"Existing American playgrounds are a disaster," begins the book American Playgrounds by Susan G Solomon. Since Webster describes disaster as any happening that causes great harm or damage, calamity. I doubt that America's existing playgrounds qualify as a disaster.
There is a previous post written by the respected Dr. Joe Frost, entitled, How Playground Regulations and Standards Are Messing up Children's Play. I have visited many playgrounds and observed firsthand that many children are having a great time without any knowledge that their play areas are messed up.
Playground safety has always been a topic of concern and everybody seems to have his opinion. Have our efforts to provide safe play gone too far? Is playground equipment boring? The questioning of playground safety and what it is doing to stifle creativity in the play environment will always have an audience and even instigates valid arguments that make you wonder, will playground safety rules ever stop being developed?
Modern playground rules officially started in 1981 when the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission published the Guidelines for Public Playground Safety. Since then, the American Society for Testing and Materials has developed numerous standards for playgrounds. For more than two decades, we have watched playgrounds become more standardized, and unless you have some experience working with playgrounds or playing on them yourself, you may conclude that one playground is pretty much the same as the next. In this regard, perhaps Dr. Frost and Ms. Solomon do make valid points; today's playgrounds may be boring compared to some we used to have. One cannot argue that a 12-foot-high swing can tickle your tummy more than the more commonly seen 8-foot swings of late. And a lot of playgrounds do look alike.
I like the child car seat analogy. Some 20 years ago, most people didn't ever think about car seats for children, but today, no one would argue that child car seats are not a good idea. Safety first, right? Sure, maybe making playground safer has limited the amount of thrills and screams one might expect of higher and wilder pieces of play equipment. And the cookie cutter playground may not bring out all the best creative, cognitive, or physical skills in a child. But kids are still being thrilled and they still have a place to call their own. They still learn and experience valuable social skills, experiment, and gain lifelong skill sets at the playground.
When I was a small child, prior to safety standards, I was injured when I became impaled on a 2-inch bolt sticking out from the equipment. I was rushed to the emergency room and became one of the injury statistics. Today, such incidents are rare, if not eliminated. Why? Because we have a simple rule to prevent this kind of injury. Playground safety has become an American institution. Parents and children expect a reasonable amount of safety when visiting a public park.
Compare playground safety to vehicle laws. Without giving it much thought, we get on the road each day with the expectation that traffic will keep moving and that we will arrive at our destination safely. Everyone who drives receives training and education about the laws of the road to learn to drive with a reasonable amount of assurance that everyone stops at stop signs and drives in the same direction and in the right lane. When these rules are followed, and we respect the consequences of what happens when we don't follow the rules, we enjoy the benefits of vehicular travel.
The world of playgrounds is similar. We have rules, and some may criticize their complexity. But as a student of children at play, I have personally experienced over two decades of playground equipment growth. I see the benefit of these rules along with the assurance that kids are still finding challenge, taking healthy risks, and playing hard.
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