Last week the Supreme Court ruled that outlawing pornographic images of children was unconstitutional. Before you freak out, let me explain. One of the specifics of this law stated that it was illegal for adults to pose as minors for depictions of sexual situations.If the Court upheld the law, it would have meant “Dawson?s Creek” reruns could have been considered kiddy porn and the first “American Pie” movie would have been banned.

The judges reasoned that it was naive to think teenagers aren?t engaged in sexual situations, so they ruled the law was too broad.The Supreme Court is shedding light on something that has become a problem over the past decade or so. Parents have started to become way too overprotective of their children lately.An example: I was briefly employed at a sporting goods store and was surprised at the number of parents buying batting helmets for their children. I learned the baseball league wanted each child to have their own helmet to curb any chances of head lice breaking out. As someone who grew up on baseball fields I recall the times when it was my turn to bat. I grabbed a helmet, smacked the hard plastic against my knee to shake out all of the crap accumulating inside of the deteriorated foam, crammed the thing on my head and went to bat. My scalp turned out just fine.

Look at the playgrounds padded in foam rubber with wood chips or sand surrounding everything, so little junior doesn?t bruise his bottom. Parents seem unwilling to let their children get bumped or bruised or scratched. How else is the kid supposed to learn? A broken bone teaches in a way that a million lectures never can.When I was a kid, I rode my bike into the back end of a parked Camaro. I messed up the car and hit my head against the blacktop hard and without a helmet. When I finally stumbled home, my parents told me to watch where I was going, adding that I had to pay for the damage to the car, and finally ordered me to take out the trash. This taught me two valuable life lessons: Cars are much stronger than people and my parents will get upset when I cause $400 in damage to one.

A child?s learning comes from life experience. So parents should force thier child outdoors and do not let them back in until they have skinned both of their knees.

Granted, the fiasco with the Catholic Church and the child molestation charges is evidence that there are still sexual predators in the world who deserve to be turned into eunuchs. But the lesson we can learn from such an unfortunate situation is that all children should be educated to know how to protect themselves. They should be taught the dangers of the pedophiles and the freaks and anyone else who seeks to rape their innocence.

But the teenagers will always be teenagers, and a teen?s hormones can be more powerful than any other substance known to man.

Minors should be taught how to responsibly deal with sexual situations, and their knowledge should be constantly updated. As the court found, kids will turn into teens and teens will feel the need to experiment. This experimentation should be dealt with and watched by the parents, not legislated by the federal government.

Does Ryan Flatley need to grow up? E-mail him at [email protected].

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