Am I the Only One Sickened by These "Tips"?

Is it just me or is the writing there as stiff as a Victorian whalebone corset? Make me wonder if it’s that or simple constipation that has addled their brains.

Hmmm, send the kids outside and risk them getting sent to the emergency room, or keep them inside where it’s safe? That’s right, diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure and obesity are just the trade-off I’m looking for instead of those pesky scars and that nasty blood, and heaven forbid my child should ever track dirt into the house. Oh, and let’s not forget the fact that when they do go outside and I’m there to “deal with potential dangers as they crop up”, I’ll also get the pleasure of making choices and dealing with these issues well into my child’s adulthood. Thanks “Moms who [don’t] think”, for making this an easy choice for me.

And ‘tips’ for online safety

http://www.pbs.org/parents/childrenandmedia/article-revealing-too-much-about-kids-online.html

This horrible Aunt was refusing to help her 5 yr old niece across the monkey bars in her own backyard and instead made her drop onto the ground (of GRAVEL!) when she freaked out and froze. By the 3rd drop, she was rejoicing that she could land without having to use her hands. Balance and agility! Horrible things to teach a child.

Those rules make sense for little kids, like under 5 or so. I can’t imagine staying outside with a school-aged child playing in the backyard. I wish people would just use common sense instead of letting fear and paranoia guide what they do.

I also don’t see what is so bad about a few scrapes, or even a broken bone. Skin and bones heal. The only thing that scares me at all are head injuries, which is why I’m vigilant about helmet use.

@Cee initially misread your comment and was trying to figure out how she crossed the monkey bars with no hands. I mean, I can think of a few ways, but they didn’t seem likely if she kept dropping off… 🙂

I know! We can protect the children by having them do nice, safe schoolwork 24/7/365. Can’t let them play – they might get hurt or kidnapped. Can’t let them sleep – what if they have nightmares?

I don’t know, Meagan. I never broke any bones during childhood (and only had to get stitches once!) and I had plenty of chances to be stupid. Every day, rain, shine, or icy conditions, I climbed down the two-story ladder to my backyard. Sometimes several times, and then up to the roof. My mother swears she would never have let me if she had known.

I want to be positive and say at least it’s good that they’re encouraging outdoor play, but it’s hard when their approach is so negative — start by emphasizing and fearing the “horrors” that could happen, and then seek to relieve them, as though we’re talking about life-threatening surgery rather than PLAYING OUTSIDE.

A much healthier approach, that still dealt with the fearful reality of too many moms today, would be,

“Playing outside is both fun, and great for your kids’ health and well-being. Here are a few tips to keep in mind to keep it safe.”

But no, start out like we’re training Rangers to rescue hostages from a fever-infested swamp controlled by suicidal terrorists, then seek to “relieve parents’ minds” with a couple of ridiculously common sense suggestions.

I had a lot of freedom as a kid but never broke a bone or for that matter had any stiches. I got plenty of bruises and scrapped knees though.

But then I was a bit of a nerd (still am actually) and often preferred to stay indoors playing with my chemistry set – and I had quite a few close escapes with that. I once nearly set the kitchen on fire!

I understand supervising ones kids when they’re outside but I agree – when are you allowed to stop? When are you allowed to trust that you’ve done your job as a parent and taught your kids what they should and shouldn’t do? You can’t make your kids live in a bubble.

@Henry. Oh dear, count me in. Had a conversation last night with DH about lack of play in childhood resulting in a lack of adult creativity in the corporate world. Make them drones as children and, shock! you get drones as adults. The future impact on scientific development and small business development in this country will be vast.

wow, playing outside ? more dangerous than schoolwork? NO!
Funny, the only ER worthy injury my kid ever sustained at shool happened in the classroom, not on the playground.
She hit the underside of the desk with her rearend while retrieving a pencil from the floor, flipped the desk over onto her hands. Sure it hurt, but nothing broken, and she learned to get out of her chair, before attempting to crawl under a desk.
The ER doctor was hilarious and joked with her about more exciting things she could have been doing when you get this kind of injury. A better war story kind of thing.
The school however was traumatized, completely rearranging classrooms to make the desks face each other and not be able to tip..
sheesh

I looked at the article and poked around the website and got a very different take on the article. I’m guessing the target audience on their site is women with kids from 0-5 (look at the suggested games and activities) so when they are talking about kids, I’m thinking kindergarten or younger. From that perspective, this is actually a free-range lite article.

In the intro, the author points out that the parents are bothered by the dangers but they need to get their kids out despite those dangers. Then the author says keep an eye on your kids and “monitor the situation”. The author doesn’t say control the situation. If you are talking 4 yr olds, sitting on the bench chatting with other parents while stopping occasionally to yell that sliding into other kids isn’t appropriate behavior is a perfectly good start to Free-Ranging your kids.

Next the author points out that your backyard and park, 4yr old and 8yr old have different rules. Not too different from what people supporting this site believe.

