Being a kid and getting cuts and scrapes come hand in hand. I was raised that way, and I’m sure many of you were too.

Being a kid means falling down and getting some of those battle scars that come with it. And when we do fall down, we consequently learn to get back up and clean ourselves off and move on. But children are being more and more deprived of the opportunity to gain that wisdom and go through that natural right of passage.

Two weeks ago, a Massachusetts elementary school banned students from playing tag and flag football during their recess and lunch breaks. The principal justified her support of the ban by stating that recess “is a time when accidents can happen.”

I can’t help but wonder what, in God’s name, this jackass was thinking when she decided that the best way to teach children about real life is to introduce a false sense of reality where accidents never happen.

So I got to thinking about what else we can do to remove the possibility of accidents at school, under Principal Eva Braun’s logic. First: no running, ever. The possible injuries that can come from healthy exercise can be fatal. A twisted ankle can end a tetherball career and can take away from learning state capitals and other vital, real world knowledge.

But the most dangerous villain of the playground is, without a doubt, the swings. As these instruments of evil launch our precious children into the stratosphere, they’re helpless against the clutches of gravity and wind up plummeting to earth with a neck-breaking thud. You know what? Forget all that. Recess altogether is eradicated.

But in-class activities may be just as dangerous. So I think first and foremost, all pencils must be thrown in the same fire public schools have traditionally reserved for classic literature.

Their razor-sharp points can attack the eyeballs of our children without warning or mercy. And paste. Sneaky and snide paste. How many times have you been a mid-morning snack for so many misguided children? We’ll switch to Scotch tape. Not as tasty, but just as sticky.

But by and large, paper is public enemy No. 1. Who hasn’t had a nasty papercut, which stings for days? I say it’s high time we replace this Satan of substance with the good old slate and chalk that our schools were founded on.

The obvious fact of this sad state of affairs is that these kids are going to grow up to be sheltered and pampered wimps. And not only wimps, but chubby and plump wimps.

Now that’s a recipe for high-water jeans and going to the prom solo. As children get exceedingly fatter, they should be required to play games like these to offset what their parents and school cafeterias feed them.

Moreover, the parents who supported this atrocity are undoubtedly the kids who were always picked last and still can’t accept their uncoordinated and awkward physical inabilities. They were the kids playing “eat the booger” while everyone else was playing “spin the bottle.”

Unbeknownwn to this sad excuse for a leader, accidents are a part of the real world. It’s what makes us human. Learning from our spills and tumbles is what builds up our knowledge and acceptance of that reality. If you want to put your kids in a padded room when they get home and let them play video games all day, that’s fine with me.

That’s a great childhood. But at a public school, running around on the playground is just as essential to growing up as anything you can learn from a book. Shame on you parents and teachers and principals who’ve begun accepting this pathetic excuse for safety. Kids fall down.

We all fall down. But it’s your responsibility to allow our younger generations to pick themselves up and learn about life.