Playgrounds Getting TOO Safe?

Most German playgrounds would be a US helicopter parent’s nightmare. There are all sorts of climbing structures, high and low slides, swings that go high, metal monkey bars at different heights, real seesaws, zip lines, and merry-go-rounds. A lot of playground equipment here is over sand, grass, or dirt. There are also places where kids can hide and other areas with soccer goals. One playground where I lived before had a big hill that kids could climb up and run down from all sides. That was very popular with kids of all ages. A lot of the climbing structures are made of wood and have big-time splinter potential and the slides are made of metal. When we went to the States when my son was younger, he got bored very quickly with the safe plastic playground equipment.

I posted this in another thread, but the Kletterwald (climbing forest) is a big hit with the local kids. Kids love being high and getting a feeling of mastery crossing rickety bridges 5 meters off the ground. Kids wear harnesses and helmets, but they can still roam freely over the course at their own pace. The only down side is that you have to pay, but according to my son it’s well worth the cost. Here is the link, which is only in German. Click on “Bildergalerie” (picture gallery) on the left side to see photos of the different activities and courses. There are courses for younger (6 and older) kids and some for kids 12-14 and up.
http://www.kletterwald-gap.de/

Posts like this remind me of how much I liked my daughter’s old school’s new playground compared to most other modern playgrounds I’ve visited. It came out too fast for me to see it, but one parent told me they’d had a small zip line in there at first, but one girl promptly broke an arm on it sooo… liability, and it was gone. Lasted mere weeks.

But the rest is better than average in terms of being challenging. Not tall enough, I’ll grant that, but has plenty of deliberately wobbly sections for the kids to play on, including a wobbly balance beam. I don’t even know what to call much of the equipment they have. They have some fair areas for kids who like to climb, not especially high, but at least they’re encouraging kids to climb things that are more challenging than the stairs to the slide.

It’s not perfect, and lots of parents wish the zip line could have stayed, but we all know why it disappeared so quickly. It’s still a better setup than most playgrounds I’ve seen, especially these days, and the school is good about leaving the gates open outside of school and after school activity hours, so it’s popular with the local kids. My current local school doesn’t even do that.

Before reading the rest, you should know that I am entirely for safer playground surfacing. I do not believe that concrete can in any way be better than rubberized surfacing (which I prefer to loose fill because kids can actually run on it… though wood chips would be my choice for those who can’t afford rubberized surfacing). Be sure to read the whole thing… at the very end I veer into a somewhat different topic.

Those who always read every comment probably knew that I was going to post this here. Anyone who hasn’t read this already (and even those who have) should take the time to read it all, as it deals directly with the issue in Mrs. Skenazy’s post.

I am currently a 17-year-old boy in Tulsa, OK. Understandably, most of my playground experiences were with the new plastic stuff. Back when I was 4 years old I often went to Whiteside Park, which had a mix of fiberglass and painted wood. I remember a boy named Joe who used to be there many times… he could swing really high on the swings which were still the old chain kind (albeit with a plastic/rubber seat; and they were only 8 or 10 feet tall). AFAIK they still have the same equipment today, including the plastic 10-12′ straight and steep slide (not too many slides are straight anymore). Another park, Darlington, had and still has all-metal equipment (though it’s a really small structure). However, LaFortune is the one I want to write about here. As late as 10 years ago they had old wooden equipment (with metal slides and bars). I remember some very high monkey bars (maybe 8 feet?), a swinging bridge (had to be pretty small… maybe 10′ long tops), and 3 slides, each bigger than the other (top one was maybe 10 feet). Back in 2000 or 2001 or so they changed to new plastic equipment. At the time I was very excited since they had changed from a relatively small structure to two large ones. In 2004 I had the opportunity to visit a playground untouched by litigation-fearful government. My great uncle was about to pass away, and the family took a 1-day trip to Aurora, MO, to see him one last time. Apparently not wanting me to see him in his poor condition, my mom found a playground and told my dad to play with me there (I was 10 at the time). That is an experience I will never forget… there were an old-style metal seesaw, a metal merry-go-round, and a very steep metal slide that had to be at least 15-20 feet tall. Being accustomed to plastic all my life, I was at first afraid of the big slide. From what I recall I eventually got on it and loved it… as well as the other stuff there. From what I see on Youtube some places still have this old-school equipment… but they are mostly in other countries (Germany pops up a lot). After reading this article I realize what has truly become of society today. This is not simply a problem with playgrounds, it extends to all aspects of daily life. The American legal system is becoming too constricting to organizations, often doling out six-figure amounts for accidents that deserve more reasonable payments of zero to four figures (case in point: Liebeck v. McDonald’s Restaurants 1994, aka the Coffee Case). Though consumers may think they are getting a better product from the additional regulations, they are the ones who are really paying for them. Thus the governments force unintended mandatory “insurance policies” upon the people… businesses have to pay more and skimp on the product to meet regulations, and the consumer ends up paying for a few people’s troubles in the form of increased prices or inferior products. Change needs to occur in the law schools before it can occur on the playground.

