On a recent playground outing a father and I encouraged our sons to share a Little Tikes car by having one of them push while the other rode. My son was having trouble steering so I helped him. The other father said, "that's okay, let them crash." Um...okay, if you say so. And the boys had a blast crashing the car against other equipment. It reminded me of a recent, fascinating article on playgrounds by ("infamous" mom) Lenore Skenazy bemoaning raising children in a "world without a single ouchie. The bubble-wrap zeitgeist."
In her article, "The War on Children's Playgrounds," Skenazy touches on the growing movement of the past few decades to enhance playground safety almost to the point where they're not fun anymore. (I don't know what your local playground is like, but the ones in my neighborhood are great for small children, but extremely boring for any child over the age of, say, five.) Partly spurred by fearful parents and partly by fear of litigation, communities have been dismantling "hazardous" playgrounds, even ones that aren't very old, to conform to the rigorous safety standards of the Consumer Product Safety Commission and to respond to worried, vocal parents (and their lawyers).
What's so wrong with wanting our kids to avoid injury you might ask? Skenazy answers, "The problem is: If kids never encounter even tiny risks, they never develop that thing we call common sense."
I highly recommend a quick trip to Salon to read "The War on Children's Playgrounds" which touches on playground history (including Danish "adventure playgrounds"), the importance of play and risk-taking for children, and challenges of modern playground design.
(Photo by Flickr member James.Thompson licensed for use under Creative Commons)
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Mother-in-Law put a garden hose on our back yard playscape slide because she thought it would be fun, 3yr old daughter with a spiral fracture of her tibia 1 week after my wife had a cesarean with our second child was less than fun. Full leg cast, non-weightbearing for 9 weeks just after being fully potty trained was quite a setback. Nightmares started and insecurity about being left alone also set in. There's nothing wrong with keeping your kids safe, and avoiding those playground "ouchies".
I agree, marfanboy. I'm all for teaching natural consequences, I'd just rather they be more of the -don't wear a sweater, be cold later- variety. It's up to the parents to remember to back off and let kids figure things out for themselves a little, not taking them places where they can fall from great heights.
When a new library opened up near us a while back, it included a playground of a very unorthodox design. For example, the slide is a shallow plastic V without sides.
A high percentage of mothers will not allow their children to use it, although I have never seen a single kid have trouble going down it.
If my daughter never got hurt, I would be disappointed. You can't excel without testing your limits.
i agree wholeheartedly with marfanboy also. i see parents at our local playgrounds in full conversation with other parents not paying any attention to their 1 to 2 year olds climing up steep steel stairs and going down slides. i'm all for challenges, but falling off one of these structures the wrong way could mean serious injury for a dreamy toddler. there are plenty of other ways to teach common sense.
6 months ago I would have been on the "let 'em get dirty" "let 'em play" train. However, I literally just got back from the pediatric orthopedist for the fourth time because my 1 year old fractured his tibia on the slide and it was not healing correctly.
THE SLIDE!!! for God's sake. The orthopedist says he sees this injury 5 times a week at least. His advice? "Stick to the sand box... wash your hands after....."
:)
FYI, do not got down the slide WITH your kid in tennis shoes. If his or her little foot gets swept under the adult leg, the force going down the slide can break their leg.
My 2 year old daughter ran into a corner wall IN MY HOME and needed 5 stitches in her head. I was six months pregnant. She came home with a concussion and a resulting white coat syndrome that can not be paralleled. Not fun.
The way I see it, if your kid gets hurt, they get hurt. It really could happen anywhere. Playgrounds can be dangerous, but apparently so can a hallway. I say pay attention, but let them crash. They are probably going to anyway.
JeffS -- Yes!! That crazy slide!! We have one near us too. My son wasn't interested, but I was dying to try it out until I got to the top and couldn't figure out how to get down without killing myself. I actually had my legs wrapped around the thing and very slooooowly scooted down it. My husband was in hysterics watching me make an ass of myself. Anyway, we (I) figured it out and yes, it seems to work as a slide but I don't see too many kids allowed to use it either -- even the older ones.
I think most of the commenters so far have missed the point. I thought the writer was talking about older children, not toddlers. Yet every commenter so far has talked about toddlers getting hurt in scenarios they should not be in. A three year old down a slide wetted with a hose? That is a bad idea. Toddlers playing on steel playgrounds sans supervision- another bad idea.
My daughter is 3 and has had 2 broken legs and a broken arm. All from things that shouldn't have caused a break. Sliding off a couch, tripping on a rug, falling off of a stool. All witnessed by Mom. I help her at the playground. She's never been hurt there. She's just a complete klutz. Granted, they think one of the arm and leg breaks (within 2 weeks of one another) was an uncommon presentation of her leukemia.
I still don't think playground should be litigated and fear-mongered into complete boredom. If you think the playground is too dangerous for your child, don't let them play on it.
I agree with cwatsony. I'm obsessively concerned with my two year old on playground equipment, because she's small and doesn't yet understand what "be careful!" means. But my five year old? He's old enough to be careful and have fun. And even older kids should have even more freedom.
There is a great park in Independence Kansas, with some of the equipment dating back to the 1950s. It's in great condition, but certainly not "safe" by today's standards. The slides are really, really high, there are lots of things to climb...not 'safe' but I've never seen a child hurt on them. I'm sure they do get hurt occassionally, but sometimes we have to let our kids take risks.
You should see some of the playgrounds here in Europe...
My children have never hurt themselves here (although we do tend to visit the "safe" playgrounds), but ironically enough, my daughter broke her collar bone at age 3 falling off the side of one of those silly little plastic backyard slides, no more the 2 1/2 feet off or so off the ground.
Accidents can happen anywhere; I think my kids pay more attention to what they are doing when a piece of playground equipment seems as if it might be dangerous...
