
The war against today's dangerously dull playgrounds - bo0tzz
http://theguardian.com/artanddesign/2019/oct/31/were-cosseting-our-kids-the-war-against-todays-dangerously-dull-playgrounds-wellcome
======
cortesoft
I remember reading something somewhere about the real issue with risk and
playgrounds... that modern playgrounds often hide risk, whereas older
playgrounds it would be more obvious. The idea is that there were clearly
places (high up, requiring climbing skill) in the old playgrounds that kids
would slowly work their way up to conquering. Because the risk was obvious,
kids would approach it with caution and build up skills to get there. In
contrast, a lot of injuries occur when 'safe' playgrounds have kids try to do
things not designed for, but because of the way they are made don't appear to
be dangerous bus actually are. Giving kids the ability to assess risk
accurately, and develop the skill to take that risk, is the important part.

~~~
magicalhippo
The rules we have here in Norway, which is a variation of a EU thing IIRC,
allow kids to get hurt, but not permanently. There are a lot of dangers which
are non-obvious, especially to a kid. Crevices where the rope for tightening
the hood can get stuck, potentially strangling them. Stairs where a kid can
get their head through but not their body. Swings where they can lose their
fingers thanks to the chain mounts or similar. Lots of similar things.

I have a friend who design playgrounds, and he operates on the principle that
there's two kinds of safety. It's the objective safety I mention above, and
there's the subjective safety which you mention. Kids should have objectively
safe playgrounds, but they should be allowed to challenge their subjective
safety feeling.

The objective safety has mostly to do with the design and maintenance of the
equipment. The subjective safety is more due to the design of the playground
itself and the elements in it.

One example is a climbing wall. With the right layout, sufficient impact sand
or rubber on the ground around it as well as proper maintenance, it can be
objectively very safe but still allow kids to feel they push their boundaries.

~~~
GuiA
Your comment made me think of a great comment on the topic I had read here a
few months ago. After some digging around, I found it, and it turns out to be
a post of yours, too! :)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19924858](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19924858)

Very cool, thanks, keep posting!

~~~
stevenwoo
The slide in your linked article resulting in a lawsuit was 12 feet tall. I
recently played at a kids (something like 4-10) park that has a climbing
feature that one can get to the top of that is a bit taller than that. It was
fun but I was thinking the whole time, this could never go over in the USA.

[https://goo.gl/maps/bF6bSSQ93SbUuHs96](https://goo.gl/maps/bF6bSSQ93SbUuHs96)

~~~
foobarian
An inflatable park company came to our town for a bit with a bunch of rides,
one of which was a super high slide. I didn't understand why they were making
us get into burlap sacks before going down, but I understood later - the speed
near the bottom was high enough that I'm pretty sure I would've walked away
with major burns if I'd touched the slide. My wife ended up with a mystery
burn she noticed at the end of the day that I suspect came from this.

------
Waterluvian
I let my toddler do absolutely whatever he wanted on local playgrounds and let
him have some nasty falls. Unsurprisingly he learned very quickly what his
comfort zone is and when he has to be extra careful.

My philosophy is that it's not my job to protect him from harm. It's my job to
protect him from irreparable harm. The point being that he has to learn how to
cope with being hurt and getting hurt is the only way to learn where the line
is.

~~~
HorizonXP
I have a 14 month old, and I find it fascinating to watch him play. He's super
active, starting to stand, walks very fast when I hold his hand, but not yet
confident on his own.

He loves the outdoors. He will literally yell and cry at us to take him out
for walks and/or to the park. Loves when I take him on the playground.

When we climb up, he loves to crawl through the tunnel and finds it hilarious
when I chase him to stop him from getting away from me. He will definitely try
to go down the slide by himself, or crawl out of the playground to a 5 foot
drop. It's as if he has no concept of the dangers.

Meanwhile, I generally let him do what he wants elsewhere, like climbing
stairs, crawling into cupboards, etc. He picked up a pretty gnarly bruise on
his chin when we went swimming and he fell in the change room.

To his credit, nothing seems to deter him. He'll cry for maybe 30 seconds,
often less, take a quick hug from me, and then jump right back to whatever he
was doing.

I can't wait until he's actually walking because then I can expose him to some
riskier stuff, which he'll enjoy. Winter's almost here, so I expect him to be
walking when we start enjoying the playground more often again.