If you are older (or have relatives living in rural communities), you may remember the slides and swingsets being bigger than they are today. Many probably tell you that “you were smaller, everything was big”. In most cases they’d be right. However, in this one solitary case, I can confidently say that they are wrong and you are right. While I’ve never (as far as I can recall) seen a 12-16′ swingset, there are [hard-to-find] pictures that prove that they existed. As for the slides, just read my post. Despite the extreme difficulty in finding pictures, I am absolutely certain that they existed (and still do, though straight slides of all kinds over 8 feet are a dying species).

One particular piece of playground equipment that intrigues me due to its unique history is the Giant Stride. Unlike most playground equipment, these were mostly removed in the 1950s, long before the Age of Litigation began circa 1984 (date chosen on purpose). Google “980 playground equipment” and read the comments on the blog to see more about this intriguing piece of equipment… sure it was probably the most dangerous piece, but it was also the most popular in places that had it. Supposedly Sunrise Park in Paris, Illinois, still has a couple (unless they were removed after the 2008 ruling that any park with one automatically loses any lawsuit related to playground injuries, regardless of the scope of the injury and regardless of what equipment actually caused the injury)

Here’s a link (remove spaces from link): http : // www . parisillinois . org / index . php ? option=com_content&view=article&id=128&Itemid=148

If they’re still there, anyone care to go and take a video for Youtube?

Also, just something I’m curious about. After reading many comments on blogs, I get the feeling that kids back then were more resilient than kids today. Kids back then could fall four feet without it hurting much, and eight feet without getting more than a scraped knee, maybe a sprained wrist at the worst (and often these high falls of 10′ or so were from the aforementioned Giant Strides). Kids in the old days used to jump from 10-foot barn roofs for fun, and one particular comment on another blog described kids purposely jumping down 20-30 feet to slightly inclined ground and getting little more than a sprained ankle. I don’t know how they did it… there wasn’t a secretly required Parkour class in elementary schools back then, was there?

One example of the last paragraph can be found in these pictures (the sand is supposedly a few inches deep at most… definitely not enough to pass today’s standards for that kind of jump):

http : // a5 . sphotos . ak . fbcdn . net / hphotos-ak-snc1/4583_85593368861_639953861_2007092_8324144_n . jpg

http : // a7 . sphotos . ak . fbcdn . net / hphotos-ak-ash1/19355_1333485145994_1497022124_921218_6270406_n . jpg

http : // a4 . sphotos . ak . fbcdn . net / photos-ak-snc1/v2588/2/18/710507810/n710507810_1954871_5517785 . jpg

Pictures from “I played at Dennis the Menace Park and lived!” group, remove spaces from links.

The current Dennis the Menace Playground appears to be a very toned-down version of the old one. I wouldn’t quite say that it’s now only a super-large cookie-cutter playground (which wouldn’t really be the worst thing in the world… most places are not as big as that), but it’s definitely nothing like it was. If someone [rich] were to combine the new and old elements into one park, I’m sure the resulting park would become very popular with kids from around the nation (USA that is). Only thing to worry about would be the lawsuits… and maybe local building codes, though one could conceivably build one in a small town that doesn’t have such stringent regulations.

