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Making Playgrounds a Little More Dangerous

nytimes.com

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Re: Making Playgrounds a Little More Dangerous

#121

Post by jimmaswell »

lb1lf wrote: post #26
badcede wrote: post #4

"Grown-ups have taken all the fun out of being a kid just to save a few thousand lives." https://scrapsfromtheloft.com/2017/04/06/george-carlin-you-a...

There is more than a grain of truth to this; a couple of years ago it's was brought to my attention that since the 1950s, children being killed in traffic in Norway was down by a couple of orders of magnitude, even though traffic had increased by a couple of orders of magnitude in the same time. Drowning? Also down by a similar ratio. Generic accidents? Same, same. Sure, there has never been as safe a time to be a ki…

To answer the last question, unless rates of adults dying by car accidents/drowning/etc went up the same amount it went down for kids, no. And it's still better to not die as a kid anyway.

Re: Making Playgrounds a Little More Dangerous

#122

Post by wizardforhire »

nemo1618 wrote: post #99
wizardforhire wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“The reality is different though. There is nothing in this world quite so soul crushingly painful as having your child die while doing something that the parent and perhaps people in general, consider to be 'safe.'” Actually there is and by several orders of magnitude more painful, and it is this: Watching these same parents scream safety, proclaiming the presciouness of their children while simultaneously condemning…

Ridiculous. The two are not even remotely comparable.

It’s not ridiculous and I don’t want to get into a flame war over this, because clearly my statement is contentious! Rather I’d like to have the discussion and I feel this is a relevant/appropriate albeit esoteric forum. Yet I stand by my statement.

To elaborate: yes the suffering by a parent when witness to the suffering or death of their child is painful beyond words. With few if any experiences comparable. However, the combined suffering of literally millions upon millions of people subjugated to the atrocities of war made possible by the implicit support and consent by literally the same set of said parents is beyond the ability to fully comprehend or experience as an individual. However despite our inadequacies as individuals at being able to emote in the face of such atrocities does nothing to diminish the pain felt by the victims whose combined suffering is orders of magnitude greater than that of an individual parent. Just because we lack the ability to comprend the suffering on such a scale does nothing to alleviate it. If anything it only exacerbates and obfuscates the phenomenon. I believe a term for it is The Tragedy of the Commons.

Re: Making Playgrounds a Little More Dangerous

#123

Post by craftinator »

fjsolwmv wrote: post #117
craftinator wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another thought that adds to this viewpoint: slightly more dangerous playgrounds teach kids how to play more safely, and they grow into adults who also know how to play responsibly. Kids who never get a chance to develop good balance (with the immediate feedback of bruises and scrapes) will not be as good at avoiding falls and other physical dangers as those who have good balance. They also won't know their own physi…

The discussion is about quadriplegia, not scrapes and bruises.

The discussion began on the topic of playgrounds and safety. All people have the risk of injury and death at all times. Some types of injury are not severe and have few lasting consequences, others are of the converse type. Paralysis is incredibly uncommon when compared to scrapes and bruises, which is why I brought up that subtopic.

Re: Making Playgrounds a Little More Dangerous

#124

Post by fjsolwmv »

dragonwriter wrote: post #56
petschge wrote: post #50

How many extra lives are lost to obesity because children never learn how fun it is to move outdoors? Everything is so safe and non-fun. Of course the deaths 3 decades down the line are not attributed to overly safe playgrounds and overprotective parents and nobody gets sued. So there is no need to fix this...

> How many extra lives are lost to obesity because children never learn how fun it is to move outdoors? Everything is so safe an non-fun. I've yet to find a kid that doesn't find a flat field of grass outdoors to be fun, so if there's a problem here, it's parents keeping kids indoors, not playground safety being too good.

Hills are known to promote mentally stimulating play.

Re: Making Playgrounds a Little More Dangerous

#125

Post by hyperdunc »

unknownkadath wrote: post #105
TimTheTinker wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Millions of children dying in the womb = crickets. (or hot debate, depending on your country) I know that's a controversial issue. No offense intended toward any individuals - but this is my viewpoint.

See, here's the thing: a neural tube with the same number of neurons as C. elegans isn't the same thing as a human being. I can see how some folks can get confused, though.

Comparing snapshots of organisms isn't that useful. C. Elegans is never going to turn into a conscious human being.

