WELLINGTON, New Zealand, Nov. 25 (UPI) -- Some parents at a New Zealand school are concerned a policy of using exercise as punishment may be giving children the wrong idea.

   Instead of time-outs and detention, student scofflaws at the Rangikura primary school in Porirua are required to run laps around the sports field, the Dominion Post reported Sunday.

   Principal Paul Nees says the jogging is a way for students to burn off excess energy so they can return to class and focus on their work.

   But many parents -- and the government's Sport and Recreation agency -- worry students will develop negative associations with exercise that will keep them from developing a healthy life-long attitude toward fitness, the newspaper said.

   "I have no problem with them being punished, but maybe using physical exercise is not the right sort of punishment," Andrew Scott, whose 8-year-old son was recently ordered to run laps for playing tackle rugby, told the Dominion Post.
 

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