ThisFox 59 WXIN ad is so classic it belongs in the Fearmongering Hall of Fame…or maybe on The Simpsons. I so wish I could find the embed code, but I can’t. (Can anyone? Please send!) In any event, here’s the transcript.
Imagine dirge like music and out-of-focus pictures of kids playing (which happens to be my other bugaboo. As if showing the faces of frolicking kids automatically puts them in grave danger!):
SCARY ANNOUNCER: There’s a safety concern lurking in your neighborhood playground.
CONCERNED MOM: Alarms definitely went off.
SCARY ANNOUNCER: And your child could fall victim when you least expect it.
CONCERNED MOM AGAIN: I knew immediately we needed to get to the E.R.
SCARY ANNOUNCER: Why doctors are now seeing more cases than ever before.
KINDLY DOCTOR: We always want to protect our kids.
SCARY ANNOUNCER: Keeping your kids safe from this playground danger, tonight, on Fox 59 News at 10.
Remember that great line by Ellen DeGeneres? “It could be the most deadly thing in the world, and you may be having it for dinner. We’ll tell you what it is tonight at 11.”
Still makes me LOL.
Anyway, you will love the comments on the ad, which sound like Free-Range has taken Indianapolis by storm:
For gods sake do a news piece about the dangers of obesity and diabetes from inactivity. The playground is part of the solution, not the problem!
Oh for goodness sake..if you can’t find something worth reporting on, put time in for vacation time..REALLY..the only thing you could possibly come up with is a playground issue?
You can find danger in everything if you look hard enough. A police officer stopped my son from climbing a tree, now it was just outside a Starbucks, but still.How the hell did the world get this far? Is it more dangerous than it used to be for kids? Idiots.Must be sweeps week….hahaha…. bring back the teeth in the peanut sandwich meth mouth story instead!!!.I was hoping this was satire… but no, sadly it isn’t. What is wrong with people???? Stick your fragile egg-child in a bubble with some educational television and healthy snacks and leave the rest of us normal people alone…
.The authors conclude that “strategies to reduce the incidence and severity of TBIs sustained on playgrounds are needed.” They state that strategies could “address design, surfacing, and maintenance.” They also point to “appropriate supervision and child behavior modification” as possible responses.
They mean that a city with a total population of around 700,000 — about the size of Memphis, Tennessee — would expect to see one hospital admission each year due to a playground-related TBI.
The most plausible explanation for this pattern – more head injuries, but no more of any other type of injury – is raised awareness of head injuries leading to higher ER visits. Changes in exposure (ie greater use of playgrounds) would have lead to increases in all types of injury. And there are no obvious changes in the design of playgrounds or choice of surfacing over the period that might explain higher numbers of head injuries but not other types of injury.
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51 Comments
“Warning! Sex could kill you! Details at 10 pm.”
Then it talks about the 1 in a billion chance you could get your head stuck between the headboard rails and strangle……
CS Lewis quote on newspapers I think applies as well to TV news,
” Even in peacetime I think those are very wrong who say that schoolboys should be encouraged to read the newspapers. Nearly all that a boy reads there in his teens will be known before he is twenty to have been false in emphasis and interpretation, if not in fact as well, and most of it will have lost all importance. Most of what he remembers he will therefore have to unlearn; and he will probably have acquired an incurable taste for vulgarity and sensationalism”
I never developed a habit of watching news shows. I think I’m better for it in many ways.
Playgrounds have become so safe lately that they aren’t even fun except to the littlest kids. Slides are short and slow, no merry go rounds, jungle gyms are no longer large structures that took bravery to climb.
Fuck, I climbed 40+ meters trees and swayed back and forth in the wind, swam out to islands and lost the feeling in my fingers (and understood that meant I needed to heat up by going full throttle), but todays kids?
I worry about a future where people do not accept risk, or the management of it.
I live in the Indianapolis area, and haven’t seen this ad.
Of course, I’m not on social media, and I haven’t watched television in about 9 years.
Strange but true fact: If you stop consuming the crap that the newsertainment industry puts out, your quality of life improves by 283%.
“Is it peas?!?!?”
This is ridiculous. So tired of ‘children are always in danger’ approach to life. It’s starting to really grind my gears.
A little Caution for safety is one thing but people tend to take a little and turn it into a lot. And next thing you know everyone gone overboard. Then we complain about the kids just sitting getting fat when we won’t let them play.