I'm with cwatsony.
When I was nine I wiped out on my bike one sunny day and broke a collar bone and a foot. Should I have stayed on the couch? I cracked my nose playing basketball, my leg learning to dance. Should I have sat out the game? Not learned to jete?
Of course we should quash reckless behavior, and protect our children from danger when we can. But not to the point that they spend their lives on the sidelines. As a mom, the thought of my baby girl getting injured makes my heart ache, but not as much as the thought of her missing out on the joy of jumping from swings or flying down a slide.
As much as it hurts, we have to let our kids feel pain and fear if we ever want them to know strength and independence and bliss.
I agree with cwatsony.
There are actually 2 issues here. The first concerns safety for a 1, 2 or 3 year old. Kids this age are still practically babies and really don't belong on a big playground without a parent closely watching and not from a distance. My own son sprained an ankle at the age of 2 or 3 jumping off the bottom of a "safe" slide. It is one thing to prevent a serious injury and quite another to let them get a scrape or 2.
The second concern is the over-protection of kids that are a little bit older. Kids that are 4, 5 or 6 need a more challanging environment to explore and play in.
I am more cautious than most with my 2 year old daughter at play grounds. That said, I fully anticipate her having a ball when she gets a few years older at the park and in our big back yard (3 acres) of trees, camping out with friends and having a good time - without me.
If we want to curb the national obesity problem, if we want our kids to have a smallest bit of a clue when they go to college, if we want them to truly ENJOY childhood, then we need to allow them to be kids. Playing in the park with a pack of friends, going for a walk in the woods alone... all of this was normal a few decades ago, back when statistically, there was more crime. Yes, bad things do happen, but far more frequently, so does great joy.
My next-door park is just fine, thanks. The playstructure is for older kids, and yes, they do climb up on the support beams. There is a big climbing wall (Mobius from LSI). Of course parents with very young kids didn't like it, but it's not for little ones.
I live in Norther CA but right now I'm on vacation out of the country. Where we are there are playgrounds like what I grew up with. My 4.5 year old son just rode on a merry go round for the first time (the kind you push) and used see saws with his grandfather. I think it's a shame we can't do that stuff at home. It was also the first time my son played in a truly mixed-age playground and I thought that was great too.
I think these are toys that require some supervision or maybe require that older kids know how to play safely in places with younger kids.
I agree wholeheartedly. I still miss the seriously cool playstructure I had as a kid in elementary school. It was almost as tall as the school building, had two slides (one from the top, one mid-way--so choice was offered!), ladders led from one height to the next, a rope swing you used to cross a gap with (only about 18" high and 24" wide, but very cool) and tire swings on three sides.
They took it down because parents were complaining about "safety issues." Over the course of a year when I was nine, first the rope swing left. Then they closed the upper level. Then you couldn't go up on it at all, only swing on the tire swings. The only injuries I ever saw in 4 years there were splinters...and a good sanding and sealing would've fixed those right up!
And I STILL miss see-saws and merrygorounds. How else do kids learn about balance/fulcrums and centrifical force? We had science right there in the playground! Now where do kids get it?
Gever Tulley made an excellent TED Talks presentation in 2007 called 5 Dangerous Things For Kids www.ted.com Well worth a look, his views really resonated with me. We have a two metre slide attached to a hose that drops into our swimming pool and turns some of our adult friends white as a sheet when they see it. But our two and five year old both love it and use it endlessly in the summer. We have shown them how to use it safely, we watch them without unnecessarily intervening and through practice they have come to learn what works and what doesn't. Our five year old thought that he could stand up at the top of the slide one day and several bruises later he realised that he can't. We've never had to ask him to sit down at the top of the slide again.
It makes me so sad that my kids have no idea what a merry-go-round is.
A new super playground has just opened near where I live. The play areas are in sections depending on the age of the child. There's one particular 'ride' that most adults have a 'go' on when the kids are at school, you whizz down a wire on it. I had a go with my sister last week (both in our late 30's) and we had a blast. My goodness but it was a work out.
By the way, I'm a gymnastics coach and we ask girls as young as 8 to jump backwards onto their hands on a 4" wide length of wood... fittest kids in town.
I moved from the US to Europe two years ago and the playgrounds here are so cool. Wacky massive swings that kids pile on, zip lines, high twisted slides, teeter totters, you name it. The kids love it. I have never seen the ones near our house empty...even on rainy days.
Playgrounds can be "safe" without being boring. Rubber chips instead of cement? Yes. Removing slides higher than two feet? Lame. Just keep your kids on age-appropriate stuff. Kids are going to get hurt, and kid-proof playgrounds are not going to stop it. Just use common sense. Sheesh.
I'm only 22 years old. When I was in elementary school we had wooden playgrounds and they were the best. I hated it when they started making everything out of plastic.
They removed the metal slides because people thought kids didn't have the common sense to test whether it was hot or not before sliding. They removed the wood because they were afraid of splinters (I NEVER heard of a kid getting splinters from the smooth wood they used. That's like saying your kid is gonna get a splinter from a chair leg.) And what about those geodesic climbing domes? Kids like to climb. No don't sent your preschooler or kindergartener on them but 1st graders and up should be fine.
And you can't expect to keep your kid on cushy plastic their entire life. Heaven forbid they get a scratch or break an arm. It's part of life, people.
Just had a humorous recollection of the old SNL Dan Aykroyd bit about children's toys.
Bag-o-Glass!
Ya know...the only real injuries I sustained as a kid were completely self-inflicted and could only have been avoided by keeping me sealed in a padded room. The first time I tried a cartwheel, I broke 4 toes on my right foot for landing wrong. -Stuff like that.
It's all about common sense. Inspect the playground equipment. Make smart choices. Supervise your children. It can't get much simpler than that.