~~~
semi-extrinsic
Don't stop going to the playground in winter ;)

If you have snow, get him a snow sled for toddlers. Stiga makes a really nice
one called the Baby Cruiser. It has a large back rest, cushion and a seat
belt. And the design makes sure the speed remains low enough, unless you take
it out on icy conditions (which you shouldn't).

As a bonus, in spring you can put it on top of a skateboard, run the seat belt
around both the sled and skateboard, and presto you can "sled" in summer. My
kids used to love that.

[https://www.clasohlson.com/uk/Stiga-Cruiser-Baby-
Sledge/p/Pr...](https://www.clasohlson.com/uk/Stiga-Cruiser-Baby-
Sledge/p/Pr349235000)

~~~
stevekemp
I'm jealous of how well my child, almost three, can walk/run and cope with the
snow and ice. He's almost as stable running on snow/ice as he is on solid
ground. Unlike myself.

Sledges are awesome though, and also highly recommended. I take him to daycare
on one when the ice/snow is suitable for it. If only the city wouldn't grit
the pavements it'd be easier!

~~~
semi-extrinsic
Kids have two big advantages on slippery conditions, both coming from the
square-cube-law: they have a lot more traction relative to the torque they can
put into a stride, and their moment of inertia tensor is less ill-conditioned.

------
noneeeed
One of the unexpectedly adventurous organisations when it comes to playgrounds
in the uk is the National Trust.

When I was a kid, a visit to an NT property was being dragged around some posh
house where you couldn't touch anything.

Somewhere around 15-20 years ago I think they realised their clientele was
getting older and older and ever since they've been on a bit of a mission to
make more of their properties kid/family friendly. They now have some of the
best play areas we know of, most of them in woodland, with the equipment etc
made of wood, often taken from the woodland, or built into the landscape. We
took a small group to one today, and they would have spent hours playing there
if we'd had the time, much longer than they will play at some of the more
structured "modern" play areas near here.

~~~
ascorbic
Do you have suggestions of any particularly good ones?

~~~
noneeeed
Near us, Tyntesfield is great. There is an obstacle course type one down by
one of the cafes, then there are three on a trail up in the woods. Some are
more structured than others.

We've taken to using NT sites as breaks on long journeys. At a minimum they
will have a cafe, and most will have something to give us and the kids a nice
break from the car. Its definitely a nicer way to stretch your legs than a
motorway sercvice station. The app is pretty useful for this.

They can be pricey as individual visits, but if you go to more than a couple a
year, a family membership pays for self pretty quickly.

------
annoyingnoob
When each of my kids turned 5 I started letting them go around the block with
another kid, 2 kids minimum. My neighbors started texting and calling me as if
my kid was in danger. They couldn't understand that I let my kid out of my
sight. The best playtime is unsupervised. Being allowed to be out of sight and
making your own decisions builds confidence. We learn from mistakes, we learn
less when we are prevented from making mistakes.

~~~
beamatronic
I want to do that but Nextdoor posts about attempted kidnappings give me
pause.

~~~
com2kid
[http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/uscrime.htm](http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/uscrime.htm)
scroll down for crime / 100,000 people.

Nextdoor tends to attract people who worry about anything and everything, and
who report anyone they don't recognize (or just don't like) as being
suspicious.

------
CapitalistCartr
I find the playgrounds in my city (Tampa, FL) to be excellent. This article is
completely wrong about the parks here.

I have 5 young grandchildren and a 20 month old son, so lots of observation
time. The grounds are wildly loved by the kids there. They have rubber
surfaces that dramatically reduce broken bones, but do _not_ prevent pain. I
love that they still get scrapes, bruises.

The sets are large, complex, and _fun_. My kids will spend as many hours as we
let them.

~~~
jacobolus
How old are the kids you are talking about? 20-month-olds are happy with
literally any playground, especially if there are a few other kids. They are
still learning the very basics of climbing, running, sliding, swinging, ...

Most playgrounds are okay for 0–8 year-olds. It’s older kids, especially
teenagers, who get most bored on de-risked modern playgrounds, and either give
up on them or start looking around for (often quite stupid) ways to make them
riskier, e.g. a group of 6 kids climbing onto a swing intended for 1 kid
(thereby breaking it), riding their skateboards down the slide (and almost
running over the toddlers at the bottom), climbing up onto the roofs of
buildings that weren’t intended for climbing, throwing rocks at each-other,
...

The playground near my house was re-done a few years ago, and the number of
kids older than 10 has dropped dramatically. All of the toddlers are plenty
happy with the new one, but it’s a net loss for the city because there are
many good playgrounds for kids under 8, and very few for older kids.

Aside: those rubber surfaces are very uncomfortable on bare feet any time the
temperature is above 80°F. And often playground wood chips are full of
extremely sharp corners (My adult friend stepped on a wood chip which
punctured both his shoe and his foot). Sand, dirt, grass, and even concrete
are all much more pleasant.

