how did you deal with recess at school?

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I usually either dug in the sandbox or more often I'd go to the far end of the field by the fence where no one else usually was and do my own thing. I lived in own head so much back then that long as there was enough distance between me and everyone else I could ignore them easily. I did have one friend back then (and am still friends with her to this day) who I'd drag out to the far end to play with me with toys we'd bring from home. Most of the time was spent collecting the grass the big mower had leaft behind when they mowed and making little 'houses' for our toys then was spent playing. The mower didn't mow during school usually so I never knew where the cut grass came from or what it was for years. I used to call it 'hay' as that was what my mind translated cut grass to be. I guess I'd never really seen lawn clippings before as our mower at home had a bag on it and my dad would dump the clippings into the trash and not leave it laying on the lawn like the school did for the field.

That was from first grade or so until sixth grade. Kindergardeners had a different playground and it was all equipment with very little sand to dig in and no field of grass. Back then I must have been more social or something as I tried to befriend a girl(not the same as my friend I got later.) That girl kept telling me that he was moving away and then after I was all upset over it because I do that and was about 5-ish years old, she'd say she was pretending or whatever. I don't know how many times she used that same story but after the third or so time I decided that we weren't friends anymore and stopped hanging around her. I don't take being lied to well even now.

I remember in kindergarten that we had some kind of bars that were bent like a rainbow and the bars went both ways making square spaces between the bars I think. I could climb up it from one sides and not have to turn around at the top and just keep going down the other side head first and step off with my hands and I thought being able to do that was the greatest talent in the world. I doubt I could do such a thing now at 30 and being all kinds of out of shape.

After sixth grade there was no recess and I spent my lunch break reading near whatever class I had after lunch so I would already be where I needed to be after lunch was over. I was homeschool (my choice) the last three years of high school so again no recess there either though I could do random fun stuff sometimes for P.E. instead of real sports which I am terrible at.

I have no memory of ever being teased as a child by my so called peers but I was so oblivious to people for most of my childhood and later made a point to avoid people as much as I could because I'm an introvert and I knew I didn't fit in by then via "gut feeling" or in-two-in-tion(can not spell words) or whatever.

If I was teased when I was little I never knew about it.

I would punch nearby trees and tear leaves off the branches. One time some kids came by and asked me about that. I ended up in a fight and told a guy he could hit me in the face. He punched me in the nose, but I didn't get too badly hurt.

1st & 2nd grade recess, I don't remember.

3rd grade, I used to just stand around. One time I hit a girl that was pestering me.

4th grade, I had friends but they were all boys. We played tag and other things that involved a lot of running. One of the boys and I were the fastest 2 runners in our class.

5th grade, I moved. At my new school the only person that was friendly to me was a girl who had cancer and her head was shaved. I only knew her for a short while because I moved to a new school the next year. She was so extremely nice to me.

6th grade - new kids, new place, new situation. It was AWFUL. Most kids there were mean. I would stand or wander around a lot. Sometimes I would play on the monkeybars if they weren't too crowded. I would play tetherball if the other kids let me. I would sometimes play hopscotch. Other times, I would just stand outside a group hoping they'd talk to me or let me play.

After that, there was no more recess at school.

I would've read or write against the wall or near a Forest or on a hill area.

As soon as the bell went I headed to find a free piano in one of the practice rooms or the main assembly hall. Closed the curtains. Shut the door and composed!

I used to read at a picnic table (they generally weren't occupied). I got harassed a lot, but it was the best I could get. There was also one year where I sat on the curb at the edge of the blacktop and played harmonica throughout recess. There was some harassment, but I think they thought I was good at it, which softened things. (But I will never forget the girl who took a look at me and asked if I was eating my harmonica. Yes, I habitually eat metallic objects with no sign of chewing while making music! Why do you ask?)

Found a defensible position on the edges of things and kept my head down and guard up.

Way into my twenties, the sound of kids playing in a schoolyard filled me with a feeling of intense sadness.