Re: Making Playgrounds a Little More Dangerous

#126

Post by oska »

devchix wrote: post #9

A recent episode of 99% Invisible: Play Mountain looked at how the playground got to be safe and boring. "A two-year-old boy named Frank Nelson was climbing a 12-foot-tall slide in a Chicago park when he slipped through a railing and hit his head so hard that it caused permanent brain damage. The park system of Chicago was sued and had to pay out millions of dollars to Nelson’s family. At that time, in the late 70s,…

> A majority of playgrounds are “post and deck” systems with standard swings, slides, and monkey bars in one piece of equipment."

This is not true where I currently live. It's a recently new suburban area (less than 15 years old) in an Australian city with a great number of parks scattered through it. Nearly every park has a playground and they are all different and all very high quality. Indeed, I'm quite amazed at how much money has been spent installing playgrounds. There is a great variety of what is on offer - some have latticed rope climbing nets, some have climbing walls, some have flying foxes, plus many other very imaginative features. They all have soft surfaces under them to cushion falls and most have a shade cloth over them. I am frankly envious of what is on offer to children these days - it is vastly superior and more exciting than what I had as a child.

Trees and other outdoor features still exist that are 'undesigned' and can provide significant risk and thrill to the more adventurous child who climbs up and on them. But I applaud the increased safety built into the modern playground. To me it appears to have spurred innovation and imaginative design, not hampered it.

Re: Making Playgrounds a Little More Dangerous

#127

Post by BurningFrog »

oska wrote: post #126
devchix wrote: post #9

A recent episode of 99% Invisible: Play Mountain looked at how the playground got to be safe and boring. "A two-year-old boy named Frank Nelson was climbing a 12-foot-tall slide in a Chicago park when he slipped through a railing and hit his head so hard that it caused permanent brain damage. The park system of Chicago was sued and had to pay out millions of dollars to Nelson’s family. At that time, in the late 70s,…

> A majority of playgrounds are “post and deck” systems with standard swings, slides, and monkey bars in one piece of equipment." This is not true where I currently live. It's a recently new suburban area (less than 15 years old) in an Australian city with a great number of parks scattered through it. Nearly every park has a playground and they are all different and all very high quality. Indeed, I'm quite amazed at…

Yeah, but you're not part of the US legal system, which OP was talking about.

Re: Making Playgrounds a Little More Dangerous

#128

Post by BurningFrog »

maxxxxx wrote: post #13
devchix wrote: post #9

A recent episode of 99% Invisible: Play Mountain looked at how the playground got to be safe and boring. "A two-year-old boy named Frank Nelson was climbing a 12-foot-tall slide in a Chicago park when he slipped through a railing and hit his head so hard that it caused permanent brain damage. The park system of Chicago was sued and had to pay out millions of dollars to Nelson’s family. At that time, in the late 70s,…

It’s a little like terrorism. You can have tens of thousands of people die from cars, smoking and obesity. But if a fraction of that dies from terrorists the whole country changes. If one child gets hurt from a slide or abducted by a stranger the whole country changes to avoid this risk but all the other risks are silently accepted.

I have to think a lot of kids died on playgrounds before the late 70s without that happening.

I'd guess that something changed at that time so the country was finally rich enough that this became a problem that got attention from The Powers That Be.

Re: Making Playgrounds a Little More Dangerous

#129

Post by bobbyi_settv »

devchix wrote: post #9

A recent episode of 99% Invisible: Play Mountain looked at how the playground got to be safe and boring. "A two-year-old boy named Frank Nelson was climbing a 12-foot-tall slide in a Chicago park when he slipped through a railing and hit his head so hard that it caused permanent brain damage. The park system of Chicago was sued and had to pay out millions of dollars to Nelson’s family. At that time, in the late 70s,…

Maybe it's okay though? Is there real evidence to back up the sentiment that kids have less fun (or get less exercise, develop less physical skills, etc.) in modern "safe" playgrounds?

Re: Making Playgrounds a Little More Dangerous

#130

Post by iMerNibor »

ausbah wrote: post #98

I am frankly appalled how some people in this thread appear so nonchalant about willing to accept the deaths of children in the name of letting a majority of kids "have the right kind of fun".

That's how life works though. You can never eliminate all the risks.

So much is just out of your control, accidents happen - be it for kids or adults.

People are obviously not advocating for creating deadly play spaces for the future generation, but we did manage so far with the decent enough security standards.

Kids hurting themselves is normal, thats just part of learning their limits. I dont know how many times I fucked up and caused myself (non-critical) damage - did I do the same stupid mistake twice? nope. I could've died or seriously hurt myself a lot of times would I have just been unlucky, but I wasn't - cause there was a very slim chance anything bad could have even happened. Climbing trees? never slipped or jumped off a height that wasnt harmless. Cycling around? Never fell bad enough to do more than scrape my skin. And so many more instances of things going bad, but working out fine

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