Then the author says to make sure the place is safe and age appropriate. The only concrete suggestion is, ironically, to make sure the park surface isn’t concrete. Again, not unreasonable and something that Free-Rangers are going to do nearly unconsciously. With a 4 yr old it is a careful inspection of the play area; with a 10 yr old it is careful questioning and knowing the area (and people) they are headed to; with a 16 yr old it is even more careful questioning but possibly only passing knowledge of the area.

Finally, throughout this entire article, the author implies that your children are going to go outside, the are going to get hurt, and you should let this happen. This to me shows this is a Free-Ranger who is trying to show the coddlers how to let go and start down the right path.

Oh, I don’t know. The article starts with the point that outdoor play is important. Its threshold for what constitutes a problem seems to be a trip to the ER — I’m good with that. My own mental rule of thumb when watching my son play is, “Is this likely to lead to a visit to the ER?” If the answer is yes, I change something. If it’s no, I generally don’t.

My real objection is the article’s vapidity. Parents need to make decisions about how closely to supervise their kids and what constitutes safe play (space) based on the kids’ ages and abilities (with no details or even examples about what might be appropriate when, where, and for whom). No, really? Who knew?

They may call their site “moms who think” – but I think they are thinking to hard about something that should be a simple fact of life – childhood play.

Of course, the problem with recommending the uzi is that the sorts of people who would make these recommendations are the sort who would get a case of the vapors at the thought of an average citizen having the capacity for self-defense instead of simply cowering in a corner until police arrived.

The article starts off with a good premise. Kids need to play outdoors. But by the second paragraph, the author is talking about all of the potential for injury, being a target for predators, and taking a trip to the emergency room because of injuries incurred from playing outdoors. And in the third paragraph she mentions the “untoward dangers” of playing outdoors. She makes playing outdoors sound as appealing as a trip to a war zone in Afghanistan, Libya, or Iraq.

According to the article, I’m a Very Bad Mother. My son has been playing unsupervised with his friends outdoors since he was very young. Now he and his friends go to the local play areas and play soccer or ride their skateboards in the parking area of the (closed for the season) local ski resort. He and his friends have had their share of bumps and bruises, but they have all lived to tell about them. I never thought that I was making my son a target for predators or exposing him to all sorts of horrible dangers by letting him play outdoors. Shame on me!

In Germany parents believe that playing outside in the fresh air is beneficial. A lot of the playgrounds here wouldn’t pass muster in the States. There are wooden climbing structures with splinters, no bark chips or rubber mats under the playground equipment (just normal grass or dirt), sandboxes, and (horror of horrors!) merry go rounds. The parents who accompany their kids to the local playgrounds sit on the benches and let their kids play without any interference.

Right. Because children are as fragile as blown glass and can’t be expected to survive the trauma of a splinter or scraped knee. Why bother letting them learn their own limits and how to deal with injuries when you can spare them (and yourself) the trouble and just tell them what to avoid (ie – everything) to begin with?

We’re well on our way to raising a generation of agoraphobics at this rate.

An example of a German “building playground”, where the kids build it first, then play on it:

http://www.stiftung-ecken-wecken.de/wilderwesten.html

Now that’s a finger in the eye to Moms who think (too much).

I find that I cannot understand people who think like the person who wrote the above. Children need to play, they need to explore. In some ways I think the playing and exploring in the very young and young should be mandatory. Without an adult watching over them all the time. Ideally they’d have older kids with them too. Maybe I belong in a time long past, a time that believed children where capable of knowing what they had the ability to do physically and not.

Yesterday we went to a park day with our local homeschool group. There was a huge field lined with trees the tree line contained Poison Oak, and one side also contained a stream. Where do you think most of the kids naturally gravitated towards? That stream of course, where they took a chance of touching poison oak. My only request of my daughter was that she not be alone and to try not to get wet. Although the wet was because I hadn’t brought extra clothing not because I cared if she went in to the stream. I explained to her why I didn’t want her to get wet and left it up to her. She did go in the water shoes an all, to about her ankles, and she said not a word one to me about being wet. Only expressed joys of being allowed to be down there exploring. On and when I asked her about the poison oak she said that people showed her what it was and she stayed out of it.

Yet one of her friends mom’s took her home early because she felt it was to much of a risk to let her daughter play in the stream and her daughter was frustrated over the fact that her friends where down there and she wasn’t. I respect this mom because she makes it clear that she felt that way for her child, and that it was ok for me to make the different choice for mine.

I know letting mine play in the stream was right, the shining bright, happy child that returned from the adventures that I’ll never know what she did in total.

I also know if it had just been my daughter and I, I never would have let her go down to the stream because I do believe in packs of children vs one alone.

I was going to mention the Children’s Crusades of 1212 but after reading the following, there is a lot of doubt to the credibility of this “crusade.”

http://www.crusades-history.com/Childrens-Crusade.aspx

based on those moms’ rules, my yard is way to unsafe to ever allow my son out there. I live in the desert and like to conserve water; therefore, most of my plants are shape, pointy cactus! Sure, my son gets a thorn once in a while, but since he figured out they hurt, he quit trying to touch them.

