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Can a Playground Be Too Safe?
Hugh Pickens writes "John Tierney writes that the old 10-foot-high jungle gyms and slides disappeared from most American playgrounds across the country in recent decades because of parental concerns, federal guidelines, new safety standards set by manufacturers and — the most frequently cited factor — fear of lawsuits. But today some researchers question the value of safety-first playgrounds. Even if children do suffer fewer physical injuries — and the evidence for that is debatable — critics say that these playgrounds may stunt emotional development, leaving children with anxieties and fears that are ultimately worse than a broken bone. 'Climbing equipment needs to be high enough, or else it will be too boring in the long run,' says professor Ellen Sandseter. 'Children approach thrills and risks in a progressive manner, and very few children would try to climb to the highest point for the first time they climb. The best thing is to let children encounter these challenges from an early age, and they will then progressively learn to master them through their play over the years.' After observing children on playgrounds in Norway, England and Australia, Dr. Sandseter identified six categories of risky play, although fear of litigation led New York City officials to remove seesaws, merry-go-rounds and the ropes that young Tarzans used to swing from one platform to another."
is far broader than our playgrounds.
Mom's basement is perfectly safe, and I grew up JUST FINE.
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
The whole risk=reward philosophy is just a way for people who are comfortable and have never needed to take any risks to push others to do so, so they can leech off them. Tell people that something will make them a man and they'll run into the middle of a battlefield.
A society's advance is measured by risk reduction, so stuff can be achieved without a large proportion of people being harmed in the process.
Fear of lawsuits isn't stupid. It's quite sensible.
Lawsuits are stupid.
Generations are being deprived of the chance to learn to deal with the process of overcoming their fears?
In a society whose political and media culture centers around obscuring debate by preying on fear?
Whodathunk?
Like most of Tierney's articles, this one is iconoclastic but has no evidence to back it up. The "study" he cites is just one psychologist's opinion, with no actual data behind it.
Speaking for myself, I do think I'm more well-adjusted psychologically as a result of all the dangerous stuff I did as a little kid, but given the medical bills and the permanent scars, I can't honestly say it was worth it overall.
At the park nearest my house they recently put in a new playground. Thankfully it still has some "unsafe" equipment. My oldest (almost 3) wanted to swing on the big swings a couple of weeks ago. So I put him on and started pushing him. Eventually he wanted me to get on the swing next to him. When we were both swinging he fell of and did a nice face plant from falling forward off the swing. He had a few little scrapes and a mouth full of sand, he cried a bit but I told him he was ok. He then went and got right back on the swing. He has also fallen off slides and rope things (a cargo net like structure) and still goes back. There is an older "safe" playground at this park but he never want to go there.
Time to offend someone
On a similar note, the Atlantic recently ran this article about how
coddling children robs them of an important part of childhood.
When a parent says something like that they want their child to "just be a kid for one more year," that's just selfishness on their part. It isn't about letting the kid enjoy childhood, its about the parent holding their child's development back in order for the parent to take pleasure in the kid's innocence.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
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I work with children, and sometimes they get sent home with bruises and scraped knees just because they were playing so vigorously. Most of the children I've seen will cry for a little bit, accept a bandage, then will be eager to do the same thing again.
Parents though, well, some of them will assume that the supervisors were negligent or abusive. Not all of them, not even many of them, since they tend to know how their kids play. But it is the ones that wrap their child in a protective coccoon that you have to be petrified of. Even those parents aren't so bad once they get to know you, to trust you, but a lot of them don't even bother.
The unfortunate truth is that those overly protective parents count for a lot because the consequences are many. Lawsuits is the often cited one, but losing your job or your license is an even bigger and more real concern. So all of the children suffer.
Common sense goes out the window when there's a gallon of hormones flooding your system telling you that this child in particular is the single most important thing in the universe. Everything from over childproofing to being against a public healthcare options to over prescribing antibiotics to giving up freedoms for perceived safety can be traced back to the psychological changes that occur when people become parents.
As a new parent myself I can feel the invasion of these lines of thinking, and it is only through conscious, concerned effort that I maintain my pre-parent sense of right and wrong.
Why not?
My 3.5 year old broke her arm at the playground, and I was very proud of her. We made the whole thing, including the hospital trip all part of the fun.
It does seem that the playgrounds are becoming less fun, but I let my kid do all sorts of stupid things, so the way I see it, as an adult she'll be at an advantage over her peers.