~~~
learc83
I was a kid when we still had dangerous steel playgrounds and by the time I
was in 5th grade, it wasn't cool to play on the playground.

Middle schools never had them as far as I know. So around 10 seems to have
always been the max age for playground equipment.

~~~
Fricken
I used my local playground until I was 16. Now, nearly 30 years later I still
go to the playground to play, but it's a climbing gym. People don't magically
stop playing soccer, or baseball, or video games when they pass age 10, I
don't know why we assume as much about playgrounds. A well built playground
offers challenging terrain for kids of all ages.

~~~
hahajk
omg if I saw a 46 year old climbing around a playground by himself, I would...
keep my child close to be sure.

Is that the right reaction to have? I think it probably is.

~~~
Fricken
I think you're insane and I'm glad I'm not your kid.

~~~
learc83
In our current society it's certainly not normal for an adult to be climbing
around on a playground alone. And it's not insane for a parent to approach
such a situation with caution.

And regardless of whether you agree with the OPs's reaction, that's the
reaction that the vast majority of parents are going to have.

~~~
Jamwinner
Oops, guess some parents are going to have a bad time. Their problem, not
mine. Parks are for everyone to enjoy. Bigotry in action, and a slew of
apologists. Sad.

~~~
learc83
>Oops, guess some parents are going to have a bad time.

No it's the 46 year old alone on the monkey bars who's going to have a bad
time. At the very minimum police will run them off. There are plenty of cities
that have ordinances banning unaccompanied adults from playgrounds, and a 46
year old who insists on doing this is just going to ensure their local
municipality passes such an ordinance.

I personally don't care if an adult wants to play on a playground, but making
a kids only zone is hardly bigotry in action.

------
fredley
No mention of the Harbourfront Adventure Playground in Toronto, in the 70's
and 80's, a very famous example of an unsafe play environment:

[https://www.blogto.com/city/2017/09/adventure-playground-
tor...](https://www.blogto.com/city/2017/09/adventure-playground-toronto-
history/)

~~~
ninth_ant
There is an adventure playground in Berkeley that my kids adored when I used
to live in a nearby city. I’m not sure how it’s avoided a similar fate to the
Toronto example you refer to, but it’s a wonderful place. Terrifying to watch
as a parent no doubt, but empowering for the kids.

------
hevi_jos
In my experience the best playgrounds are not playgrounds at all.

As a kid my playground was the mountains, the beach, playing with sand,dirt,
climbing trees, making cardboard's or bricks' or wood houses. Hearing and
telling stories around the campfire...

I was terrified when I went back to visit a school I was when I was 4-6 years
old. Instead of just one big piece of land for kids to play they had divided
it with fences in something like 20 small spaces so they could control kids
easier.

It was a prison. I believe this has to affect the kids development somehow.

I also feel bad for a playground like the one in the image:
[https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/1094dd57d6a80c1ae1fb131937de5...](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/1094dd57d6a80c1ae1fb131937de58d4ab6b6fd8/0_0_5374_3575/master/5374.jpg?width=1920&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=685b226959c0ecd95cdd92c8470d0d61)

Because kids have imagination, they don't need a ship. If they have boxes they
have a ship, or a space center or everything they could imagine.

This is like a father buying a toy for his children and then only he playing
it, not letting his children play.

A adult designer takes the best part: imagining, and then doesn't let the kids
imagine anything else as you can not move or modify anything in the ship like
you can do with boxes or wooden logs.

That is making a tremendous disservice to children.

~~~
jeffwass
> I also feel bad for a playground like the one in the image:
> [https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/1094dd57d6a80c1ae1fb131937de5...](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/1094dd57d6a80c1ae1fb131937de5..).

Disagree 100%.

My kids absolutely LOVE that playground (assuming it’s the one in Hyde Park,
London). It’s nowhere near where we live so we’ve gone there maybe 5-10 times
tops.

But they love it, and beg to go if we’re nearby.