Part of the reason the Dennis the Menace Playground was so famous was 1. Its creator was well-known, 2. It was HUGE (one of the biggest playgrounds in the nation, still is pretty big; Hank probably created it as a place that even a super-active kid like Dennis [both the real one and the fictional one] would like), and 3. The likely reason that it maintained its fame through the years is that it was not touched by litigation-fearful people until much later than most playgrounds (the Helicopter, essentially a safer version of the Giant Stride in that both are basically large merry-go-rounds that are high off the ground, was the first thing to go in 1988). One final thought: Watch for some truly innovative (or possibly even retro-throwback) designs in the future. Most things go in cycles (it is simply human nature for people to always be dissatisfied about something… and people tend to get in a hurry and over-correct), and the current downtrend has been particularly vicious (kids are staying inside due to “stranger danger” [stranger abductions are actually lower per capita than they were in the 70s and staying inside with a friend’s parents is statistically MUCH more likely {depending on the math used it could be millions of times more likely} to result in sexual molestation than going outside is since most molesters go after someone they know, also kids are much more likely to be killed in a car accident than abducted], playgrounds are being downsized and boring-ized for the sake of “safety” [in actuality the car ride to the playground is much more dangerous than even the oft-cited playgrounds of the 1920’s… the walk to the playground is a different story though 😉 ] and coincidentally [or not], childhood obesity is at its highest since records began… the last point may become the impetus for an upswing). Among those wanting to start the uptrend is Lenore Skenazy, called “America’s Worst Mom” by the paranoia-mongering media (both the conservative FOX and the liberal MSNBC applied that title to her). IMO it is just a matter of time until somebody rich en0ugh to call lawsuit settlements “pocket change” connects the dots (parenting change + playground change = weight change) and starts to actually do something about it. The kids of today will become the adults of tomorrow… and the kinds of adults these kids will become would likely support a very dramatic upswing if they would only hear from someone who could tell them that their kids don’t have to be like they were. Someone like Lenore Skenazy.

The preceding monologue was copied from a couple of posts I wrote for a comment on the Playgroundology blog (though I have posted an outdated version of that on many blogs, including this one).

Much of the discussion on another comments thread on this site seems to have shifted to whether playground equipment suitable for teenagers and adults should be built. Looking at pictures from the past (the previously mentioned Dennis the Menace Park FB group), I get the impression that all ages from around 4 to 13 were frequently seen at the non-kiddie areas of DTMP (current playgrounds mainly cater to ages 3-9). Older teenagers were rarely seen there (in fact, the only pictures in that group where the person is unquestionably 14-22 years of age were taken in the last decade… then again, picture quality was not that great back then, so the facial features of kids in the background cannot be identified well; plus it is usually parents of younger children who take pictures at playgrounds [outside of the recent ones which were for “retro appeal”], pretty much ruling out a teen sighting in the foreground). Having said that, I must respond to the question of playground equipment that is meant for teens with an emphatic YES. The line of reasoning is such: Current playground equipment, designed for kids ages 5-12, sees ages 3-9 instead (and an occasional 10-year-old, rarely 11 or older unless they have younger siblings or the park is older [“older” usually means pre-1984]). Design something with ages 11-17 in mind, and you will likely see ages 8-13 frequenting it. I do agree with the point that ages 15 and older will never be nearly as commonly seen as 12 and younger, but why exactly do they have to be? Right now most newer playgrounds are becoming “uncool” or “boring” even with 10-year-olds. The point is to make a playground that truly is for older kids (6+) and not the “5-12 in name only” ones we see so much today… and right now it seems the only way to do that is to tell the architects to design for ages 11-17. So, when will the next Hank Ketcham come up to the plate and dare to swing for the fences? We are sick and tired of base hits… it’s been way too long since we’ve seen a real home run.

So, what happens when we “dangerize” childhood? “435.15 (3) No diving board or platform more than one meter above the pool or water level shall be permitted for general public use in any swimming pool.”

