Emotional Relay Race

Just came across a book called Everyone Wins!: Cooperative Games and Activities. Now, non-competitive kids' games (what used to be known as "getting along") are just fine as an occasional alternative to the usual smash 'n' grab, winner-takes-all kind of games that kids actually want to play. But making them literally the only game in town – as many schools, institutions, and parents try to do – just forces kids to direct their aggression and competitive instincts into subtler, more emotional forms of competition and oneupmanship. Capture the Flag becomes Destroy the Self-Esteem. The withering remark becomes more valued on the schoolyard than a fast set of legs. It's actually perfect training for the hollow, passive-aggressive, middle-class adulthood many of these parents want for their children, anyway.

Most picked-on kids fantasize about having the playing field leveled for them, and to have quick wits, sound reflexes, and physical skills eliminated as potential tools for success. But then, most picked-on kids (believe me) also fantasize about having their tormentors boiled down to fat and bone. It's never a good idea to over-indulge the fantasies of children. Children are natural fascists.

(It's a very close cousin to the policy of non-contact, where kids are barred from horseplay and wrestling and play-fighting, which is a recipe for kids who don't understand boundaries, because they've never been tested, and who don't know their own strength. The worst, most damaging acts of violence I remember witnessing as a kid were often committed by the coddled, repressed bow-tie kids who suddenly go all Keyser Söze one day and do something like bite the ear off a bully.)

This book has a few games perfect for that little emotional terrorist-in-training. Games like (and I am making none of these up):

• Strike The Pose
• A Chance To Be Nice
• Dances Of The Mind
• Talking Without Words
• Direct Me
• Make Me Into You
• Subtle Pressure
• Psychic Nonsense
• Emotional Relay Race
  
• What Did I Do?
• What Does This Mean?
  
• Do You Know Me?
• Where Were You?
• Hello, But I'm Gone

It also has some games I can't see even the worst parents wanting their children to play. Such dubious-sounding games as (again, I am making none of these up):

• Couples Sports
• Getting Together
• Clothes Switch
  
• Body Ball
  
• Down The Tube
• Down In The Hole
  
• On Your Knees
• In And Out
• Hit The Nail
• One Big Slug
• Use That Body
• Use That Rope
• Blow The Ball
• Don't Use Your Teeth
  
• Gyrating Reptile
  
• Hold That Floor
• No-Hands Ball Pass
• Snake In The Grass
• Smaug's Jewels
• Stiff As A Board
• Strange Positions
• Blanket Toss
• Blanket Volleyball
• Hawk And Mouse
• Move Softly
• Find Your Rock
• Rope Raising
• Probably Wet
• Tied Together
• Where Did It Go?
• Popcorn Balls
• Find Your Animal Mate
• Hug Tag
• Inuit Ball Pass
• Pull Together
• Try Not To Laugh
• Wheelbarrow
• Come Together
• All Of Us, All At Once
• Sleeper
  

And then, of course, after all that it has:

• Casual Conversation
  

I. Swear. To. God.