The main problem I have with it is that unlike the picture it can get insanely
crowded, sometimes with a queue waiting to go in, managed by park officials.

Not sure why you think a fun ship discourages creativity. My kids regularly do
creative play and role-playing anywhere, at home or out and about.

But it’s also just really cool and tons of fun to climb around on a giant (to
them) wooden ship.

------
calewis
My mother wrote her master thesis on the correlation between risk in early
years children and success later in life (a long time ago now) It turns out if
you allow children to take (reasonable) risks, then they go on to be more
successful in their careers. This is now a relatively well known correlation.
I loved doing ‘dangerous’ stuff as a child and this utopian playground makes
me sad that most of today’s kids are shielded from it.

~~~
MaxBarraclough
> It turns out if you allow children to take (reasonable) risks, then they go
> on to be more successful in their careers.

How did she control the study well enough to assert that there's a causal
relation? Or was it just a correlation?

------
jasonlfunk
Problem isn’t so much about risk adverse cities, it’s more about litigious
parents. If the city does anything That is considered risky, they open
themselves up to big lawsuits if the children do get hurt.

------
Iv
All these old pictures showing kids having fun in environments we consider
harmful, always depict kids older than those we typically let play in
playgrounds.

From the age of ~3 kids start to learn their motor skills to climb, grab,
jump, do all sort of stuff.

Kids of the age of these pictures, you let them play wherever that's not a
death trap, they'll basically be fine.

~~~
jessaustin
Stay out of the abandoned mineshaft, kids!

------
imgabe
They do have softer ground and rounder corners but the playgrounds today are
way cooler than I was a kid. The one near me has climbing walls and a zip
line. It's crazy.

------
diego
Calling this a war is the reason the saying "pick your battles" exists. Anyone
who is a parent knows that kids always find ways to hurt themselves, there is
no shortage of opportunities. Might as well make playgrounds safe, kids don't
care as long as they have fun.

------
nkrisc
Kids, uh, find a way.

I remember when my school replaced the entirely wooden and very interesting
play structure from the 70s with one of those new colorful, tubular metal
ones. It sure looked safer. The 15 foot spire we took turns leaking off was
gone. The tire swing that took out many a passing kid was gone. The piece of
5ft diameter concrete drain sewer pipe I busted my head on was gone. But that
didn't stop one kid from nearly scalping himself on the new equipment,
requiring 28 Staples. Nor did it prevent broken legs from falls, or many other
injuries. But it sure looked safer and I guess we didn't get as many
splinters. But kids always find a way to get hurt.

~~~
weavie
My daughter just tried to sit down the other day.

Missed the chair and ended up cracking her head on the bookshelf behind. Had
to go to hospital to get glued back together.

------
darth_skywalker
Sure, some playgrounds may be mind-numbingly dull, but those are a well-
intentioned response to older playgrounds that posed serious physical dangers.
You can argue that getting a little bit scraped up once in a while isn't bad
for children; it may teach them lessons about how to avoid such future
mistakes - but plenty of children have sustained more serious injuries on
playgrounds that allowed them to climb much higher than they could on, say, a
tree in nature (speaking from my life experience). I think the article
conflates the issue of modern over parenting with safer playground design -
which if done right, can only be a good thing.

~~~
hashkb
I've fallen from trees higher than any playground. Only serious injury I ever
had was on (and because of) AstroTurf.

~~~
catalogia
Ditto, I grew up in the woods so climbing on trees was an everyday activity
for me, more frequent than playing on playgrounds. I used to climb trees as
far as the tree would support, then climb it further until it collapsed. I
fell out of more trees doing that than I can count.

Thankfully, helicopter parents cannot hope to regulate trees.

------
partdavid
Unfortunately this article is pointless. It's just unsupported assertions. The
only part of the article which approaches something worth writing about:

> As for the increased dangers, she says Play England has a rigorous
> assessment system that measures the risk against benefit.

I'd be really curious to know how they quantify risk for different designs and
how they calculate "benefit" in way that can be measured against it.
Unfortunately, the author decided to fill an article with unsupported
assertions instead.