Source: Massachusetts State Law

It is extremely likely that safety was a major factor in the creation of this law. Let’s break down the reasoning behind this law. Roughly 1,000 spinal cord injuries occur due to diving every year. About 3/4 of these involve natural bodies of water. This leaves about 250 per year involving swimming pools. Only 1/10 of swimming pool diving accidents occur from a diving board. Of these 25 or so per year (tiny number… you are more likely to be struck by lightning), only ONE in the past 100 years has occurred in a public pool… and in all irony, this one occurred during a closed practice, so restricting public use would not have affected it one bit. Freak accidents will occur no matter what height the board is, and even a belly flop from the highest operating diving boards/platforms (10 meters above the surface of the water… only four truly open to the public exist in the United States [two more are restricted to membership, which in turn is restricted to residence in particular suburban towns], and zero in the UK… after London 2012 this MAY change to one though based on an article about the facility), though extremely painful, is unlikely to cause permanent damage if the pool has a vigilant lifeguard.

In conclusion, I am not sure what the legislature of Massachusetts was thinking when they made that law, for when you take major action in an attempt to reduce an already small number (especially when it’s ZERO), you are playing with fire (or fat, as the collective removal of recess from about half of all American public schools will attest to).

Sources (remove spaces):

http : // www . sw . org / trauma-center / diving-safety
http : // www . divingboardsafety . net / MythBusters . pdf
http : // www . oocities . org / woras . geo / LastWord . htm

The creators of these parks ignore the fact that BOYS thrive on danger and gain social status in their group by doing risky things. That is why you will see boys climbing on the outside of the tube slides, going head first down the slides, and climbing on the things that are not intended to be climbed on.

Girls benefit from extending themselves on the playground as well. Girls do social stuff differently than boys (the group all getting along) but certainly expand their self worth by trying and doing things that are considered risky. Girls doing the risky stuff on the playground are more willing to try “risky” stuff later….like going into nontraditional careers and roles, because they know from experience that they can do things that others may consider too dangerous.

I am all for more challenging playgrounds. My kids need them. I need them – really, I need the exercise that climbing around brings. I want my daughter to try things in a somewhat safe area so that she will try things without the net later. I want my kids to get their thrills this way – climbing structures, climbing rocks, doing challenging bike courses, so that they don’t decide to get their thrills through sex, drugs and alcohol later on. I want them to experience options, and I need their friends (who may not be able to afford clubs where everything from swimming to rock climbing is done inside) to experience those options so that they all can think outside the box and find things to do – be it floating on the river in a $5 tube or climbing a tree to get the best view.

I also find it highly ironic that the street sign for a playground is two kids on a see-saw, yet I only know of two see-saws in the country as the vast majority have been taken out due to liability. Yes, my kids have been on the two that I know of – one in MD, one in WA, both in out of the way places. And at both places, they practiced walking from one end to the other, bouncing each other hard, and standing and balancing in the middle.

I was shocked to see the age posted on the side of the swings at our local park that has a new playground. It says bucket seats are for 2 years and up and the regular swing (only 7 feet high) is for 5-12 year olds. I can’t get over that my son who is just over two is just now suppose to be in the bucket seats. he actually started as soon as he could sit up, so around 5 months old. And now he has progressed onto the regular swing like his 5 year old brother. And they are suggesting that my 5 year old just last year was in the bucket swing? He’d get stuck!
I’m so glad I don’t pay attention to those signs 😉

My goodness… you just can’t win with these risk-averse parents! Playground floor made of concrete? Not safe. Replace it with rubber? Too hot, in case Precious Princess’ shoes come off. What’s next – replacing the hot, scalding sand at the beach with a material that doesn’t absorb so much heat?

I remember with great nostalgia and fondness the playground I grew up at. It was made of wood, quite tall (probably 15 or 20 feet), and had sand as a base. It had monkey bars and a tire swing and a metal slide and a fireman’s pole. Of course lots of kids got hurt on it. But who cares? Why is that so bad? Kids get hurt all the time, playing as they should be doing. It’s not usually permanent, except in the great lessons learnt. I got the skin of my palm ripped off in the chains of the tire swing. Lots of guys slipped when running on the monkey bars and banged the family jewels. One guy even took a dive off the fireman’s pole and lodged his front teeth up into his palate. He’s fine. We’re all fine. I think I remember somebody breaking an arm once, and all that meant was a lot of attention and getting out of writing a test. The rest of us were envious. I went back to visit my old neighbourhood, and of course the “Ap”, as we used to call it (for ‘apparatus’) is gone. There’s now a plastic slide at an angle too small to slide on, a bunch of rounded corners, and nothing to excite or challenge anyone. We used to FLY across those monkey bars! What a great way to learn courage (not to mention balance!) Freedom, exhilaration….what other emotions and experiences are we willing to deny to our children? Anybody who claims this is better for kids apparently never WAS a kid. I really, really think that this world would be a much better place if fewer of us went about with the idea that we’re going to tell others what’s good for them.