“When I was a kid I didn’t have an XBox or Wii, there was this thing called a Lite- Brite. My curfew was the street lights and mom didn’t call my cell she yelled “time to come in”. I played outside with friends, not Online. If I didn’t eat what my mom made me then I didn’t eat. Hand sanitizer didn’t exist, but you COULD get your mouth washed out with soap. Repost if you drank water out of a hose and survived.”

Lovely Free Range-ish post going around my facebook newsfeed today. Made me smile. 🙂

@ Dora, I had a Lite-Brite! Back in the late ’60s/early ’70s a Lite-Brite was the cool toy to have. I also had real wooden Tinkertoys and Lincoln Logs, which got handed down to my brother when I was into more “girlish” things.

I had the same experiences growing up: walked to school by myself starting at age 6, walked or biked to friends’ houses (where we spent most of our time outside), and curfew was dinnertime. There were no formal “playdates.” My friends and I would knock on each others’ doors and then we’d all play together. We were never supervised by our parents when we played. If I didn’t like what my mother was serving, I had to make my own meal and do all of the cleanup from it. I lost count of the number of times I drank out of a garden hose. It was a lot easier than going inside to get a drink.

@ Tuppence, I love that “building park” in Leipzig that you posted. I wish that I lived there so that my son could play in that park. He would love it. OK, I wish that I was a kid so that I could play there too. It looks like a lot more fun than the “safe” playgrounds in the States with plastic structures with lots of rubber underneath them.

Reminds me of something I saw on Nick Jr. recently. I have a 5-year-old granddaughter, so I watch Nick Jr. a lot. It was one of those “create a game for your child” segments, (because God forbid they should ever create something for THEMSELVES!) and it actually involved creating an INDOOR hopscotch game, using non-stick kitchen drawer lining as the “blocks”–because the poor dears might slip on the carpet! And of course, when the kids were actually playing hopscotch, in the living room, the parent was hanging over the kids’ shoulders the entire time. Forget going out on the sidewalk with chalk, like I did when I was a kid! The little darlings could get hurt! Geez.

with the beautiful weather today and a sick infant and sick 2 year old, I let my 5 year old play outside alone for the first time today! I felt all adventurous and free range, but I curbed my worry by opening all the windows so I could hear her and talk to her and telling her to stay on the side of the house where I could see her out the windows.We also had the “how to regard strangers” talk prior to her outing. It was GREAT! She did just fine, and checked in with me verbally, as she wished. She spent hours outside drawing with chalk, playing with sticks, digging in the dirt. I could see her, I could hear her, and nobody molested her! I am SO thankful for a fenced yard!

While I certainly applaud the premise of sending kids outside and this does have some reasonable tips, it leaves the nearing to Free Range idea for danger scare.

I’m presently reading Richard Louv’s book “Last Child in the Woods”. I highly recommend it to all, it’s very free range. The subject is getting kids back into nature. There was a great little story of a mother who let her kids roam a nearby canyon to the shock of others. One worry was rattlesnakes. The woman hasn’t seen one in the canyon in over a decade but the elementary school janitor was constantly killing them in the schoolyard.

@ Vicki: she it was probably that time of month for her, and didn’t want to go on the trip, so used the “too dangerous” excuse. lol Adults.

For various reasons I have an impaired motor function. All I did as a child, it seemed, was to fall down. It was a gateway to more than a few ER-visits but it was necessary to teach myself what and where I needed to do for motor function development. Play isn’t only about the play itself, although essential, it’s also about so many other things on a physical level. Running around outdoors promotes self-confidence AND exercise. I really wonder sometimes why there’s such a surprise that there’s child obesity.

All this advice might be given in a spirit of good intentions. However, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

What safety rules *DO* kids need to play outside?

Look both ways before crossing the street.
Don’t chase your ball onto the street, look for cars first.

Most of the rest is stupid fearmongering.

I broke my arm at 5 while playing INSIDE!

With my kids – almost 13 and 7.5, I let them play outside unsupervised. I get a lot done! And if they get hurt, we deal with it!

In my seventh year, I was in the emergency room twice, broken leg and gash in my head. That’s what I get for riding motorcycles(leg)and swinging from an outdoor high bar(head). It was fun though. My four year old niece broke her leg last year while playing with her Daddy at trampoline world, and my six year old Godson broke his leg riding his razor scooter. Sounds to me like my family is raising them all just right!

Modern US playgrounds are hardly worth going to if your kid is over the age of 4. The only exceptions I have seen are the ones that have real skate parks nearby or on the same property (CA has many). Even then, that doesn’t fix the actual “play area”. We have been traveling across the US, and so far, have found only one decent playground, and it was an old one that had managed not to be torn down yet. Even MY Mom commented on how dull the play area in her town was, like it was built for kids unable to move much- and it was nice in comparison to others. She suggested building all the fun stuff at home to make up for it. (I swear, Im building an adventure playground if I ever own a yard again!)

These modern “playgrounds” are defined more by what is NOT there, than by what is! No tall slides, no slippery slides, no monkey bars over 5′, no real climbing equipment, no merry go rounds, no teeter totters, no double swings, no gymnastic style rings, no balance beams. (Even though they are all rubber and soft surfaces! sometimes I wonder if they use mulch and other uneven material so kids can’t run too fast…..)

