I Blame the Lawyers

Today's playgrounds may be too safe, critics warn 

When seesaws and tall slides and other perils were disappearing from New York’s playgrounds, Henry Stern drew a line in the sandbox. As the city’s parks commissioner in the 1990s, he issued an edict concerning the 10-foot-high jungle gym near his childhood home in northern Manhattan.

“I grew up on the monkey bars in Fort Tryon Park, and I never forgot how good it felt to get to the top of them,” Mr. Stern said. “I didn’t want to see that playground bowdlerized. I said that as long as I was parks commissioner, those monkey bars were going to stay.”

His philosophy seemed reactionary at the time, but today it’s shared by some researchers who question the value of safety-first playgrounds. Even if children do suffer fewer physical injuries — and the evidence for that is debatable — the critics say that these playgrounds may stunt emotional development, leaving children with anxieties and fears that are ultimately worse than a broken bone.

“Children need to encounter risks and overcome fears on the playground,” said Ellen Sandseter, a professor of psychologyat Queen Maud University in Norway. “I think monkey bars and tall slides are great. As playgrounds become more and more boring, these are some of the few features that still can give children thrilling experiences with heights and high speed.”

After observing children on playgrounds in Norway, England and Australia, Dr. Sandseter identified six categories of risky play: exploring heights, experiencing high speed, handling dangerous tools, being near dangerous elements (like water or fire), rough-and-tumble play (like wrestling), and wandering alone away from adult supervision. The most common is climbing heights.

“Climbing equipment needs to be high enough, or else it will be too boring in the long run,” Dr. Sandseter said. “Children approach thrills and risks in a progressive manner, and very few children would try to climb to the highest point for the first time they climb. The best thing is to let children encounter these challenges from an early age, and they will then progressively learn to master them through their play over the years.”

La Ballona Creek, Culver City, California

Today's kids are so coddled.  If anything happens to them, it's the parents fault.  From the age of 5 I was allowed to wander several blocks in any direction, including the La Bologna Creek in Culver City, where we used to catch tadpoles and mosquito fish, look for coins, and useful trash.  We lived at the point where it went from totally channelized to a rocky bottom, with real "sediment". We looked for coins and other treasure along the drop off.  My Dad found a diamond ring once.  He also collected "mustard greens" along the edge for dinner.  They suck, almost as bad a spinach...

Today, letting a 5 year old wander like that would be child abuse.

I see they've changed the name to spelling to Bollona Creek.  We always used the "La" and while I never saw it in print before, I certainly envisioned it in Spanish style as "Bologna"; pronounced Lah Buy-yona.