The ad hoc touch football game isn’t completely gone.  At my son’s elementary school (Hillcrest) in Oakland, it’s been a busy year for recess and after school touch football among the fourth graders.  The year started with lots of excitement about playing football during recess.  Soon I started hearing about some of the issues/problems:  they couldn’t agree on the rules, ‘Jimmy’ hogged the ball all the time, ‘Sammy’ was terrible and no one ever picked him.  I chuckled a little at these traumatic events, but was inwardly so pleased that the boys had to deal, mostly by themselves, with these issues.
The fourth graders have a lot of very athletic, competitive boys and my son, (one of those athletic, competitive boys) was soon at serious odds with one of his best friends, over on the field issues.  For a month, they barely spoke, but I had the opportunity to talk with my son about keeping disputes in context and treating them with moderation.  They’re back to being good friends now.

Some of the parents of the less competitive/athletic kids voiced concerns when they heard their kids were being left out of the game, or not thrown to.  It took a little parent/teacher intervention to help the boys understand that it was in their interests to make everyone feel included and want to participate.  A couple of the girls in the class started playing.  Lately I’ve been hearing about how ‘Max’ and “John’ are becoming good players.

The boys got into disputes with the fifth graders over the football field.  They kept arguing about how to choose captains.  There was even a fight one day.  What wonderful ways to learn!  And they kept coming back and playing the next day.  According to my son, the football group has evolved as some of the original core is now playing basketball.  Other kids come and go.  But I really enjoy knowing that they are wrestling with all these playground things: choosing teams, setting rules, handling disputes.

It’s not perfect, but they are only 9 and 10 years old.  I think we place very high expectations on our kids, and I am just happy they are playing together, on their own, and working on their boy skills.

I’ve always believed that this sort of self-organizing, self-policing activity is crucial for kids.  Recently, though, I’ve read a great scholarly article on this topic, and now I’m even more convinced.  I’ll try to post an article on this soon.

Scott - you’re very fortunate to have found this for your boys.  It’s *way* more valuable than organized sports teams.

Gee - sounds familiar.  Bloody noses, skinned knees, a couple of shoving matches here and there, long breaks in the game to refine a minor rule, arguing whether it was 2 hands or 1 that got you, the occasional accidental tackle, the rare long bomb that connected.  Man did I love pick-up touch football! 

I’ve tried to get my guys into that, but they don’t really like it.  They do love board games and our house is sometimes the location for a week-end long game of Order of the Stick or D & D, but I have to organize the football games myself.