I never minded recess. Lunch... I did not like the cafeteria, but yeah, recess was not so bad. Early years I could swing, spin a rope for the double dutch girls, sit under the little slide, climb on the monkey bars... sometimes I would interact with others and play in the sandbox or talk to them while doing something else. Mostly I did my own thing. My first elementary school was unique and if we had bullies, it was beyond my awareness. Most of the children who went there were 'quirky' so none of us seemed to care if one of us was doing something like hiding under a slide. In later years I had a set group of friends and we would walk around, listen to music, smoke, talk, whatever.

Most people here didn't have friends in high school?
That's like 5 years of being an outsider and being shunned
must have been terrible!

I loved play time at primary school. I never wanted to play on my own, so I didn't. Socializing was much easier at primary school, and kids loved it when you joined in their games because they had the positive ''the more the merrier'' attitude. So it wasn't all that bad. Although all the girls in my class played horses religiously every play time from about the age of 5 to about 7 or 8, and I wasn't into horses like they were, and I got bored playing with them. So that was why I played with kids from other classes (including my cousin), and we formed a little group and played more exciting games, and not the same thing every play time.

Secondary school was a different story. Nobody there played silly primary school playground games. I didn't mind though, because I didn't want to play those games either any more. I did like just hanging out. But the majority of the kids didn't have the ''the more the merrier'' attitude any more. They formed cliques, and you couldn't just go up to a group and just join in. You had to be their friend and be accepted and be completely on their wavelength. And I was seen as an annoying brat, and so I got left out and rejected. It was a very hard time for me. I'm glad those 5 years of secondary school are over.

People were still cliquey at college, but I found it easier to be part of a crowd at college. I think it's because some quieter students go to college to take a course and meet new friends who are like-minded, and they kind of include you if you are also quiet. I wish I had stayed on at college and learn some more skills and also made some more friends.

Exactly.

This is what life is like for the socially awkward, the painfully shy, the funny-looking introvert, the eccentric Aspie, the autistic kid who would rather be all alone stimming instead of trying to suss out the social structure.

There were a few kids, even in high school, who were sort of like friends--but it was as much a pack of outsiders who banded together in self-defense against the cool, the popular, the jocks and cheerleaders--but for me, there was no recess in junior high or high school. All the social interaction went on in the halls and the cafeteria between classes, or before or after school. And none of it made sense to me. Just a lot of mean people saying mean things that weren't even remotely true, but everybody believed them because they were the Golden Jocks and Cheerleaders.

I was also painfully straight, so even the outsiders viewed me as weird because I had no interest in smoking in the girls' room, sneaking off behind the parking lots to get stoned, or going to a party to get drunk on Friday nights like (most of) them did.

To the person who mentioned "in-two-in-tion:" I have no intuition. If I did, I would know when NT's are lying to me to twist me up and manipulate me, I would know how to read faces and have theory-of-mind and all the rest of the unspoken rules that NT's use to get along would make sense to me.

But I am not at all intuitive, I am sensing-thinking-judging rather than intuiting-feeling-perceiving, and emotions make no sense to me unless people bother to use words to explain them. At that point I can discuss and analyze the emotions of myself and others as long as they have interest in conversing about emotions rather than arguing about them.

It especially confuses me when people argue with me and assume I'm lying when I tell them what my emotions really are, because they insist that the facial expressions which I can't even see and am not usually even aware of making are a more accurate barometer of my feelings than my words. It makes me angry when they insist that they know how I really feel because they can see it on my face and hear it in my tone of voice.
-_-
Um, no you don't. My emotions are wired directly to my brain and my heart and my soul; they are not directly linked to your eyes and ears. 99% of the people I interact with interpret my body language, facial expressions and inflections incorrectly. Then they refuse to believe my words when I tell them what I really meant and how I was really feeling. And then, of course, I might actually be getting angry--but they extrapolate that anger back to before the argument began, and say the reason we're arguing is that I was looking to pick a fight.