I hear that about more concussions simply because of more awareness (similar to the “rising” rate of autism). I once took a bad knock to the head as a teen, but because I wasn’t knocked out on the spot, nobody thought it might be a concussion. I had various symptoms for 2 or 3 months, I just didn’t feel right for awhile, and looking back, I now realize I probably had a concussion. Nowadays, I would have been seen by a doctor and treated for a concussion and probably would have recovered a lot sooner. Oh well.
Also, is it just me, or do we see many fewer children with casts these days? My oldest broke his elbow shortly before his 5th birthday, doing something fun and age appropriate that a lot of parents don’t let their kids do, but that we allow because it’s fun and age appropriate and worth the risks. Not gonna lie, my husband and I are still traumatized from the piercing screams that told us something had gone wrong. But the kid talks about it now like it was a big adventure. And he got lots of attention at school and all his friends drew pictures on his cast, and there’s been no permanent damage done. And it occurred to me that when I was in school, we were signing someone’s cast every week. Breaking something made you a minor celebrity but at the same time it was fairly common. I remember actually being jealous at the time, because I was one of the few people I know of made it through childhood without breaking anything, so I never got that celebrity treatment! And yet, these days, I never see kids in casts, my son was definitely the first in his class to get one, and of course, we got a lot of dirty looks while out and about, as if to say how could I have allowed something so terrible to befall my precious munchkin.
@Workshop: Only 283%? I think you’re underestimating the improvement in a person’s life from the ending of the consumption of television news.
“With outdoor playtime going down, how come concussions (also known as TBIs — “traumatic brain injuries”) are suddenly on the rise?”
My guess?
Youth sports. Kids playing highly competitive, physical games at very young ages, when they may not have fully mastered a skill (like heading a soccer ball). Mandatory concussion training for coaches (a good thing).
I’ve also observed playground injuries of kids not from falls off monkey bars or swings, but collisions. School children in recess yards running into each other and banging heads during the brief, one-time-only break they get outdoors during a very long school day.
Concussions are no joke. Yet not every egg on the head is a concussion. Scary media tactics about playgrounds being danger zones are seriously sad. Never has a generation been in danger of DYING from obesity and heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and allergies and asthma from lack of outdoor play!
Where is the moral outrage and scary media tactics about physical inactivity?
http://www.vocativ.com/345538/physical-inactivity-cost-the-world-billions/
I broke my ankle in the Library so it goes to show you can get hurt anywhere. Now I have wait for what seems like forever for it to heal but that price I have to pay for my bad luck.
Someday there will be a gloom and doom article proving that life expectancy goes down for people who didn’t have playground type injuries as kids.
When I was a kid it was normal and expected that someone would occasionally bust a tooth, a leg, and arm, a head …. There was no question of “bad parenting” or “insufficient supervision” when this happened. The kid got patched up and enjoyed the attention for a while.
I have no problem with the move toward grass or wood chips on the playground instead of blacktop. Because we don’t need kids cracking their skulls, and blacktop has no particular educational qualities that I know of. But the idea that getting hurt is no longer a normal and expected part of childhood – that is a bit disturbing.
Am I the only one who really loves those new recycled rubber surfaces? I like to stand in one place and bounce up and down, feeling the surface give and bounce back. I go “Bouncy, bouncy, bouncy!” like a little kid, until my daughter yells “Mama STOP, you’re EMBARRASSING me!
What? Just me? :blush:
I don’t care, I’m a kid at heart, and I like bouncy things.
@SKL
“I have no problem with the move toward grass or wood chips on the playground instead of blacktop.”
*Toward* grass? Blacktop was a move away from grass, which was the older usual surface for playgrounds. Grass and/or dirt.
One of our local stations kept hyping a wreck involving a school bus. They showed a mangled bus and were talking about injuries and who was to blame. Then when they showed the story, the bus was parked in its lot. A truck had lost its brakes and hit the empty bus.
Playgrounds have become so safe lately that they aren’t even fun except to the littlest kids. Slides are short and slow, no merry go rounds, jungle gyms are no longer large structures that took bravery to climb.
They redid one of the playground at my youngest son’s school in the summer between his 3rd and 4th grade year. Unequivocally I heard him and every single one of his friends complain about it over the next few weeks at the beginning of the school year. “It SUCKS!” they said. “It’s BORING” they said. “It’s for BABIES” but the best was “Come on!! The old kindergarten playground is way more fun” The old kindergarten playground hadn’t been updated in at least a decade, if not more, and they all had gone to that school from the beginning and were bummed that they weren’t allowed on that equipment anymore since the new stuff was so lame.
