New Zealand school tossed its playground rules

I think the sue for visible problems approach is one of your bigger problems in the USA. And in your current society until someone can sue for making Playstation more acceptable than Playtime I don't see any easy solutions.

The school had a large pond, with geese (that would chase and bite you if you got too near), and a school cow that would wander around keeping the grass trimmed.

Next to the school was an huge piece of land we used to call the quarry. It was an developed piece of land that had hills with trees and bushes growing all over. I'm sure there were snakes around, there were definitely plenty of large ant hills, and other small critters. Usually once a week our class would tramp over there, and play tag.

People would get scratched up running through a bush or fall over and skin a knee. But that was part and parcel of the experience. I think I recall someone breaking an arm or getting a knock to the head when they tripped over something - that was treated appropriately by the teacher.

I remember going on a week (or two?) school camping trip up to Queensland; at one spot we found a natural spring pool for swimming and a small waterfall (maybe 5-10 meters high? scarily high for me anyway) - everyone took turns jumping off the waterfall into the pool.

Nowdays I look at what schoolkids get to do, and it's none of that stuff. Climb a tree? no way, you might fall and hurt yourself. So what, it's part of living and learning.

Quit talking nonsense. A young boy got abducted mere blocks from where I live not more than 3 years ago. Those parents would give anything to have an obese kid right now.

Asking parents to make decisions based on the aggregate damage child obesity does to society rather than the acute damage an abduction does to their family is ridiculous.

115 children out of ~74 million in the US. I understand it's a highly emotional and tragic experience when it happens, but statistically speaking, the odds of your child being kidnapped are roughly the same as them being struck by lightning. Part of the problem is the amplification effect of modern media. Kidnappings are sensational stories and we have a very human and empathetic reaction to them. Public perception would indicate that the odds of an child abduction are way higher than they really are. The biggest risk to your kids being abducted is one you probably don't want to admit -- around 200,000 children/year are abducted by a family member. Another 58,000 by people they know. Restricting your child from playing outside probably won't do much to help those far larger threats to their safety. I know it's an emotionally charged subject, especially for people who have been directly effected by it, but when you look at it rationally, the numbers speak for themselves.

We're scared of the wrong things.

We might accept a few more phobias in our children in exchange for fewer injuries. But the final irony is that our close attention to safety has not in fact made a tremendous difference in the number of accidents children have. According to the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System, which monitors hospital visits, the frequency of emergency-room visits related to playground equipment, including home equipment, in 1980 was 156,000, or one visit per 1,452 Americans. In 2012, it was 271,475, or one per 1,156 Americans.