Scrapes and cuts and breaks:

the world doesn't end.

Kevin had this post on reasons as to why so many kids are violent- and conscienceless- to the level they are. One of the things touched on was so many kids being taped into bubble wrap:

Kids often get hurt playing tag, said Sharon Roland, the nurse at Jack L. Kuban School in southwest Phoenix and vice president of the School Nurses Organization of Arizona.

They split their chins, scrape their noses and graze their knees, the expected injuries of childhood. But they also knock out teeth and fracture bones.

E'Lisa Harrison's son, Grant, was 8 when he was pushed and fell during a game of tag at Kyrene de la Estrella Elementary School in Phoenix. It was an accident, but Grant spent weeks with a cast on his arm, missing out on a season of baseball.

While growing up, my sister broke her wrist. My brother broke an ankle and a collar bone in separate incidents. I broke a toe. Hovever I cracked my head a number of times (requiring stitches - which may explain my current personality), and even did a serious face-plant on the sidewalk once. Most of the kids I grew up with got injured - from cuts requiring stitches to one that was hospitalized after being hit by a car. We were active - and we learned that stupid hurts, pain is temporary, and chicks dig scars. I don't think a lot of our yoots learn much of that today.

I don't like pain. Not even in small amounts. However, back in the Devonian Age when I was a kid it was accepted that you would get scraped and you would get cut and bruised and-

So what? The world doesn't end, you don't die, and it'll go away. It was expected that you'd learn to deal with stuff like this, and most parents wouldn't put up with the level of whining- from kids and adults- current on the subject.

After first divorce, one day my ex called and told me son had fallen and scraped the hell out of his arm, and did I have enough gauze or something to cover it? Stuck away in a corner I had an honest-to-God U.S. Army field dressing, the kind that covers a big area and has cotton cloth on the back(OD Green, of course) with arms on the sides to tie it on. I grabbed that and some antibiotic and ran it over. BIG scrape, sure enough, about 2/3 the length of this forearm and all across one side. He was not happy, but wasn't yelling or crying, just said "It hurts" when I asked how he was. "Well, I'd guess so" I replied. Ex had already cleaned it of course, and put some a/b on, so I tore open the package, displayed this gen-u-wine Army Field Dressing and wrapped his arm up.

And- of course- it still hurt, but he didn't really care anymore. It was taken care of, and he had this really neat bandage to show off, so the problem was solved. He never slowed down- neither did his sister after similar mishaps- and they both 'learned that stupid hurts, and pain is temporary', and that they'd heal.

When the kid gets hurt, you give them comfort and dry the tears, of course; but you don't let them think- or make them think, as happens too often now- that it's a big deal demanding bubble wrap and protective custody. I'm fairly tired of some kid falling, and instead of the needed tear-drying and comfort leading to "That's enough, get over it", the "Oh my God, this is terrible!" just keeps on, which keeps the kid going, which leads to the kid thinking any injury is something terrible that DEMANDS serious attention.

Personally, I think this is connected to the parents who get a call about their kid causing problems in school and instead of finding the facts and chewing the ass of the kid when called for, they show up and threaten the teacher and the principal and whoever else comes to mind for DARING to hold their kid responsible to the rules. In both cases the kids get the idea that they're never supposed to be inconvenienced, that any scratch on their precious body is a horror demanding special attention, and that the whole damn world revolves around them.