They DO have lots of features that NO KID ever uses though! The one in my Moms town had an area with attached “drums” to bang on, but they were plastic and quiet! I was there an hour a day, for over a week so far, and never ONCE saw a kid touch them. How about the spinning numbers- yeah, thats fun, lol. Also common are the super short and slow plastic slides, raised ramps (?- not for wheelchairs, which wouldve been cool) , 3′ climbing walls, etc, etc, etc. SAD.

Most of the “play” equipment wasn’t used, even when there were LOTS of kids there- it’s so dull they preferred to ignore it and play in the mulch/on grass together instead! What a waste of money and space.

One playground had a swing set made for physically challenged (right term?) kids- big, bucket seats with 5 point straps, like carseats, to strap in big kids that cannot use regular swings, and a wheelchair swing (very cool!). Sadly, many parents put their not challenged kids on those bucket swings ONLY, because they could be strapped in. sigh. I bet that annoys parents of the kids that need those swings!

And the amount of parents there with older kids- UGH. They don’t even let their kids play alone, they are on the equipment too! I can see if the parent is just having fun playing with their kid- that’s cool- but that’s NOT what was happening! These parents were hovering So close they were ON the equipment yelling orders.

I don’t know who designs these things, but when an “under one”, aka my 8 month old, is bored by the slide because it’s SO SLOW and low, that’s a sad day. These places look so cool, but once you get up close you see how very LAME they are. Like a “fun mirage”!!!

Overall, very disappointing. I think the helicopters have won the playground wars, and made everyone worse off for it.

“Wait…are there planned trip to an emergency room?”

sure. We now need a permit from our GP to visit the ER, thanks to socialised healthcare, in this country. That makes every trip to the ER planned, except those starting with an ambulance pickup after a call to 112 (our 911).

“Those rules make sense for little kids, like under 5 or so”

Maybe I’m lucky my parents had a 2 acre garden for me to roam in freely at that age.
Brambles, nettles, an old chicken coop with rusty nails everywhere, a fishpond with no fence around it, trees to climb in and fall out of.
Nothing ever happened that couldn’t get cured with some licquorice and a bandaid.

Few years later I was using a stick to dig dens under fallen trees, and never got killed by caveins 🙂

” The only thing that scares me at all are head injuries, which is why I’m vigilant about helmet use”

Most head injuries are just a lot of blood and no permanent harm.
Even a mild concussion (the worst that will likely happen during play) is harmless.

I’m far more worried about the braindamage done to children by overly protective parents who raise their children to have no understanding of the real world (and that includes demanding they wear helmets on the swingset).

” We can protect the children by having them do nice, safe schoolwork 24/7/365″

That’s child labour, that’s illegal!
Instead we should give them a Nintendo as soon as they’re old enough to push the buttons, like my sister did (she gave one to her 3 year old, he’s quite addicted to it now at age 4, can’t go anywhere without it and screams constantly when the battery is dead).

Me and my sister were unrestricted in our movements (except in one direction, where there was a mental hospital hidden in the woods, we were told not to go there). Yet my sister now forbids her children even to go out and play in her small, walled in garden without her there because it’s “too dangerous”…

Hell wen me and my cuzins were lil we was always outside….either back on the rail road tracks or up on the roof of the house or barn or we would be up in the he loft swinging on ropes….we never had supervision on the farm growin up….we had the whole farm as our playground….that included tractors power tools and also cows….and there was always that one mean ass bull every farm has….lol we never got any injuries that required a trip to th er…..not even on the days we would have bb gun wars……sure do miss being that young….I always will b a kid tho.

Ah, the voice of Mom ‘n’ Sense.

“significant” risk of falling. Who decides what’s a significant risk is highly debatable.

They base there risk factors off the size of the lawsuit the city board advisers warn them against…..can almost see were they are coming from now with everone sueing ppl over the dumbest shyt….seen not to long ago….man broke into a house and fell and broke his leg….he sued the home owner and won…..that’s realy helping to set images for our kidos.

The site should be called Moms Who Think Crazy

I couldn’t resist and had to do my own blog post about that article.

http://gap-runner.blogspot.com/2011/04/its-dangerous-world-outside.html

Lol, Amber! Maybe the parents could all take a field trip with their kids and check out the inner workings of the ER….you know, since they seem to expect that they’ll have to end up there eventually.

Who cares if there are dangers as far as kids falling down and getting hurt? Scraped knees and even broken arms are all a part of childhood. The only things that concern me as a parent are life-threatening or extreme injuries. But if my kids are going to get slightly hurt while getting about the business of playing, then I am a-ok with that!

I work for a community newspaper. I bust my ass every single week to make sure that my articles have things in them that readers can use, that helps them look at the world in a slightly different way. That’s why I despise so much the lazy, fearmongering authors of crap like this who write not to enlighten, but just to get more page views.