I find the picture amusing. Our city is in the midst of pulling out all wading pools (they are dangerous. You never know what germ is in there after all! – Never mind that they have been in place for 40 plus years, sigh) and replacing them with multi million dollar spray parks. Spray parks I might add that are much better for the 5-12 set rather then the 0-7 set the wadding pools were meant for!

Hi. I posted a question to a MessageBoard of mothers. http://www.youbemom.com/forum/permalink/4459326

I read your post, Lenore, and just had to comment. I believe whole-heartedly in free-range parenting, but I’m still trying to shrug off the paranoia and anxiety that has been programmed into me by society. The park has always made me a little nervous, especially when my son (who is four) would get anywhere near the tall firehouse-style pole. I’d always tell him to stay away from it because he wasn’t big enough.

Yesterday, my son went with a cousin and my mom to the park – I stayed behind and was going to catch up with them later. When I arrived at the park later, I saw him sliding slowly down the pole (the very one I always warned against) and then run off to climb the fake rock wall (complete with grips and handles) — another thing he’d never done and that also made me nervous. He did all of this with my mom nearby (but never hovering – my mom raised, in addition to me, three very rowdy boys). When my son saw me arrive, he ran up to me, his face sweaty, flushed, and beaming with self-satisfaction, to tell me all the things he’d done by myself. Later, he ran over to the monkey bars and tried to cross to the other side but lost his grip and fell to the ground. Instead of running over to help him, I watched him get up, brush himself off, and go do the other things he knew he could do.

I felt a pang of shame (though it was mingled with pride at my capable and wonderful little boy) as I thought back at all the times I hovered or cautioned him away from taking risks at the playground. Of course, supervision is important (as in, my mom’s kind of supervision — from a distance) and things need to be age-appropriate (within reason). Had I kept steering him away from risk, I would have missed that beautiful expression on his face. It was seriously a profound parenting moment for me — one that put all the things I’ve learned from your book and this site into real, personal perspective.

The “safe” park nearest my house is called Everyone’s park as it was designed to be inclusive of special needs children (has ramps for wheelchairs, special harness swings, etc.) I think this park is a great idea (and nice to see kids of all abilities play together.) My kids play there sometimes in the cool months, but it is at least 10 degrees hotter there now, as there is no shade at all. (They took out all of those dangerous trees around the park.)
My sister’s son got his first stiches (in his chin) when he fell on one of the ramp bridges, and on another occasion broke his arm at this “safe” park.
I like a variety of parks and honestly think the more the merrier! But no park will ever be safe from accidents, no matter how boring and standardized you try to make it.

Robin, on July 22, 2011 at 01:36 said:
Hi. I posted a question to a MessageBoard of mothers. http://www.youbemom.com/forum/permalink/4459326

Hi Robin, I’m not going to sign up for that message board because I don’t think I could stand it. But here is my response to your question:

Dd(17yo) was certainly going to the park when she was 7yo, and it was across our street and behind the houses on the other side. I was playing in that same park at 6yo, same situation, it was across a (different) street and behind the houses from my house.

Since our neighbor hood is much “safer” now – ie. there hasn’t been a rape or other violent crime in our neighborhood since I was six. I would still let a child that age go to that park.

The last violent crime in our neigborhood was three months before we moved in when I was almost six. It was in the fall, and the next summer my mom let me go to the park alone or with my 3 1/2 yo brother. (in the winter the park is covered in so much snow you can’t see the monkey bars anyway, lol, we ice skated in the winter instead)

My mom did make friends with the retired neighbors directly across the street from us so that we could go through thier yard to get back home the “short way”, and so we would have a safe place that was closer than home to go to. And that was something I did too.