Back to recess: reading through here reminds me of a few brief periods of time when everybody was playing foursquare, or double-dutch jump rope, and if a group needed a fourth/third person for one of those they occasionally included me. It didn't make me feel included or liked for very long, though, as I was generally clumsy. I was the first one replaced if anyone else came along.

The kid who made play houses with grass clippings which s/he called hay--that sounds relatable to me, too. Grass clippings, leaves, rocks, sticks and bits of bark--all these things went into any games I played at the fairy kitchen/alchemist's den on the south edge of the playground. I loved that tree.

ETA: Joe90, I wish the girls at my elementary school had wanted to play horses with a "the more the merrier" attitude. I could have joined in to such a thing with delight and been perfectly comfortable, as even then I found horses and cats easier to understand and relate to than humans!

The school sent me to the library for recess.

I loved recess. Before I started school, I didn't get to see or play with any other kids very often. So when I started kindergarten, I went wild playing with the other kids at recess. My mom says I came home from the first day of school covered in dirt. lol

One time in kindergarten, I was climbing a metal tower, and I lost my grip and fell flat on my butt. I think it probably cracked my tailbone. It hurt a lot and I wanted to go home. My teacher kept calling my house to have my parents come pick me up, but no one answered. She was a very mean teacher and didn't even try to make me feel any better.

In first grade we weren't allowed to play on the big playground. I don't know why. We just went out to a parking lot and stood around. I chased boys around the parking lot. Well, as I remember it, just one boy in particular.

From second grade on, we got to play on the big playground. I liked to roughhouse. I remember trying to play football with some of the other kids, but I didn't really understand the game. Back then, recess was just a free for all with everyone playing with everyone. There weren't any cliques, or if there were I didn't notice them yet.

On the last day of school, I got hurt at recess. We had a really long recess period, and the teachers weren't watching what was going on. There were a couple of heavy folding tables set up on the far side of the playground, but one was broken and it kept falling over. A bunch of kids kept propping it up and getting up on top so they could "ride" it as it fell back down. I saw all this commotion going on and thought it looked like fun. So I got on too and rode it a few times. Then somehow I didn't get back up in time and got trapped underneath the next time it came down. The other kids got the table off of me and I guess they called for help. Next thing I knew the school principal came and whisked me away and carried me back inside the school. I had to go to the hospital to have my leg x-rayed. Nothing was broken, but I still have a dent in my leg where the table came down on it.

In fourth grade (or was it third?), I pretended the playground was Six Flags. I drew a map of the playground labelling all the rides, and my friend would go around to ride all the rides with me.

The best times at recess, were when we got to go on a day trip to a different elementary school. One of the other schools had the most amazing playground. There was this huge wooden structure, like a fort, and everyone ran around on it just acting wild and crazy. It was total chaos and it was the most fun thing ever.

Fifth grade is when recess really started to suck, because the other girls didn't want to play anymore. They just wanted to walk around in little cliques and "talk." I was in a group, but I didn't really want to be in a group. Those girls were kind of bitchy, and I felt trapped by it. I just wanted to run wild and play.

We didn't have recess in middle school or high school.

A couple of kids during recess in 2nd grade told me to say i'm an apple with my tongue sticking out. I remember that.

Best part of school.

Food!
Games/sport
not cooped up in class

It largely depended upon the grade.

When I was in elementary school, I remember being scared of being on the playground. I didn’t know what to do. I much preferred being in the structured classroom. It seemed much safer. During 3rd grade, someone (I believe a teacher) showed me how to participate in handball (by taking turns waiting in line). Once I learned that convention, I was happy (as I had something to do).

During the middle school years, I remember getting the “shake down”. I had to give two other boys cookies and/or money in exchange for their protection. It seemed like a good deal. As then I was allowed to play marbles with some of the other kids. Later on, I learned to hide in the library (to avoid getting terrorized).

During the high school years, I remember either hiding in the computer lab or the library.