I deliberately didn’t click through because of that, but I’m betting that their ‘advice’ is stuff any reasonable person could come up with after giving the topic a couple of minutes worth of thought. Supervise your kids! Talk to them about stranger danger! Make sure the playground that you take them to has a soft surface! Know what’s age-appropriate and follow it! If anyone’s being unsafe, leave! Don’t let them beat the shit out of each other with machetes! Ugh.

Actually, that makes me want to write a parody of articles like this…

And of course, doing dangerous things that can hurt people is *definitely* not limited to being outside. The whole setup of this article implying that passing through a door presents serious and unique dangers is really disturbing.

Loved Megan H link to roof picture. Reminds me of last year when my 6 yo son and 8 yo daughter were playing outside on school break (homeschool). After a while I heard a noise on the roof and went outside to see if a limb had fallen on the roof. No, the kids had discovered how to get on the roof and climb to the chimney. They were told to “Stay right there and don’t move!” while I ran inside to get my camera. Yes, they could have fallen and broken a bone (or worse). However, due to, I believe, lots of independent, outdoor play they climb like mountain goats.

Although they got a stern warning about the dangers of climbing roofs and “don’t ever do this on the street side of the house because a passerby may call the police, inside I was thrilled they like climbing roofs as much as I did when I was a kid.

And where is this idea coming from that children are less likely to fall over if someone is watching them? Isn’t this what the article says? It’s something that my son’s primary school seems to believe as well. Sample letter: “a number of children have hurt themselves in the playground before school because their parents were not watching them…”
Stupid parents – and gravity – making children fall over!

Maybe they should call themselves “Moms who overanalyze to the point they paralyze”.

I swear it’s the bloody 24/7 media that created this messed up mentality..

Here is some GOOD news:

I live next to a large park and my house over looks the baseball field. In front of my house is a tiny ‘forest’ buffering the house across from me from the park. When there is a baseball game, often times siblings of the players LOVE to run around the wooded area and my boys (ages 6 and 8) often join them in their play. Yesterday there was a whole group of boys with ages ranging from 4 to 8, none of whom knew each other before they started playing (with the exception of my two boys who obviously know each other.) The kids had a blast and let the parents of the kids playing baseball be able to concentrate on the game. It was a win-win for all.

Bad mom confession time, huh? I let my 7y/o boy go around the ‘big’ block by his lonesome, and he plays with OLDER KIDS on age innappropriate equipment, in ways not recommended by the manufacturer……..
Our first pediatrician (loved him!) told me he worried if he saw kids WITHOUT bruises on their shins and knees……….if they didn’t have them, he said, they weren’t outside playing!

Tammy

Honestly I did not find that article that out there.

I am a huge visitor to playground with my 3 year old twins. I have been taking them since they could walk. It is amazing to think not that long ago I had to carry them up the slides and slide down with them when they were babies and now they are running around all on their own!

We go to playgrounds all over town and even out of town. Some are safer and nicer than others. There are things you do have to check for. You need to make sure the slides are not too hot which can happen where they get hot enough to actually burn a child. We usually go in the morning in the Summer so that does not happen.

Most equipment is kept up pretty well around here. I actually wish more parents WOULD supervise their kids on playgrounds!!!!! I have run into many problems of kids being too rough and knocking down smaller children or getting into other kid’s toys etc and it irritates me that their parents are nowhere to be found and/or completely ignorning their kids and the problems they are causing.

So I am going to have to say I somewhat agree with this article on the supervision part. Once your kids are big enough to play safely you still need to keep an eye on their behavior. Mine can do most of the playground stuff on their own now but I still stand by and keep an eye on them. To make sure they are behaving and that other kids whose parents are not watching them are also behaving.

I have had to stop kids from stealing our wagon, bicycles, pushing other kids, running over other kids. It gets old that I have to be the playground referee. That is not my job.

Stacy: Our playgrounds around here are super cool compared to the ones you must have near you. We have one with a zipline! Our playgrounds are very busy too. Well some are always busy and some are often empty depending on their location but all of them are cool.

My son always wants to sit in the handicapped swing…..he asks for it and as long as no handicapped kids are around to use it, I let him. So it may be that the kids just want that one. I don’t know why he liked it but he did. I finally told him he is too heavy to pick up and put in there anymore. That actually goes for all the baby type swings. My back is happy about that decision. They would still prefer to swing in the baby swings if it was up to them. So don’t automatically assume it is the parent insisting on them using those. May not be the case. My kids were the ones wanting them.

Uly: In one situation it is the little soft playground in the mall for toddlers or babies and some dumb parents let their 10 year olds play in there when it is strictly against the rules. They will be climbing on top of the stuff you are not supposed to climb on like that where if they fell they might land on a small child. They were running where they could or were knocking over small children. The parents just planted their butts on the benches and played with their cell phones or read a book or ran their mouths and would not correct or supervise their child. So that I had to play playground cop and tell the big kids to slow down, get down, watch out for little kids, don’t go up the slide the wrong way, etc. Then the kid would go tell their parent I got on to them and the parent would give me a dirty look! Yes, the nerve of me to get onto your child you were paying no attention to in somewhere they were not supposed to be in the first place!!!!??? I don’t mind the big kids in there as long as they play nice, but many don’t. I have told security on them a bunch too.

