When I first saw this story about a McLean, Va. elementary school that has banned tag at recess, I thought it was absurd. First schools started outlawing dodgeball. Now we're putting a stop to tag. What's next, a moratorium on four-square? A cease-and-desist order for hopscotch?

But then I read farther into the article, and I realized I was wrong. It turns out the principal at Kent Gardens Elementary School was right to halt, at least temporarily, the playing of tag. And here's why.

The kids at this school are not simply tapping their opponents to make them "it." They are knocking down kids who aren't even playing and often piling on top of each other, an approach to the game the principal characterizes as "the nouveau tag." In other words, students are getting hurt. And the bottom line is that if kids are getting injured on a regular basis, whether it's physically or emotionally, it's the principal's responsibility to take control of the situation. We should not, as one of the parents quoted in the article does, spend our time asking why "we are regulating the fun out of normal childhood activity," although I understand why someone would have that reaction. If indeed these children can't play nicely, we should be asking why they insist on behaving so aggressively, then correct the behavior so that a normal childhood activity like tag can be a normal, no-big-deal activity again.

Every time a violent act is perpetrated on America's young people by another young person -- whether it's a Columbine or a mass shooting like the one that took place a year ago today at Virginia Tech -- the shooter is almost invariably characterized as someone who felt bullied or harassed by his or her peers and built up more rage than he or she knew how to handle. Now, I am not saying that anyone who gets knocked down during a game of tag is going to grow up to become a murderer. But before we all find ourselves scratching our heads over yet another national tragedy, I think we need to look at the seemingly small things -- the kids being knocked down over and over again at recess, or the cheerleader getting beaten up on YouTube -- and do what we can to prevent those incidents from piling up and leading to something bigger.

All that said, I must object to something else noted in the article: The office of risk management in Fairfax County, where Kent Gardens Elementary is located, keeps a list of activities prohibited at school. In addition to dodge ball and tug-of-war, another no-no: Break dancing. Now that's just not right. If China winds up raising a generation of kids who can do the worm better than American young'uns, we have no one to blame but ourselves.

Photo: Myspacehun.com