Somewhere out there somebody has put a helmet on their child and banned them from a slide. There is a parent standing over a child while he climbs to the monkey bars. There are numerous articles about what is dangerous on the playground or the top 10 playground hazards. Let’s just stop and think about this.
If you’re at least 30 or 40 then you know playgrounds have never been safer. We climbed 20 feet up a metal slide in 100 degree weather, screaming the whole way down into a pile of gravel.
Maybe you were the one who had to push the merry-go-round while the rest of the kids hung on for dear life.
Some of us were lucky enough to get on one of the few swings and if we pinched ourself on the chain it didn’t matter. Of course, if a kid was not being careful they might just get kicked in the head by an enthusiastic swinger. We didn’t make that mistake twice.
Today playgrounds are plastic, with rails, and safety is priority over all else. There are multiple agencies that oversee playground safety and have worked to implement safety for children at play.
Maybe instead of worrying about how unsafe a playground is, we teach them how to be safe. We lived across the street from an ancient park, but they loved to play there. They played until dark, they fell off the slide, they pretended to be in a UFO under the jungle gym, they were never injured beyond a scratch or bump.
From one mom to another, don’t go to a playground looking for hazards. You’ll always find something wrong. Obviously if there are rusty screws or only three legs on the slide you probably shouldn’t allow your kids to play there. However, just because there isn’t plastic covering every screw or soft padding does not mean your kids are unsafe. Bumps and bruises are part of learning. Kids need to learn their boundaries and establish safety measures on their own.