Other times it is playgrounds for all ages and they have every right to be there, but some kids are just bad kids. They would push little kids out of the way on the slide or they would play tag with other big kids and not look out for littler kids and knock them over. That kind of stuff. I want big kids to be able to play too but they have to be respectful of little ones. I actually have been getting onto my kids recently now that they are bigger that that have to watch out for babies. I told them “I made big kids watch out for you when you were a baby and now its your turn to watch out for the babies.”

I also have kids of all ages that will take the wagon or bikes or toys we brought with us without asking and the mothers either don’t do anything about it or don’t pay attention. I get a lot of caregivers just not paying attention period. I have had to save other small kids from injury because the parents were just not paying attention. Things like a small toddler almost falling off a giant slide or they will get stuck and call for help and I have to help because their own parents are ignoring them.

I don’t mind helping other kids out. I have worked in childcare my whole life pretty much. I love kids. But I do get annoyed that I am always the one that is watching my kids and everyone else’s kids and I never get the favor returned hardly ever and other parents will actually get mad at me for saying something to their kids who are acting up.

Dolly, I agree that sometimes older kids are not as careful as they should be when little ones are around. However, I think that’s more because the younger kids’ parents DO over-supervise and miss the opportunity to let the older kids discover responsibility. I’ve seen some close calls when my kids were 2 and playing on the age 5-12 equipment. I didn’t say anything but simply watched their reaction from a bit of a distance. The older kids realized they were being too careless and changed their behavior until the wee ones moved away. I think if you give kids a little credit for caring, that can go a long way. But if that doesn’t work, a well-chosen word or two will usually do the trick.

I could not imagine requiring my kids to play on the equipment designated for ages 2-5. Even when they were 2, that got old pretty fast. Last year at 3, they would go over there sometimes, but they were frankly too old to be running around in the space where parents were trying to induct their wee toddlers into playground fun. And I am not about to tell my kids that they are not allowed to run on the playground.

BTW, it’s dangerous for adults to go down slides with kids. Many kids get broken legs from that. They are safer sliding down on their own.

As for swings, I forbade my kids to use the baby swings from the time they were 2. Before age 3, my eldest could get herself up on the swing and pump it without help. One of our parks does have one of those handicapped swings and my kids tried it once. One of them fell out (because I wasn’t about to hold or strap them in). That was the end of that. I won’t strap a kid in, because I go for a walk while they are at the park, and they need to be able to get themselves down / to the restroom if necessary.

I do agree with checking a park over before a little one plays there for the first time. Not only for hard surfaces / heat but also for nearby water, thru traffic, and so on. When my kids were 3, the park we went to most often had a creek, and my kids did go over there and play. Which was fine, but I needed to talk to them about playing safely around water, and plan my walk so the creek was in view periodically. There is another favorite park with a “poison ivy” sign on one side – so if your kid can’t read, it’s nice to know things like that.

“Kids over 12 want to race, run, chase, climb and spin every bit as much as the younger kids, yet do not provide equal opportunity playgrounds.”

Really, because I can’t remember wanting to go to playgrounds in middle school. We were waaaaaay too cool for “baby” stuff like playgrounds by that age. By 13, I was training thoroughbred horses not riding swings.

My take on your situation is that 13 is too old to be interested in playgrounds at all and the parents weren’t doing age appropriate things with their teenage girls. There are plenty of active things to do for teens but playgrounds are not really the place for them. For example, a rock wall interesting for a 13 year old should probably have ropes and harnesses.

I am reminded that children often quite quickly learn how to assess risk for themselves. Last year while enjoying the fruits of organising a children’s festival (part of a folk festival), I pretended to a couple of 3 year old girls, to eat some of their play dough cakes. I received a severe chastisement about how ill it will make me. Mind you, when I faked my demise, they went back to their play, righteously disinterested. Tough audience.

Wait a minute… who DOESN’T carry an Uzi? 😉
Or, is the question Pistol vs. SMG?

Donna, that is very nice that YOU had the means to be working with horses when you were 13. Very few people that I grew up with and my kids currently know have the ability to do that.

Of course, 13 year olds don’t want to play on equipment designed for toddlers or elementary kids. They want stuff that is more exciting and daring. Skate parks are a step in the right direction, but not all kids want to skate board (or their parents think it is too dangerous!)

What I am advocating for is age appropriate equipment. In my area, with numerous local parks, there is exactly one that has a couple things that teens like. One is a climbing rock that is about 12 feet tall and requires real ability to get up. But again, that is not for non-athletic kids. What I want to see is more stuff like this at local playgrounds (or perhaps the other side of the playground from all the toddlers.) http://www.elephantplay.com/rotating-net-ert1100.php The goal is, to keep kids doing stuff outside, not just playing fake games on a wii.

I tend to think that older kids don’t need park equipment as much as freedom and space. They can use these two resources to organize games, run, ride bikes, hike, swim, etc. They can also do chores that use their muscles – snow shoveling, yard work, even laundry and babysitting. They can walk or bike to school and participate in school sports. The only thing I can see them wanting playground equipment for would be to practice things like chin-ups or play basketball. Which should be fairly easy to accommodate.

