Monkey Bar Madness

Maybe I'm leaning towards "free range" parenting but I realize I've become quite irritated with all of the gobs of rules for kids. All the things they must NOT do and all of the things they MUST do. Like, how Scarlett doesn't care about writing letters. She just turned 4. And I don't care at all that she is not yet interested. Her preschool cares a bit more. Literally all of the studies show that the earlier we start to teach children is not for the better. Again and again we see that they need to simply play and use their imaginations and take risks and get dirty.
Ander was SO excited for kindergarten. He told anyone who would listen just why he was so excited. Because then he could do the monkey bars at recess every day. You could imagine his utter disappointment then, when he came home from his first day of school and reported he didn't get to do the monkey bars. Kindergartners aren't allowed. For a kid who had played all summer at that same school park and had mastered his monkey bar skills, this was a huge blow to convincing him that school is awesome.
I get that we have to protect our kids but I guess I'm just not that convinced that more rules and less freedom to explore= safer, better children. Even as I write this, Kohen came home from riding his long board and had wiped out and excused a good chunk of his knee skin from it's duties. That gave me some motherly pause. But not for long. As much as I hate to see my kids hurt, I am convinced that protecting them from every possible hurt might actually do more damage.
Let's end on the happy note of Ander flying across the monkey bars at the pumpkin patch last night. Scarlett also wandered off, got lost and had to be found with security. I suppose even I have my limits to letting my children "explore" and "find boundaries"!