Safe playgrounds are bad for our children

Forums: Child Safety, Playgrounds, Parenting, Childcare
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A new study has determined our obsession with making things safe for children is actually bad for them. Critics say these playgrounds may stunt emotional development, leaving children with anxieties and fears that are worse than a broken bone. Children need to encounter risks and overcome fears on the playground. Safe playgrounds are boring and do not allow children to opportunity for thrilling experiences with heights and high speed.

Children approach risks in a progressive manner so they can progressively learn to master climbing to the highest point over the years. If their mastery fails and they fall, this rarely causes permanent damage physically or emotionally. Studies have shown that a child who’s hurt in a fall before the age of 9 is less likely as a teenager to have a fear of heights. By gradually exposing themselves to more dangers on a playground, children conquer phobias.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/19/science/19tierney.html

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There was an interesting program on this topic on CBC this morning. They spoke to a woman in Norway (who represented, i believe, a Norwegian ministry--i wasn't listening that closely at first). Apparenly, Norway has been bucking the trend to building newer, safer playgrounds. One thing she said stuck in my mind--that children who fall off a slide or a "jungle gym" are less afraid of heights as an adult (just as your article says).

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@Linkat,

Thank you, planned to post that and never got around to it.

Love the article.

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Finally, some reason.

Next thing you know, we'll feel safe telling kids not to interupt grownups talking.

Perhaps the pendulum of how children need to be treated as swung as far as it can in the "everything must be done to protect them, at any cost" movement, and it posed to swing to more reasonable ground.

Who knows?
Maybe one day adults will stop believeing they need an SUV just because they have children.

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@Setanta,

Well I was also remembering how much fun playgrounds were - and thought why don't they have certain things now - I loved the merry-go-round and spinning until you felt you would get sick. Loved the see-saw and those things you climbed up on that looked like a huge dome.

The funny thing was I loved to climb as a child - I'd climb really high in trees. But I was and still am afraid of heights.

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@Linkat,

Did you ever fall?

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@sozobe,

I did not fall from a tree - good thing because I was up pretty damn high and probably would have broken my neck.

On the playground, I had fallen, I always had cut up knees and stuff - but my guess is I was careful when up high.

I wasn't afraid to fall except in high places. The one thing is I've always tried to overcome this fear. I will go up to the top of high buildings and stuff, but I get weak in the knees and feel sick when looking out windows and up in high spots. I hate the ferris wheel.

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@Linkat,

The marines have something called a "confidence course." It is basically a giant playground where marines are asked to do absolutely ridiculous things just to show them that they can. We have a great climbing Maple in our yards and I have come home to find children all up in it. People has asked me if I'm worried about my little princess climbing that high and I say yes, then let her do it anyway.

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@Linkat,

Right, that's pretty much what they're saying I think -- if you fall (and survive!) then you're less likely to be scared in the future.

I don't remember falling from a tree and I was another climber, would go super-high. I'm not scared of heights though.

I do remember a big character test of leaping between tall concrete pipes/ tunnels at my local playground. They were high (8 feet off the ground? 10?) and maybe 6 feet away from each other, apex to apex. It was tough, and I fell a few times (mostly scrapes, nothing serious). So great when I finally made it.

It was high enough that it might have helped with the fear-of-heights thing.

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@sozobe,

When I was growing up one of the standard playground 'toys' was a series of telephone poles sunk at ascending/descending levels in a spiraled line. The highest pole was likely 5 - 6 feet in height. The idea was that you would walk from one line to the other, spaced a foot and a half apart, without falling.

Kids used to line up to prove they could do it. Boys and girls would repeatedly fall, get scraped and banged up, laugh, and run back around to try again.

I have neighbors across the street who's son is scared to death to balance-walk along the 3 inch curb because he's afraid of falling. Their playground consists of a padded swing set and a rubber slide (we had metal . . in Texas). I have to believe these things are linked.

This is just one example I know of, but it's not by any means the only one I know of. There's definitely something to this.

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@Linkat,

i used to love climbing trees, and getting up on the roof of a building, plus our neighbour had a barn and we'd climb around the hay mows and walk along the huge beams (about 20 feet off the ground), lots of hay to cushion falls but also concrete floors in some spots

funny thing, i hate working on ladders (extension ladders specifically, anything over ten feet)

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@Questioner,

all well and good ...
but parents will sue the municipality " at the drop of a hat " if their child gets injured on a playground ...
lawyers will like the concept of " unsafe " playgrounds ...
it's like more money in the bank ...
or am i wrong ?
hbg

just google " safe playgrouds " for a taste of rules , regulations ... ... ...

