Making Playgrounds a Little More Dangerous
nytimes.com
Making Playgrounds a Little More Dangerous
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Re: Making Playgrounds a Little More Dangerous
#2This, this, a thousand times this.
Life is about evaluating risk. You need to learn it at some point. A playground is as good a place as any.
By all means, make them safe enough that kids won't get maimed or killed - but keeping kids from ever falling far enough to feel any real pain is probably counter- productive in the long term.
Sigh. My eldest kid's kindergarten advertised themselves as an outdoor experience thingy, then proceeded to cut down every tree on their premises as kids climbed them (the horrors!) and occasionally fell down (Aaaieee!) - so better make the playground look like any generic McPlayground.
Re: Making Playgrounds a Little More Dangerous
#3The only anecdote I can share about this comes from the time my family was touring a local day camp. On the tour, they showed us everything: archery, fishing, swimming, ropes, and everything else you could think of. At one point, we came to a massive, 10 foot high pile of dirt. The kids immediately ran for the dirt pile and the parents' reactions were a 50/50 mix of "Awesome" or "What are you building here?" I knew this was the camp for my kid when they explained, the pile of dirt was just that. A big pile of dirt for the kids to play in. It complemented the big pile of rocks that they also had.
Re: Making Playgrounds a Little More Dangerous
#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...
Re: Making Playgrounds a Little More Dangerous
#5My kids love that playground. Sure you hold your breath when you see them from afar (no parents allowed in) messing around with a sharp saw, but it's worth it. A great space.
Re: Making Playgrounds a Little More Dangerous
#6This, this, a thousand times this. Life is about evaluating risk. You need to learn it at some point. A playground is as good a place as any. By all means, make them safe enough that kids won't get maimed or killed - but keeping kids from ever falling far enough to feel any real pain is probably counter- productive in the long term. Sigh. My eldest kid's kindergarten advertised themselves as an outdoor experience thi…
My son's school was in the city and went to a local playground. The main play structure was so high (about 20-25' at the top) that it took a couple months for my kindergarten-aged son to muster the courage to climb it. Even though it's been almost seven years, I still remember his immense pride at conquering that fear and climbing to the top for the first time.
Re: Making Playgrounds a Little More Dangerous
#7I’m going to a festival next weekend where they have a building area for the kids. They give them wood, nails hammers and saws and set them free. It’s just awesome.
Re: Making Playgrounds a Little More Dangerous
#8My second worst accident as a kid, was on a "safe" playground, when my finger got stuck on a hinge of a swing.
My most daring stunts, were on "safe" playgrounds too, for example trying to make swings do a 360 (yes, I tried that, never succeeded).
Both times what was going on my mind is that I wanted to do something fun, and the equipment looked like it would work for what I wanted... Ended once even accidentally disassembling a swing (it had a "hook" shaped hinge and I swung it too far and it detached).
But the most fun I ever had... was playing on an uncle storage closet full of boxes and old stuff, climbing on trees, learning to cook, making my own sword when I was 16, and so on.
"Safe" looking stuff make people (even adults) do unsafe things (see the other article about road speeds, mentioning how wider lanes make people speed more and crash more often).
Re: Making Playgrounds a Little More Dangerous
#9A 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, there were no laws, or real industry standards when it came to the safety of playground equipment. Frank Nelson’s fall was one of a number of lawsuits that led the Consumer Product Safety Commission to publish the Handbook for Public Playground Safety in 1981. Then another standards organization, the ASTM, published its own guidelines. Pretty soon these rulebooks were in the hands of insurance companies and parks departments and school boards across the United States. To this day, almost all playgrounds have to be approved by a certified playground safety inspector.
And safety inspectors look for places where kids could fall, or get pinched, poked, or trapped. As you might imagine, all of these rules and regulations make the job of playground designers a lot harder. This is the reason why the playgrounds that you see everywhere all look more or less the same. A majority of playgrounds are “post and deck” systems with standard swings, slides, and monkey bars in one piece of equipment."
Re: Making Playgrounds a Little More Dangerous
#10My yard is an adventure playground. My kids' favorite toys are things they dig out of the dump each Saturday morning (and which I sneak back into the dump the next weekend).