When a 4th grader would rather go play on the equipment designated for the kindergartners rather that on the equipment for his age group you know there is a problem LOL!
Theresa – you went to the *library*?? Don’t you know how dangerous those places are? Well, you do now, I suppose. I hope you’ve learned your lesson and I certainly hope you didn’t take your child there! News at 11:00!
/s
When I was 8, I climbed a tree for the first time.
But then I exclaimed to Mom, ‘I can’t get down.
She said in a cheery voice, ‘If you are going to climb up a tree, you must learn to climb down a tree.
Well, I DID learn.
I became an excellent climber.
Why do children not play the informal games they used to.
One possible reason. Mothers say that their children are being rowdy, for exclaiming the necessary shouts, the compose the vagaries of the game,.
Old ladies often complain about “rowdy” children I-even though they had played the games as children.
I recently learned to play a game called “What Time Is It Mr. Wolf?”
The “Wolf” stands with his back facing the players. If the wolf says “six” the players take six steps forward. Each player can decide on the length of the steps.
-A player does not want to get too close to the wolf. Nor does he want to get too far away.
The person who gets close enough can “tag’ the Wolf(He then become the New Wolf
At any time, the Wolf can turn around and tag a player-who becomes the New Wolf.
How did we survive? We ran around the dirt-and-gravel playground playing Cow…uh, PC correction…Bovine Stock Managers and Native Americans, pointing our fingers and shouting, “Bang! Bang!”
Sometimes we even slipped and fell, needing a Band-Aid (Did we have ERs back then?).
David, don’t forget that once one ceases to consume newsertainment, there becomes a lot less to talk about with coworkers. This inevitably leads to a small decrease in quality of life in the short term, as you realize that you are surrounded by lots and lots of stupid people.
The QoL (Quality of Life) Quotient increases the farther out one looks, because while people are initially saddened by the loss of inane conversation, the positive effect multiplies thanks to things like discovering other hobbies, stimulated brain activity from reading more often, finding new like-minded people, etc. As a scientist, I hesitate to start measuring this, because of the fuzziness of social science data, but you are correct that the final number is greater than 283% That 283% figure is gained just in the initial stages of unplugging from newsertainment (0 to six months).
Okay, that was amusing and alienating at the same time; I’m totally unfamiliar with this sort of stupid fearmongering (yay!). (I could think of one channel that has these tendencies, but going from what I’ve seen occasionally, they’re not this pathetic.)
I’m guessing the biggest danger on that playground was being annoyed by the screaching sound of equipment that could use some oil. Or possibly kids going deaf on those frequencies.
@lollipoplover –
“With outdoor playtime going down, how come concussions (also known as TBIs — “traumatic brain injuries”) are suddenly on the rise?”
My guess is that, in addition to increased awareness, we also have a generation of kids whose physical skills are pretty craptastic. Leaving aside for a moment the hyper-athlete children who have personal trainers and play on six sports teams at once, kids these days spend far less time moving their bodies than we used to as children. Therefore, when they *do* go outside and use their bodies, they are more prone to injuries. The adult equivalent would be “weekend warriors.”
@TeacherJR-
I totally agree. Kids don’t develop spatial awareness, physical coordination, and balance being sedentary. My young kids would be climbing actual walls inside our house (I have the smudge marks to prove it) if we didn’t get them outside and playing every day. Their bodies are designed to move and I miss the playground days!
Now they are still active with a variety of sports and hobbies. Out of the 3 kids, only one head injury (stitches required) with a mild concussion.
My 13 year-old played fast pitch softball this past spring. She hit a line drive that was fielded and thrown to first. She collided with the first baseman’s glove (ball was thrown low) and the glove fell off. No other physical contact (she was safe on base) with the player. Yet the next day at school (she knew this player), she was told that she gave a concussion to the 1st baseman. After the game, the player complained to her mother of her wrist hurting and went to the doctor who tested her for *concussion symptoms* and said she needed to stay home from school for the week to rest her brain. I am all for more awareness of diagnosing, but after seeing it with my own eyes and hearing that my daughter *injured* another player, I’m not buying into better diagnosis of concussions. I think, like bullying, we are watering down the definition.
