DUCK,DUCK,PISS!

There is an issue that I think we as a nation are ignoring amongst our children....Its not teen pregnancy, you get your own reality show for that. Its not teen bullying, Katy Perry's people have that covered. The issue I speak of starts much earlier than all that...in preschool.

1out of 3 children ages 5 -10 suffer from playtime anxiety. Yes, I may have made this statistic up, but it doesn't make my...I mean THE problem any less real.

Picture it...1983. A black-bean-fed little Cuban-American porker is sitting at his desk during, "drawing" doodling...not his family and house with a dog and a fence..but pictures of himself as an Xmen or spray painting cars and walls alongside Madonna. Suddenly, the teacher calls out, "Recess". All the kids yell with excitement and run outside as fast as possible. Not little me....I sit still in terror for the horror that is about to ensue.

I would go outside and be chased by a kid who would undoubtedly run faster than me. I ran because he had an imaginary disease.....and if he caught me, I would then have this disease. The only way to get rid of this disease was to give it to someone else. But when you feed a boy pork and fried plantains every day....HE. CANNOT. RUN. FAST. ENOUGH! This disease was called "it". The game was called "tag". I am an "it" survivor, but was usually living with it for the entire duration of recess.

All the games were like this....Hide and Seek was like Wes Craven. My heart pounding everywhere, even in my toes during What's Up, Seven Up....But the worst...was this farm animal thriller which was set in the gym during rainy days. It was Duck, Duck, Goose. One terrorist in the form of a toddler would walk around all the rest of us sitting in a circle, spanking each of us on the top of the head while chanting, "duck"..."duck"...."duck".....and then they would reach me. Guess who was Goose as much as he was It. I was excused from playing the game when one time, upon being crowned Goose, rather than chasing the terrorist...I simply...well... peepee happened...in the pants.

This has made me stronger....but a word of warning to all kindergarten teachers.....sometimes the little kid just wants to use glue as lotion to then peel it off like a zombie.......or sing the lyrics to Salt N Pepa's "Push It" into his jumbo pencil.....or eat play dough. So let him. Stop forcing him to live in terror ON. A. DAILY. BASIS.

Thank you.

P.s. to all kindergartners....it DOES get better......well....sort of.