Quote:

Wow, I'm sorry your kid got hurt! We went to the Calgary Zoo last summer and frankly, I thought it was one of the best play areas I've ever seen. How did your kid get hurt? I'd be interested to know what area is unsafe. Depending on the degree of injury your child suffered, the only option I'd think is to get a lawyer to deal with the zoo directly. I doubt you'd have much recourse anywhere else.

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@hamburgboy,

Yes - I believe the article did touch upon that - the fact that we make safe playgrounds to avoid being sued (either it said it in this article or another I read can't remember).

My friend has the most unsafe playground in her yard. Her husband is a welder and he put together this playground from various metal poles and other stuff. Everything is homemade including the typical tire swing - the kids love it.

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It's interesting, I think, that two of the main points in the article are that playgrounds are too safe and that playgrounds give the illusion of being safe.

Are they too safe or do they only seem to be too safe?

The "play structure" (oh how I hate that phrase -- so oxymoronic) at Mo's school was, I think, built for kids too young to even attend the school. I see the neighborhood toddlers playing on it on weekends but it's mostly ignored by the students.

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@Questioner,

Quote:

(we had metal . . in Texas)

Bread wrappers used to be waxed paper, rather than plastic. In the summer, when the metal slides at the playground got really hot, we'd climd to the top, spread out the waxed papter, sit down on it, and really zoom to the bottom. More than one kid and on more than one occasion, someone would go flying off the end of the slide as though they'd been shot out of the cannon at the county fair. And yeah, we turned right around and did it again.

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@boomerang,

I think the idea is that there isn't that frisson of danger that comes from obviously unsafe things like very tall slides or towering jungle gyms. The kids are scared, but go ahead and conquer their fears, and have fun while they're doing it, and that's healthy.

Meanwhile, the safe-looking stuff doesn't have that same frisson -- it's pretty boring -- but meanwhile you CAN get hurt on it, even while being bored. Worst of both worlds.

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@Linkat,

Linkat wrote:

Her husband is a welder and he put together this playground from various metal poles and other stuff. Everything is homemade including the typical tire swing - the kids love it.

My grandfather did that for his daughters, and we were still using it 30 years later. We liked to swing as high as we dared, and then jump off at the apogee. How did we survive?

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@hamburgboy,

hamburgboy wrote:

all well and good ...
but parents will sue the municipality " at the drop of a hat " if their child gets injured on a playground ...
lawyers will like the concept of " unsafe " playgrounds ...
it's like more money in the bank ...
or am i wrong ?
hbg

just google " safe playgrouds " for a taste of rules , regulations ... ... ...

Quote:
Wow, I'm sorry your kid got hurt! We went to the Calgary Zoo last summer and frankly, I thought it was one of the best play areas I've ever seen. How did your kid get hurt? I'd be interested to know what area is unsafe. Depending on the degree of injury your child suffered, the only option I'd think is to get a lawyer to deal with the zoo directly. I doubt you'd have much recourse anywhere else.

Right, which reflects more on parental over-protectiveness and asinine entitlement than anything else.

My point loosely was there used to be a time when it was understood that children could get hurt, did get hurt, not through negligence so much as them being children and being brave and adventurous. At some point it was decided that children shouldn't be allowed to be children anymore, which saddens me.

We're raising a generation of people that won't know how to react in situations we take for granted now because mother and father always held their hand through every pitfall, and blamed all misfortune that befell them on others.

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@Questioner,

Weelll I think that there's a certain alarmism regarding "this generation" too, though. My kid's 10, and I've observed her and her friends a fair amount, and they're pretty adventurous/ risk-taking/ etc. My kid constantly has an array of scrapes and bruises from various activities. She's not that unusual.

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@sozobe,

No doubt. And I'm sure that will be pointed out several times. I know that broad brushes and 'blanket' statements are never fully true. I do get ticked when I hear about another parent suing a school, or a neighbor, or the city, just because the kid that they've coddled for years finally tries to branch out and gets hurt.

It's the same type of people that blame violence on video games and other activities. Blame goes around to everyone but the one or two responsible for raising the child.

Agreed though, there are alarmists on both sides. I just happen to agree more with the side favoring less lawsuits and more parental responsibility.

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Safe playgrounds are bad for our children

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