Toilet Tag

As a little girl, I loved recess. I used to jump rope, play hopscotch, sing little songs with my classmates, and play Freeze Tag. Ahhh, the good 'ol days....

My twinnies are in kindergarten. When the school year began, they loved recess. In fact, when we asked about their day at school, they would only mention the games they played while outside with their classmates. We would get blank stares when we asked, "But what did you learn today?".

Things started changing a couple of weeks ago. Bethie stopped playing with her classmates at recess. When I tried to find out why, she said that she didn't want to play with her class because they would play "inappropriate" games (yup, that's how my kids speak. Sigh). When pressed, she told me about Toilet Tag.

Here's how to play: One person is "It". This child tries to tag as many children as possible. "When a player is tagged, he/she must assume a toilet position (one knee on the ground and the other knee up, one arm straight out to the side).  The tagged player must remain frozen in this position until they are rescued by another player.  To be rescued, a player must sit on the knee of the frozen player, grab their straight arm and make a WHOOSH sound while pulling the arm down to simulate the flushing of a commode.  Once a player flushes the toilet of a frozen player, the frozen player is freed." (Mr. Gym).

I was horrified to learn that the children play this in the school yard. This is a disgusting and scatological game! I was proud of my daughter. She had decided that she didn't want to be used as a "toilet" and did not want children to pretend to urinate and defecate on her. At age 5, she stood up to the crowd. What a strong and proud daughter I have!

There were other problems for Bethie at school, so I wrote a note and asked to speak with the teacher. Yesterday, Miss N and I sat down and talked about the issues that Bethie faces in school. When we came to the games of Toilet Tag being played in the school yard, Miss N said "I think that may be my fault. I taught the children to play this in gym class".

I was, truly, speechless. I was shocked. Miss N is about my age. She's a mother. She's an experienced teacher. How is it that she and I have such vastly different views on the appropriateness of this game?

In my shock-induced silence, all I kept thinking was that this is a "Tribes School". This means that there is a super heavy focus on the "four agreements": Mutual Respect, Listening, Appreciation, and Participation. How can the school foster "mutual respect" when asking the children to pretend to be toilets?
We kinda glossed over the whole Toilet Tag because we moved onto matters that I thought to be more serious. But it haunted me. Am I being a prude? Am I so out-of-touch? Should I just keep my mouth shout?

I don't know what to do. I am at a loss. If any of you have any thoughts about Toilet Tag, please let me know.