~~~
semiotagonal
The pictures though. In the background of the top one, behind the hand of the
kid who's standing on the tire, there appears to be a the ribcage of an
enormous animal sticking out of the ground.

~~~
dessant
That's a corrugated steel panel.

------
OrderlyTiamat
I am surprised not to see jonathan haidt mentioned- his views on this subject
align with the authors, and he brings an interesting perspective to the table.

------
mimimi31
I really liked this[1] talk at Google comparing how kids are raised in Germany
vs the US. She touches on the topic of playgrounds starting at 11:30, but the
whole talk is really worth watching in my opinion.

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7-k6nK1VUw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7-k6nK1VUw)

------
drdeadringer
The bay area city I live in is going through the initial process ["community
input"] of replacing//updating some playground equipment at the park nearest
to where I live. The proposed updated equipment is supposed to be "all
inclusive" for kids in terms of age and ability. About a week ago there was an
opportunity for neighbors to "choice rank" the top three across each the
different types of equipment by example pictures: top three slides, top three
climbers, spinners, noise makers, swings.

To me the current equipment seems fine but the city is claiming "end of life"
and I have no objective reason to doubt.

What I did notice is that the current equipment is made of materials such as
wood and rope with some plastic. The new equipment will be primarily plastic
and metal. I wonder if splinters have become the Great Evil for Junior since I
had cause to attend a swing set.

------
ec109685
Growing up, my elementary school had an amazing wooden structure that had been
built in years past. After I left, it was torn down and replaced by a prefab
thing with much less character and probably less fun. The reason given was
liability insurance was more possible with the later generic playground.

~~~
gyuserbti
This has been on my mind a lot lately. It's not just risk changes, it's also
variety changes which are also important.

Near us there's nice, challenging playgrounds, but their designs have become
homogeneous. The older playgrounds had more unique features to each, with
custom molded fiberglass.

I don't mind some playgrounds drifting to other materials, but the wood ones
also have something to offer. I worry they're slowly being replaced by the
same sorts of hdpe and brightly painted metal structures that are everywhere
else. They're nice but all start to seem the same after awhile.

It's sort of like if houses all got torn down after 30 years and were all
replaced with variants of the same template, rather than preserving older
structures or encouraging innovative architecture.

Kids have as much to learn from variety as they do risk.

------
swsieber
I feel like I live somewhat close to a really risky park:
[https://www.eastidahonews.com/2018/06/new-pirate-island-
play...](https://www.eastidahonews.com/2018/06/new-pirate-island-playground-
officially-open-rigby/)

It is wonderful.

 _sigh_ I have to wonder just how long it'll last. I did see a section on the
concrete rock structure that looks like ther was supposed to bw some sort of
rope bridge. I guess that got removed.

~~~
Gorgor
I took a look at your link and I don’t understand why you feel it’s “really
risky”. To me (a German), it seems like any other playground with quite common
elements. Sure, the climbing web (if that’s what it’s called) is high, but
this is a structure where kids will not even get that high if they are not
skilled.

All the images and videos just looked so American to me. A guy pulling kids in
wagons with his motor vehicle, where I’m just asking myself: Why? And of
course, almost all the adults and a fair amount of the kids are overweight …

I’m not trying to bash America, but this did confirm quite some stereotypes of
mine.

------
campfireveteran
When I was a kid (circa the mid-1980s), there was a real Korean war F-86 Sabre
in the middle of a sandpit and a steel labyrinth maze that was shaped like a
skyscraper with about 8 levels (tall: 13 ft/4 m, wide: 10 ft/3 m, deep: 3 ft/
1 m) to crawl through at the De Anza playground in San Jose. Looking at Google
Maps, it now contains depressing McDonald's-looking, clown-colored boring
stuff no kid is really interested in.

------
SoStoked
Kids like a challenge, they are constantly testing their boundaries. It's part
of learning risk and what they are capable of. That's very true modern
playground hiding risk, in my childhood playground you saw the climbing wall
as the biggest challenge you tried it once you were ready and had done a few
trials runs on smaller ones.

~~~
jimmaswell
Oddly was never much the case for me. I ended up never experiencing some of
the "harder" or more "dangerous" parts of the playground because I just wasn't
interested if it seemed too risky. I'd see other kids climbing to a dangerous
spot and think they were dumb.

------
jammygit
I’ve seen some pretty cool playgrounds in the last year where I live,
personally

------
jimmytucson
Related discussion from a few months ago for those interested:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19900498](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19900498)

------
blueboo
What a bunch of aging-boomer kid's-these-days hyperventilation, bereft of data
and full of tut-tutting.

Playgrounds in 2019 are full of playful risk. And if you want something more
dangerous, there's everywhere else to choose from.