There was a post by a mom here in a local mom’s group that he son was barefoot on an extremely hot day & got a sever burn on his foot from the metal steps on the slide. Everyone went crazy with outrage & anger over the park endangering children. I think it’s tragic & I feel awful for the boy & his mom, but it’s not the parks fault. Yes they could paint the equipment white to reduce the heat & maybe take other precautions to reduce the danger, but he danger can’t be eliminated. The mom shouldn’t have let her son be barefoot on such a hot day & if he is not old enough to understand about checking the temp first she should have done it for him. It amazed me the number of comments & the tone of them all. I know it made it to the local news although I missed the broadcast.
I made a similar mistake when my daughter was about 3 years old, except it was the metal face of the slide and she was wearing shorts. I wasn’t wearing shorts, so even though I was sitting on it I didn’t realize the slide was like a griddle until she jumped and yelled (and she’s a tough cookie… she broke her arm and nobody could tell until the x-ray showed the obvious break. Her mom missed it, I missed it, and her pediatrician missed it. The orthopedic assistant had to set it, and warned her that it would probably hurt… she didn’t so much as squeak.)
When growing up, two other brothers and I rode Shetland ponies all over town fro ages 6 through 10. I had 2 concussion, stitches too numerous to remember, a broken nose and cracked ribs. After a bicycle wreck, I was 90% walking scar, sprained ankles. I am 67 years old, and except for a curable kidney cancer, I have grown to this age relatively healthy. We played cars in the dirt, rode bikes all over town, climbed trees. Well, you get picture. With all this garbage going around about the dangers of the things I did, shouldn’t I be dead long before now. Maybe I am and just don’t know it? News st 10:00. “Danger, Will Robinson!!!!!”
I’d be curious over this playground danger if I didn’t learn as a kid that the late night news stories hyped all day tended to ultimately disappoint.
I’m also grateful that my eldest is 3. The playground is still awesome for her, but nothing like the wooden death trap fortress of my elementary school days. Metal chains and concrete tunnels and old tires… I don’t think anyone managed to escape without a skinned knee or something. Yet my daughter is already mastering most of the activities on the jungle gym–she just can’t reach the firepole or the monkey bars yet. My favorite thing is watching her show up much older kids on that playground.
As a teacher, I can confess many kids are way off on physical development skills. Concussions and major injuries are happening because so many kids are being denied opportunity to figure out their skills and limits.
My other complaint: If this danger is truly so dangerous, please do us a favor and don’t make us choose between knowledge and sleep. If it’s that big a risk to my kid, tell me now.
Overstimulation is potentially worse than death, but boredom takes many more lives than pleasure.
“As a teacher, I can confess many kids are way off on physical development skills.”
I’ve observed this coaching youth sports. Some kids have not practiced enough moving their bodies around beyond walking in straight lines and have underdeveloped coordination- skipping, jumping, arm strength, even running. Playing games they make up on their own. Kids naturally want to play together yet when was the last time you saw a pick-up game among young children at a park? Who wants to play kickball? Stickball?
There are too many rules at most modern playgrounds. The one I hated most, like the sound of fingernails on a chalkboard, was when someone yelled, “No running!” at a playground. Isn’t this the exact place they should be running and moving? Yet some playgrounds it’s against the rules, just as mandatory supervision required for children or strange age restrictions like “this playground is designed for children ages 5-12” when most 4 year-olds would find it boring and unchallenging. I think it’s sad that most playgrounds lose appeal to kids after age 9 (they did for us).
“Also, is it just me, or do we see many fewer children with casts these days?… And it occurred to me that when I was in school, we were signing someone’s cast every week. Breaking something made you a minor celebrity but at the same time it was fairly common.”
I think this is true. It was the same at my elementary school – I too was one of the few kids who missed out on ever having a cast. Whereas now, if I ever hear that a child of an acquaintance has broken a bone, it’s an extremely rare, almost exotic occurrence, and it’s treated as a big-time tragedy.
i broke my elbow in my own home (supervised) when I was four. I nearly got a concussion quite a few times as a kid. no one ever wanted to charge my parents with “neglect” over it. my youngest brother is the only one who has never broken a bone. I used to climb trees, bike without a helmet, and stay at the park until dark. I still like many of the playgrounds around where I live and used to live, but those haven’t been updated since I was a kid.
Well, one of the reasons for the changes in surfaces is to allow access to kids who are “differently abled.” Woodchips are great but for those in wheelchairs, and other challenges. Which I think is great. There is a way to make them fun and exciting and accessible.
Jonathan?
Sarah
That makes sense. Put a less impact absorbing and more expensive surface in for a small percentage of the users.
Loose sand will always be the best surface. It absorbs and lessons impact better than anything.