Came across this TED presentation last year:
http://www.ted.com/talks/gever_tulley_on_5_dangerous_things_for_kids.html
Definitely an interesting take on this whole issue of child safety regulations. The book (written by the presenter in the video above, Gever Tully) entitled "50 Dangerous Things (You should let your kids do)" is a really nice read.
jeff
Treating kids like pussies turns them into pussies.
"After observing children on playgrounds in Norway, England and Australia..." Did anyone else picture a weird guy in a lab coat with a clipboard standing around a jungle gym?
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I take it you were never were in Boy Scouts. When I was young there was nothing better then chasing each other through the forest, often with big sticks, climbing pine trees and dropping stuff on others. Truth is kids are probably less likely to get hurt in a forest than in an urban landscape since forests tend to be squish compared to concrete and asphalt.
Time to offend someone
Far *greater* than half of the world's population are below average intelligence. If you do not understand the previous sentence, then I say to you - albeit very slowly - you are in the lower portion.
"I'm just here to regulate funkiness."
I just Google+ friended you for that statement. There are so many activities, such as the great examples you gave, that the author could rewrite this study substituting for the word 'playground.' One of the bees in my bonnet these days is how diving boards are being phased out at public swimming pools.
It started with phasing out high-dives. Now low-dives are also an endangered animal. New public pools are built shallow with water slides instead of diving boards. From the first to the 10,000th time a kid slides down a waterslide, they've developed exactly zero skills at doing anything. It's passive entertainment. There's no sense of performance or challenge. With a diving board, there are a whole host of dynamics a child can attempt to master. Our society is taking that structure away from children in so many areas.
If you watched the 2008 Beijing Olympics, you might have seen the Chinese divers dominate in all categories. American children might have seen that and said, "Mommy, I want to become a diver and win a gold medal at the Olympics." To which an honest parent would have to say, "Unfortunately, you live in America and aren't permitted to engage in that activity. Perhaps if we move to a dangerous country like China you'll have that option in life."
Seth
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
"C. Th. SÃrensen, a Danish landscape architect, noticed that children preferred to play everywhere but in the playgrounds that he built. In 1931, he imagined "A junk playground in which children could create and shape, dream and imagine a reality." Why not give children in the city the same chances for play as those in the country? His initial ideas started the adventure playground movement.
The first adventure playground opened in Emdrup, Denmark in 1943, during World War II. In 1946, Lady Allen of Hurtwood visited Emdrup from England and was impressed with "junk playgrounds." She brought the idea to London. These "junk playgrounds" became known as "adventure playgrounds." "
http://adventureplaygrounds.hampshire.edu/history.html
"The Adventure Playground at the Berkeley Marina was opened 31 years ago in 1979. It is a wonderfully unique outdoor facility where staff encourage children to play and build creatively. Come climb on the many unusual kid designed and built forts, boats, and towers. Ride the zip line or hammer, saw, and paint. By providing these low risk activities Adventure Playground creates opportunities for children to learn cooperation, meet physical challenges and gain self confidence. Pictures of a fort building project. The concept for Adventure Playgrounds originated in Europe after World War II, where a playground designer studied children playing in the "normal" asphalt and cement playgrounds. He found that they preferred playing in dirt and lumber from the post war rubble. He realized that children had the most fun designing and building their own equipment and manipulating their environment. The formula for Adventure Playgrounds includes Earth, fire, water, and lots of creative materials."
http://www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/contentdisplay.aspx?id=8656
And here's a song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQtwb3lQ_c0
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
I was on the swings one day with a bunch of children, then noticed that they were all swinging higher a few of them were flipping their heads back for the thrill of it. So I decided to try it, and it was scary. Especially the vertigo from flipping my head back.
It made me realise how safe I, as an adult tend to act and how it takes all of the thrills out of life.
The musem's founder, Bob Cassilly, says that $1 of every $12 admission ticket goes to pay insurance, and he has posted a 'wall of shame' listing all the lawyers who have sued the museum.
There's an excellent and relevant article in the WSJ about it: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304159304575183463721620890.html?KEYWORDS=city+museum
Our homeowner's association has a park across the street from my house. Some time back they pulled out the swing set and monkey bars and put in an attractive looking rubberized steel play structure with several platforms but kind of low to the ground and really nothing to climb on or hang from. The kids ignore it and climb the trees instead.
Life finds a way.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
What bothers me most is that if I want to raise my kid like that and let them have a real childhood with all the bumps and bruises and scares it entails, I'll be the evil parent and CPS will come take him/her away.
