This is the most amazing, jaw-dropping piece of news I have read in long time. Many schools here are now barring children from throwing snowballs in the school playgrounds. Well of course! This is dangerous, a ball could be frozen, hit you in the eye and there’s million dollar lawsuit right there! And it incites violent behaviour! So the logical step is to ban this century practice of fun, a step completely oblivious to the fact that you deprive the vast majority of children from enjoying something that is an integral part of growing up as a child in the snow. More importantly by taking this course school districts seem to be comfortable with the effect which is that children will not learn a very basic skill: how to react to a snowball coming in your direction.

As soon as the snow came out last week I exposed my daughter Nora, who is three and a half, to a few well directed snowballs plus the age old tradition of soaping, rubbing her face in the fresh snow. She thought it was hilarious and instantly grabbed snow to throw at me: I had automatically provoked her and she, after having assessed this new and unusual situation, reacted smartly. This is normal, this is human, we learn our kids to judge something, evaluate the risk and respond. The moment we stop exposing our children to situations of risk and let them grow up in an artificial and highly regulated world, they will, once they’re old enough, have a very hard time to deal with the real world. They will either go berserk by engaging in every activity they were barred from or become a victim of behaviour they do not recognize since they were never exposed to it. Most likely both will happen which is the worst possible outcome. Well done school boards, a masterpiece of educational foresight.