games is not what you’d call a “recent phenomenon.”

We think school officials acted with the best of intentions, but we still believe the ban is an overreaction and a missed opportunity.

It’s not an issue that’s unique to Nashua, either. Schools across the nation have jumped on the ban-it wagon.

Banning something is about the least constructive thing our society can do to address an issue. It seldom eliminates demand for the thing it seeks to get rid of and, in some cases, elevates it to a status it doesn’t deserve. Our country prohibited the consumption of alcoholic beverages in the 1920s and all that really accomplished was to line the pockets of bootleggers and the crime organizations that backed them. Oh, and it demonstrated – as if we didn’t already know – that there was a demand for spirits.

Clearly, many children want to play tag and we suspect a school rule isn’t going to change that.

A better historical model, we think, rests with President Theodore Roosevelt and the game of college football, which drew huge crowds at the turn of the 20th century. It also resulted in scores of deaths, to the point that Roosevelt threatened a ban. College officials got the message and changed the rules in response. The deaths stopped and the game seems to have survived.

We think school officials acted in haste and may have missed a chance to teach kids about kindness, restraint, safety and compassion, among other things. More troubling, perhaps, is the possibility that they also missed an opportunity to let students be part of the solution and take ownership and be accountable for their actions. And if kids are getting hurt on the playground, officials need to examine whether the supervision is adequate, among other things.

Instead, it appears that they took the easy way out, which is not a lesson our children need to have reinforced.

In doing so, it seems like school officials took at least a baby step backward.

We think they can do a better job coming up with a solution that keeps kids safe without inadvertently teaching them lessons in governance we’d rather they not learn.

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