Mind the frickin' laser...
As a horse owner, I see how various parents approach risk. Some parents hover, constantly watching their kids ride. (One barn in Silicon Valley caters to those parents. They have bleachers where the parents watch the kids take lessons.) The kids whose parents just drop them off do better with the horses. Kids do fall off, but it's better if they have their falls when they're 10 or 12 and on a pony.
An old friend of mine is the complete opposite of the overprotective mom. Her kids (one son, one daughter) grew up riding, and by their early teens, were competent to go off alone on horseback into the mountains. By their late teens, the kids were taking road trips of hundreds of miles on bicycles. Both kids are in their 20s now. The son is still in school, taking a year off for a startup right now. The daughter has graduated, and took a trip around the world alone, bicycling across whole countries, riding in a cattle roundup, surfing, kayaking, and coming home cheerful, uninjured, with hundreds of pictures. She works as a lifeguard (ocean rescue/climbing/EMT).
Interestingly, these kids are cautious. When encountering something new, they tend to hang back, carefully watch others, see how it's done and what goes wrong, then do it. They don't charge in blindly. It's not about being bold. It's about being competent.
I believe it is a reference to the double standard. Guys are championed for their sexual prowess while girls are considered sluts when they get around.
Perhaps it's a reflection of the effort it takes for most guys to get laid compared to most women who can just stand up and say "Next!".
Last weekend I went to a local art festival and they had a giant picnic table that you could climb on. Perhaps 20 feet high? You needed a ladder to get up on it. It was installed on a grass median and had no fence. As I was on top with my 2 year old, an 8-year old kid ran by me, jumped off, and vanished over the side as he went down. For a moment I thought the kid was crazy! But shortly thereafter, 2 more boys joined in, only they flipped off of the top. It was quite impressive.
It turns out that they were 3 brothers with their dad. The father was a martial arts instructor and he was coaching his middle boy to use his ankles to cushion his landing, and telling his youngest how to roll if he falls too hard. They weren't crazy - they just saw this stuff growing up and learned to do it safely. The dad told the youngest one that he was only allowed to flip off if he could do one from a standing position. It isn't that they had no rules, they just weren't overly afraid. They had a coach, and they knew their own limitations and followed instructions.
Amazing what a trusting, confident parent can teach an 8-year old kid. I want to know what they are like in 15 years.
I grew up in a traditional village in Malaysia during the early 80's. I know this is going to sound like one of those get off my lawn stories but my experiences while growing up there was very beneficial. At that time, my playground was the snake-infested semi-jungle around the village, the monitor lizard infested nearby river and the limestone quarry lake where they were blasting rocks with explosives. We kids will form roaming bands of 10 or more and play soldiers and communists (it was only 1 year after the communist insurgents surrendered), make our own "hand grenades" (got scars to prove it) out of firecracker fillings and spark plugs as detonators, even our own bamboo cannon filled with carbide. We will climb trees, slingshot monkeys, take a swim in the river and fish for tilapia and catfish in the quarry lake all the while explosives were going off nearby. On Eid days and the Chinese New Year, we will go to war with the kids from the neighbouring village, launching firecracker raids and ambushing the counterattack which will sometimes end up as fist fights. Looking back, I couldn't believe I lived that life now that I am living in a modern suburb where everything is gated and sanitised. Firecrackers are now banned in Malaysia. I look at my own two kids and see them playing video games, and the only time they can play outside is when I am supervising them out of fear of speeding cars or kidnappers (this is a real problem).
Now, everything revolves around the nuclear family. I could do all those risky things in the village because all the adults in the village will keep an eye on you, regardless if you are their kid or not. All adults may scold or cane any child in the village if they cross the line. Complaining about this to your parents will result in another round of caning. You could drop in on your friends house and their parents will serve you food and treat you like you are their own. Now get off my lawn.
My son (23 months) loves the "big kid" playgrounds. He is a cautious child, and he definitely follows the progressive learning model in how high he climbs. However, he is adopted, and we have to worry about social workers disapproving of how we raise him, and we could get in big trouble if he got hurt, so I am one of those mothers who tends to hover around her child on the playground. It's not because I am overprotective, but because society has gotten to the point that the state will take away your child if he cuts his finger, practically. In a civilization's progress, I think sometimes we start to go overboard, and that's when society becomes corrupt and a new, younger society takes over. Look at the cycle of civilization. Ancient powerhouses are no longer around. We don't just get more civilized, we go back and forth.