Years ago, when I was interviewing nannies to watch my toddler, I remember one who asked if it was okay for him to get out of the stroller in the park, if he could run around, and if he could get dirty.
I couldn’t believe the question! Of course was my reply.

Michele, I had a nanny too, and she still comes on Saturday mornings. She babied my kids so much, though I begged her not to. It took all she had to force herself to meet me halfway. Oh, it used to drive me crazy. (In her defense, she’d been a daycare worker in her previous job, and they have a lot of ridiculous regulations.)

When it was time for us to say goodbye, she told me she’d learned soooo much from me about what kids are capable of if you give them a chance.

And yet, she still treats my kids like they are tots, and they act accordingly for her. Since she won’t let them walk ahead of her down the sidewalk, etc., they express their independence in unacceptable ways. I just don’t know whom to yell at some days. (Not that I would yell with her around.)

Okay, let’s be reasonable. How often would a teen or adult use an adult-sized playground? Once or twice until the novelty wore off? I enjoy swinging and sliding occasionally but it’s certainly not something that I would make time to do regularly. Unlike my 5 year old who would probably move to the playground if given the option.

I’m not even sure what you are putting in this playground to keep teens interested. I’m all for keeping teens active but it seems to me that mountain bike trails, skate parks, paved trails for roller blading/skating, rock climbing walls too high to free climb (or better yet actual rocks to climb), hiking trails, pools, running tracks, fields to play pick up games, basketball hoops, tennis courts and the like are a better fit for regular use by teens and young adults than some adult-sized slides, see-saws and swings.

We have most of that in our town but it’s not what I would consider a “playground.” I’m not sure if we have mountain bike trails anymore (we used to when my bro was into it but that place is gone) but we have everything else. All except the indoor rock climbing studio is available free or very cheap (2 dollars a visit for the pool). The one thing I’d really like them to put in somewhere would be a ropes course. That would be fun.

I’m almost 30 and I still enjoy playing on playground equipment when it is big enough for me. Why do you think the bigger kids wind up the swings so that they’re high enough for them to enjoy? Why do you think they build “adventure parks” with slides and equipment big enough for adults? I totally agree there should be equipment available for teenagers in all playgrounds. There used to be… problem is, it is all deemed “too dangerous” and taken away until we’re left with only the baby stuff, or perhaps not even that……

This is totally off-topic, but there’s a very informative article in the NYT that provides specific examples of things parents (and other adults) can do to help teach teenagers skills that they need to be safe drivers: http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/18/new-lessons-to-pave-a-road-to-safety/?hp# .

SKL, the primary school across the road from me has just put some of these in to replace their old playground…….. by comparison to the equivalent gym equipment these are useless. Some pieces are difficult for me to move and I don’t use them incase I do myself an injury, other pieces are so easy to use they don’t provide any benefit to fitness at all… a better solution for actual exercise in children would be just a regular playground, swing, monkey bars, etc. The thought of primary school aged children using them is off putting since a gym requires the equivalent equipment to be used by 16+ due to the potential of growing bodies and muscles being damaged unless under specific instruction and supervision by a trained expert.

About two years ago, my son, then 6, needed to spin. He had sensory issues, and the occupational therapist said he should spin as needed. A rope swing in the back yard worked well.

Then we went to a park. There was a tri-corner seat, on a pole at seat height, and the pole was set at an angle instead of 90 degrees from the ground. My son loved it, and, as my husband is the kind of guy who can make things, I tried to find a copy online for him to replicate.

I didn’t find it. But I did find some really cool play structures (Germany and Japan, as my memory goes) that were made for tweens and teens. Things to hang on and spin each other. Tottering things. Climbing things that were more challenging than the normal 6 foot things most parks have. And the reviews of these parks was great. Families with older kids loved them.

Here in the US, well, one park near us has a climbing rock that is near impossible for most kids to get up, and is about 12 feet tall, and has options for hanging upside down if one chooses. When we are there after school, there are generally teens on it, and on a spinning thing and a seesaw type thing. In Monterrey, CA the Denis The Menace Park has some things that appeal to older kids – 50 foot slides, about 50 feet of 15 feet high climbing wall of various difficulties. Also, there is a full size (maybe even oversized?) train steam engine that kids can climb on every part – and parts are about 15 or more high. Granted, when I was there it generally was during school hours, but there seemed to be some tweens and teens there (homeschooled or on vacation) who were playing on the structures. Oh, and the tire swing – every park that has a tire swing or zip line in some form has teens using it when out of school. (They wait in line and help the little kids!)

I always loved climbing. Trees, monkey bars, rope courses. At least one of my sons is the same way. Climbing walls here (other than the one at the park) mean membership at a gym, which we cannot afford, or $15 an hour, which is still not affordable. My youngest is like me. If there is no equipment to get on, he will find trees. Park managers really hate it when kids (and adults) climb the trees. I don’t see this love of climbing changing by the time he is 13 and officially too old for the equipment and the majority of the parks.