At our local park in the city I grew up in, there is a man-made lake and fake rocks with an artificial “stream” from the lake running among them. Some of the rocks are quite big, but they provide a great natural feeling and challenging playground. You can climb from rock to rock, jump from one side to another across the water, etc, making your way from one side to the other using your judgement of where to step and how high you can jump, etc. It was always my favorite thing to do as a child. About 3 or 4 years ago, my family and I went to Tennessee and visited the Smokey mountains, where we found a natural river with huge, real rocks that made my hometown playground set up look like gymboree class. It was so exhilarating and amazing to play in that river and I know it’s not something I would have known how to do, or had the courage to do if I had not navigated the rocks at the playground for so many years. However, when recently went back to the park, there was a very clear “No climbing on the rocks” sign nearby. Of course I climbed on them anyway because I’m an overgrown kid at heart, but I got told off by park security 🙁 It makes me so sad to know that my daughter won’t be able to freely climb on those rocks like I did. The thing is, if you look at the rocks in the park, they were clearly designed for someone to play on them. Some rocks are easier to get on and down from than others, some jumps are easier to make, allowing you to progressively challenge your comfort level. But none of the jumps or heights are unfeasible. Every rock is climbable, every height achievable, which is not what you would expect if they were simply put there for decoration. Whoever designed these rocks knew how cool they were and WANTED kids to play on them. And now they can’t.

@Kyohaku said, Kids back then could fall four feet without it hurting much, and eight feet without getting more than a scraped knee, maybe a sprained wrist at the worst

Maybe because we started out when we were a year old, falling down and learning how to do it better, then at three, running and falling, and getting better at it, bailing off the merry-go-round when it was going slow and learning to compensate for the Gs by landing at a run, learning to roll down a hill and then learning to roll with a fall so it hurt less.

I used to leave the house when the babysitter thought I was napping by dropping from the roof over the kitchen – only a 1-story addition, but I was maybe 5. Dangle, drop, land bent-kneed and roll to take up the shock.

Yes, some of my friends broke bones, some needed stitches, and I have a nice hoof-print visible on x-rays where a horse I had no business going near planted a hoof in my ribs as a warning.

But the big lesson was that pain is not going to kill you, wounds can be dealt with, and what parents say is dangerous is REALLY going to hurt.

In the Trenches: yeah, park security, lol! It’s a big park, so I can sort of understand. They even ride around on golf-cart like vehicles.

Taradlion, my son is 6.5, they should get together sometime! He will start playing with some boy, and climbing on things, then the other mother will tell her son not to do it, it is dangerous. Well, not for my son, he knows what he can do. He is not totally fearless, just understands his body.

Those flips sound great! The pool we go to (because it is indoors and we can go year round) is only 5 feet deep, so no diving. I suspect he would do it if I let him. But, I was a lifeguard too, and no, no flips, not at that pool!

Our favorite park has two climbing rocks. One is “easy” (but I have seen adults have issues with it) and the other is definitely “hard” with shear faces and overhangs. My son was 5 when he mastered it, and really impressed the teens who thought they had a place to get away from the little kids! I do appreciate that they made this park so that kids and adults can challenge themselves, and I have never seen a kid get hurt, but another mom heard from another mom that some kid did get hurt. (I will bet it doesn’t happen often!)

Hmm, Evil’s mom – well, my mom looked away when my brother and I were at the top of the tree. I tend to look and cheer him on and try not to get too “watch out for the small branches – they can break!” Although, thinking back, my brother was one who did things like Evil – standing on the seat of his banana bike and letting go of the handles (I think he got that directly from Evil) and I suspect that some of the time my mother was in the house getting ready to go to the emergency room as my brother got more than his share of stitches. I will have to ask her sometime….

Re resilience in children: In first grade, or close to it, our gym teacher spent a week teaching us how to fall down. Her lessons came rushing back to me the time I tripped on something in the long grass at the edge of a rocky slope, and may have saved me from being more badly hurt than I was. Do schools do that anymore?