@Warren – it also becomes the toilet for every cat in the neighbourhood, so personally I have no trouble forking out a little extra money in my rates for other playground surfaces.
On the subject of casts, as a teacher here I can’t say I’ve noticed any lessening in the number of casts kids are getting over the years, so maybe we’re doing something right ☺. Certainly my own kids have all broken a few bones apiece, the boy spectacularly breaking both arms at once. Parents from some immigrant cultures do get more upset than born-and-bred Kiwis, but that can be down to inadequate medical care meaning broken bones can be crippling in their home countries. They usually come right once they see that bones can be reset without a lot of hassle here ☺.
Then we must be something wrong, because I barely remember anyone in my classes (primary school, secondary school) with a cast, although in secondary school there were regularly kids on crutches (which meant – gasp! – they had to be driven to school by a parent).
Little Brother and I have never broken a bone, but… ehm… not for a lack of trying… Just lucky I guess.
There were a couple of casts in my 2nd grade class last year and all I did was provide Sharpies for the kids to draw on said casts.
But I do seem to remember a lot more growing up in the 90s.
ELVIS IS STILL ALIVE AND HAS BEEN ABDUCTED BY ALIENS
I can’t comprehend why anyone would believe crap like this or the fox news advert.
I’d be embarrassed to admit that I watch anything on Fox News. It’s no secret that they adjust facts more than any other news channel. We have been saying for years that sensationalism and fabricated drama are the cause of so many problems. Therefore if you admit that you watch this crap, you admit that you help cause a great deal of problems.
Screaming death
Of the victims last breath
Or her glance
That puts men in a trance
Or the obscene
Way of treating a teen
That’s Ent ter tain ment
I wrote this parody. It sound different from the Bing Crosby version
Scroll down to the middle of the page to listen to this song
http://www.onmysoapboxx.com/false-info
When I broke my ankle last year, just about every person I came in contact with – and it was Christmas party season so I came in contact with a lot of people – had to talk about the time they broke their ________ or mention that they have never broken a bone. It is apparently a Pavlovian response to seeing a cast. The “I have never broken a bone” crowd outnumbered the broken bone crowd by a good bit, so I don’t think broken bones were as prevalent even back in the day as some want to think they were.
Heh. Why does this remind me of the segment from a Detroit-area TV station years ago? It was during the hysteria over “flesh-eating bacteria,” and they were going to tell you how to prevent it — at 11.
My reaction? A rather skeptical, “Oh, this ought to be good…”
So what was their solution? If you get a cut or other wound, clean it. Wash it. And then bandage it.
You know, practice standard wound care / hygiene?
That was about the time I started tuning TV news out…
“I’d be embarrassed to admit that I watch anything on Fox News.”
Don’t get confused between the “Fox News” that comes from the Fox News Channel, and the “Fox News” that comes from the local Fox broadcast affiliate. They’re not the same.
“Don’t get confused between the “Fox News” that comes from the Fox News Channel, and the “Fox News” that comes from the local Fox broadcast affiliate. They’re not the same.”
If I bought a McDonald’s franchise but then sold tuna fish sandwiches though it, McDonald’s would tell me off or perhaps sue me for 2.3 squillion dollars. If they were to let me get away with it, there is something wrong with them.
I’m sure you’re that some affiliates are worse than others. However Fox News has quite a reputation.
I meant to say
I’m sure you’re right that some………
Perhaps I didn’t want to admit that you’re right about anything
@Papilio…or you have good strong bones ☺.
We have also given up tv altogether, not just the news. We have a small DVD player and can play movies we either know or think we will like. I’d like to watch a good news show, but too much bias, sensationalism, lack of objectivity, general lack of important foreign stories that might cost some money to cover, etc.. These movies we watch can make great conversation pieces and we are happier than we were previously. So no loss that way. Someone told me recently that the authorities play the song from Barney over and over to break down terrorists. I had just listened to a Sponge Bob DVD for four days in a row and thought that song might also work. Sponge Bob Square Pants…
I’m not going to watch the piece or even read about it because I don’t even want that garbage in my head. All I’m going to say is of course they go after playgrounds because the media is corporate controlled and playgrounds don’t bring in money. Now where is the story about how unregulated promotion and use of stupid gas guzzling SUVs leads to tragedy all the time? This is why so many American’s (and Canadians) are so dumb-because they actually belief risk in the media even remotely has something to do with real risk.
This reminds me of another comedian, Elvira Kurt, and her bit on playgrounds.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZNU2CKjKsk