I’m 42 and can flip off the monkey bars. One time I did it while playing with my daughters and a little boy came up to me and said: “I didn’t know parents could do things!”

Priceless.

Well, Dolly, Donna, this whole conversation started because we were talking about kids who had aged out of the playground equipment still using the playground.

So I’m not really sure why you think, if there were equipment sized for older kids, it’d still be stigmatized now as “baby stuff”.

As for “I don’t think there’s a market for that”, well, I disagree. These things are municipally funded. Teenagers don’t vote, they rarely pay taxes, and kissing them doesn’t get you re-elected. Even if there IS a market for that, the people paying for this are unlikely to see it, or, if they do, to prioritize it.

There is a difference between a 12 year old and a 15 year old. Never seen 15 year olds on a playground unless they were there babysitting a kid or with a younger sibling. I have seen them hanging out at playgrounds but not using the equipment or playing ball etc. When I was complaining about big kids running over little kids I was referring to 10 year olds in a playground for toddlers which was against the rules. Or 11 or 12 or 10 etc year olds being too rough and pushing, running into smaller kids at playgrounds for all ages.

All kids should be able to play but they need to watch out for others especially smaller children. That is a good life lesson for kids to learn. Watch where you are going, be respectful of others, etc. I don’t think it will stifle their creativity or their spirit to have to slow down a bit if small children are playing nearby or wait a couple seconds longer for the little kid to go down the slide before you barrel down it and push the little one out of the way. Two things I have seen happen to my kids and other little kids.

I agree that we as parents need to teach our kids to watch out for younger kids. I have been working on this for years. Unfortunately, my kids don’t always remember to watch where they are going or try to predict what a little one will do. They are pretty good, but I can’t guarantee that they won’t accidentally bump into a little one at some point. Thankfully, though, little ones are not as fragile as some parents think they are.

When my kid was 2, she fell flat on her face from a height of about 3.5′, on wood chips. I was horrified (I was right there, just didn’t see it coming). Kid got up, brushed herself off, and climbed back up to “try again.” Since then, I have trusted them to pretty much do what they want at the park, on their own, as I check in from a distance (I take a walk around the perimeter and glance over from time to time).

Kids act a lot differently if parents are right there. For one thing, they are more likely to ask for help with things they can do on their own. To act needy, scared, helpless, and also less collaborative with peers. I don’t like to encourage that kind of thinking or behavior. So that is one of the reasons I back off, the other reasons being that they don’t need me, and that I need some exercise myself.

BTW, in the rare instance that my kid collides with another child or tramples on his/her rights, I don’t just let it go. I take it very seriously and, if my kid should have known better, I punish so they will remember. But I still treat it as their responsibility first to pay attention and be considerate and careful.

Has anyone noted that most instances of child abuse take place indoors, not out?

And that falls and accidents in one’s own house are extremely common?

Hmm, sounds like kids are SAFER out of doors!

I thought I’d tie together the last two posts. Last night at the park my son, 2.5 years, crashed and burned and smacked his head on one of the poles holding the swings. I knew instantly it was “bad”, as he leads with his head a lot I have experience judging the severity of his falls. Almost instantly it looked like he had a golf ball trying to break out of his forehead.

Once we got home my daughter had a great idea, she suggested we give him a “magic lollipop” that would make his head feel better. He picked out a grape dum dum and wouldn’t you know it, the magic lollipop worked. Halfway through and he felt better.

Donna, I’m not scrolling back up to find it, but I believe the comment said the kids were “running around” and knocking other children down, that sort of thing? Now you’re saying they were sitting around?

Everyone is silly in their own way.

My Grandpa would let me play outside entirely unsupervised for hours on end, when I was as young as six (maybe younger, I can’t remember). Even though he knew I would spend at least 80% of my time on the swing. Which was the coolest swing ever, as it was a square wooden platform hanging on iron tubes, not the usual chains, which allowed it to swing full 360 degrees (which I have been scared to do, never went for more than 270 degree swing). He would just come out on the balcony to tell me it was time for lunch or dinner and go back inside.

But at the same time, he insisted on putting chairs up against the couch on which I napped lest I fall down (all of two feet, if not less, it was one low couch), up to the age of 10 or 11. I thought it was weird and unnecessary, but I have never met anyone able to outstubborn Grandpa… Even if I happened to just fall asleep while he was otherwise occupied, I invariably woke up to find the chairs there.

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 this comments thread 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.

Regarding the argument, playgrounds for older ones, pro or con: How about older as in elderly? Germany has started opening playgrounds for seniors.
http://www.gearability.com/2007/07/24/playgrounds-for-older-people/

According to the article, seems as if the old folks in Berlin don’t want the teenagers either. Where are they supposed to drink their beer?

I recognize the exercise machines (linked in article) from a playground in the German town I live in. No age restrictions there, though. Open to one and all. And yes, it was fun to use the machines while the little one played.

Merde man I’m 15 and I don’t remember bs like this maybe I didnt go outside enough but rather frightening to see how things change
Ps I’m going though the archive I recently heard of this from a tv show called bullshit