I always kind of figured being free range wasn’t about lobbying for safer playground equipment OR more thrilling playground equipment. If communities want to make playground equipment safer, I don’t see the problem. In all the playgrounds I’ve been to there have been plenty of high places to climb and tall slides to go down. (I googled NY playgrounds to see images and they all looked like there were high slides, swings, and places to climb. Admittedly merry go rounds and see saws are rare.) Parks are designed safer, but so what? We forget how resilient kids can be. They will find ways to use their imaginations and run, play, and climb. (Trees are wonderful for this.) 🙂 A long time ago there were no playgrounds, yet kids used their own devices to find places to run, jump, and climb. I think as free rangers most of us are happy to encourage our kids to be creative and not feel like we need to provide them with tall enough slides, see saws, and other equipment. If they are not used to being entertained, they will be just fine. Probably better than fine. 😉

Both my children (now grown up) did adventure type holidays and things that involved danger. My son has physical disabilities but it did not stop him

If you ever go to Scotland this looks particularly good ( although you have to pay
http://www.creamogalloway.co.uk/activities/adventure-playground

and the icecream is particularly good too

I remember my days on the playground as a kid. One of our biggest pleasures was running to the “monkey bars” – a solid metal giant structure that was crazy fun to master. We learned how to do all kinds of things that kids today will never learn to do and falling off into the sand was just a part of doing business. I remember doing flips with one knee over the highest bar as a sign that you were totally bad-ass. Parents seeing kids do that now would have a stroke.

The fact that the thing was solid metal was a learning factor of it’s own. You learned how to touch it when it was hot, how to navigative when it was damp with dew; we got calluses and we got dirty and it was amazing fun. You learned to be careful and safe because a mouth full of metal on your way to the ground would not be a fun experience.

When they tore it down in the 90’s for one of those plastic structures, all us old “kids” were heartbroken. And what they replaced it with seemed….ugly, small and far too tame. There was simply no way it could hold a classroom full of kids the way the other structure had. And rather than it constantly being covered with kids, it always seemed abandoned except for the smallest children.

It never ceases to amaze and sadden me, the experiences and growth opportunities that parents will deprive their children of in the name of “safety”. It’s not parenting, it’s cossetting and we are all worse off for it.

Since becoming a mother two years ago i have become increasingly aware of childrens parks and play equipment. We live in the south west corner of australia and from what i can see, we have not yet started to make the parks too safe. I dont belive that new parks are aloud to be made of certain materials ie metal slides ect. But besides that they are getting fantasticaly inventive. We went to one today that was a whole obsticle course of flying foxes and monkey bars, slides and bridges. Granted, one wrong footing and there could be some nasty strains, sprains and bruises but that didnt and wont stop the little tykes from scrambling over the threshold like they’re competing for the Gold. My son cant manage most of the equipment but he will sure try. He will try and fail and try and fail until that wonderful day comes when his chubby little toddler leg pushes him up that rope ladder and he conquers the world. until such time we will continue to kiss the scraped knees and the bruised ego and enjoy the multitude of parks in our area, offering a plethora of challenges and rewards.

@taradlion I learned to fall in Ice Skating class also. I was at the rink as an adult and this woman was upset about them teaching her daughter to fall. I interrupted and told her – if you skate you will fall. Just like if you learn to walk you will fall learning. Then I explained that learning to fall ice skating saved my face at least 2 times as an adult. Both times I tripped, and pulled my arms in, covered my face and rolled. Both times I hit the sharp edge of a sidewalk with my arms instead of my face.

I think this is true in all aspects of life. We are beginning to get the feeling that if we are allowed to do something then it must be absolutely safe. I even find that thought running through my head sometimes and I didn’t grow up in a world where everything was made perfectly safe for me.

We had an incident in Dallas a year or two ago, where a teen-aged girl (16, I think) forced the door open on her school bus which was traveling on a busy street. She ended up getting run over and dying. Very sad.

Guess what all the articles and news stories were about. Teaching kids that their actions can have serious consequences? Wrong! Every story (and the interview with the teen’s relatives) mentioned making school bus doors impossible to open from the inside while the bus is moving.

When I was a kid, there was a gigantic alder grove right in the heart of the housing district on the local Coast Guard base. It was on flat ground–an old gravel lot that used to have Quonset huts on it or something, I think. The local species of alder tree looks like a bush even when it’s 15 feet tall, so the grove was full of secret hidey holes, green tunnels, and tiny clearings open to the sky but invisible from the outside. It was the best play place ever, summer and winter, but it was bulldozed long ago. At least it was bulldozed for more housing, not for “safety.’

My campus has both monkey bars and chin up bars. (I can’t see doing the flip with one knee hooked on what I call monkey bars.) We have 2 monkey bars. One is old school straight and grey metal. The other is part of the “Blue Toy”, so just 10 years old. It is actually harder to do because it zig zags.

P.S. Of course, we’re also so old that we’d probably break our necks instead of just getting up and shaking it off like the kids in the video. Sad but true!

And to celebrate how safe playgrounds are getting, one could start a collection of CYA playground signs that nobody really cares about. I’ve been taking pictures of those and here are the top 2 that I found the most entertaining:
1- “WARNING – INSTALLATION OVER A HARD SURFACE SUCH AS CONCRETE, ASPHALT, OR PACKED EARTH MAY RESULT IN SERIOUS INJURY OR DEATH FROM FALLS.”, ok but it doesn’t stop there… after scarring you like that they add the name of the company with their tag line: “Putting The Fun Back Into Playgrounds”…. Risk of death and fun back in playground… just too weird.

2- “Playground is made of CONDITIONED WOOD” (so far so good) “… and contains no arsenate or heavy metals.”… What the? Did I need to know that, I just wanted to have a good time.

Oh well, it would be good to hear from others who have seen such signs.

Thanks for bringing this up.

OMG. This is one I 100% agree with you on. My children go to a public school in California. They are no longer allowed to RUN on the playground. My son came home with a red slip for running while playing tag (which, I’m sure, is SO fun while WALKING). I signed it and wrote back “please don’t give my child red slips for EXERCISING AT RECESS. I will accept full responsibility if he falls and scrapes his knee”.

In good news, the resources and materials for planning events for PlayDay (Wednesday 3 August in the UK), a celebration and encouragement of children’s play, make clear that ‘children benefit from challenging play spaces’ and tells people to be ‘mindful
of balancing the risks with the benefits of
challenging play opportunities’.
http://www.playday.org.uk/playday_campaigns/playday_2011.aspx

I don’t know about them being too safe or whatever. I do know that my kids are at playgrounds regularly. We actually will drive way out of our way to visit faraway playgrounds just to have a different one to go to. I look up playgrounds in different cities we visit to take them to. I am all about it.

I am a rarity among most moms I know with this. Some moms will take their kids and its a rare treat. With us when the weather is tolerable we are there everyday at various playgrounds. Don’t know if safety has anything to do with it. More like most parents I know just are not outdoorsy people. My old next door neighbor never took her children outside. Ever. Her husband would when he was not out of town for work but she never took them out. I was starting to wonder if she was agoraphobic. I would offer to watch her kids so they could go outside and play with mine and she would let them so her kids liked outside, she just hated it apparently.

Some playgrounds around here are always busy and some are always deserted. Not sure why. Mostly location I bet. One of the more popular playgrounds in our town though has ziplines and a huge 3 story high slide. It is also completely shaded which is a SUPER bonus.

I would say that shade plays a huge part in the popularity of a playground. If the playground has no shade than in the Summer the slides get too hot to slide on. So only way you can play is late at night or early in the morning. That keeps the moms and kids away. I have been advocating for shade structures to be put up on playgrounds and for them to plant trees and keep trees when building a playground for shade. With skin cancer being a huge thing we have to protect our kids from and with hot areas without shade or at least water features, a playground is not much good to us.

@Brigette keep up advocating. The SPED Councilor, OT, and PT that work on our campus brought this up. That helped our principal in his fight to keep the orginal late 1960’s era swings on our playground.

(And the same could go for “why aren’t the swing chains longer”, in places that have swings. The longer the chains are, the more space is required around the swingset. You really can’t have a tag game going on in the same place people are swinging, or hopscotch. You can’t put a slide where the swings go back and forth. Shorter chains mean you have more space for other things.)