Would you take your kids to a "dangerous & dirty" play park?

[WallyWallyWally]

www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2019/oct/31/were-cosseting-our-kids-the-war-against-todays-dangerously-dull-playgrounds-wellcome#comment-134964986

I totally would take my kids somewhere like Tumbling Bay - it sounds great! the only thing that would put me off is that it's probably mobbed all the time as children love it. I grew up on a farm - we were constantly roaming the fields, falling in the streams, getting covered in dirt, rescuing filthy tennis balls from cow pats, climbing trees and falling out of them. We were away from home for hours on end , out of sight, from the age of about 8-9 onwards, just me and my sister in the woods. My mum says she did worry a bit but balanced that with the fantastic time we had and the importance of letting us roam and take risks. Nothing bad ever happened (the worse skinned knees always happened in the school playground). I have more urban friends who did similar - playing in parks, woodlands, near rivers etc.

I know it's a different world now, but if the option was available: would you let your kids roam free, take risks, possibly get hurt, definitely get filthy? If we designed parks that had more dirt / sand / wood, sheer drops, 4m high poles etc and less rounded plastic edges / padded rubber underlay / baby swings, would you take your children to them?

The comments below the article suggest that "compensation culture" is partly to blame for play parks becoming more and more risk-averse, and more and more dull / safe. Would you sue the designer / owner if your child fell off a structure that had been purposely designed to encourage them to take risks, and broke their arm?

Well, no, but that's because I have a toddler! And I think that's always going to be a problem in park design - that a mixed age group uses them (and for most parks most of the time it's going to be preschoolers in them for the obvious reason that bigger children are at school) and so there's a group who don't need soft floors and baby swings and a group who do. It would be lovely to have options for both, but you're only likely to get that level of investment in spaces that charge to enter.

Absolutely. Taking managed risks is crucial for our children's early physical development. I went to a lecture with a man called Tim gill who designs playgrounds who claimed that the rubber flooring under play equipment doesn't actually prevent injury- in fact it can be more dangerous because children take bigger risks thinking they'll be fine if they fall. It's a really interesting topic.

We just used to call them parks.
Mostly dangerous, mostly dirty but always fun.

I’m in favour of more open-ended play. I’d welcome this.

Yes, my 7 year old would be absolutely love this, he loves to climb and a bit of danger and my 3 year old is headed the same way.

My 9 year old is more risk averse but the open ended element would mean he could still play and use his imagination without having to climb up high etc.

We have always gone out and got filthy with mud and encouraged tree climbing etc.

Actually, reading that article maybe we just have unusual/good local playparks because although they aren't as stylised as the ones featured as good in the article they do have high drops, big climbing frames (those sort of rope/net ones), a zipwire, etc. So yes, I would use them because I do!

Round here anything that might be even slightly considered "dangerous" play equipment is slowly being removed. I'm talking things like monkey bars where they are actually high enough off the ground that an average 9 year old can still use them. So totally in favour of more "risky" play areas - tbh as soon as they were able to go out and play independently, my DC gravitated towards the woods and made their own fun, or "adapted" the play area in ways it perhaps wasn't designed for :)

I take my 3 year old to our local adventure playgrounds, she's so good at risk assessing as she goes and loves climbing. Only trouble is she then sometimes finds standard parks a bit boring

My kids love tumbling bay. They’re 4 and 6. I don’t see it as dangerous at all, if anything I was a little disappointed that it doesn’t have a few more challenging apparatus. I’ve always take dc to different parks and outdoor spaces where they can use their imagination and immerse themselves in the outdoors and they have a great sense of balance, are very agile and imaginative and don’t mind getting dirty. So I think it’s great for kids. They do like a ‘normal’ playground too.

Older people I know who complain that kids can't roam free nowadays normally knew a fair few kids / families that had kids that either died or were seriously injured due to playing in risky places. It's just glossed over.

Traffic accidents even peaked in the 60s. The mortality rate for kids (in the US at least. That's where my stat for this is from) from accidents etc has never been lower.

I think a balanced approach of risk assessed freedom and not letting you kids play wherever they want is probably best

I'm taking my kids to the woods today to climb trees.....big trees. ones they will hurt themselves from if they fall out of them. They love it.

Yes. I've always fancied taking them to The Land in North Wales (I think?). The one they can use fire and tools.

Older people I know who complain that kids can't roam free nowadays normally knew a fair few kids / families that had kids that either died or were seriously injured due to playing in risky places.

Risk is inherently risky. But I'm not aware of any metric that allows the compilation of examples where young people and adults have had accidents/adverse outcomes because of a lack of opportunity to assess the risk of an activity or experience when they were younger.

Name change as anyone local will recognise me.
Re the non enclosed playgrounds.
We live in a city (not London) with a great variety of playgrounds and I've been reviewing for my blog and it really is interesting to see the difference.
Children have different needs. A non fenced playground for a child that runs off all the time is going to set the child up for failure rather than a safe challenge.
A playground with gates which don't lock next to a major road, is not ideal (we visited one yesterday and saw child try to escape). Children vs cars, kids are never going to win.
Yes, parents should be supervising, but sometimes we just want a space that is enclosed and we can relax letting the children are relatively safe and happy without having to be hovering over them. That is easier in some spaces than others.

My other concern with cars is fumes, after hearing about the girl in London whose death was connected with pollution levels on the South Circular, we avoid spending to much time at any playgrounds too close to busy roads.

Google Crocky Park. It’s very popular. Mine enjoyed it, but 2/4 fell in the stream!

Saying I grew up as free range child and it did me no harm is like saying my generation never had car seats or wore seat belts and we are here to tell the tale. I’m saying this as a former free range child who didn’t wear a seat belt until well into double figures.

I did some staggeringly dangerous things while out as a child, generally not in playgrounds though, I was lucky enough to never be seriously injured. I think the worst that happened to me was getting a rusty nail embedded in my foot. However my younger sister fell off a slide onto the concrete and knocked herself unconscious, and a friend got her leg stuck under a roundabout, was dragged round and her leg fractured in two places.

I would say that the playgrounds in the article don’t sound dangerous to me, just a bit more fun and adventurous than the regular sort. Although putting playgrounds in the middle of roads with today’s traffic levels is stupid, not only is there the risk from being run over there’s also the constant noise and pollution. One of my local parks has an unfenced playground, the biggest problem I have with that is it has considerably more dog crap in it than a fenced one.

I think people do gloss over the deaths and serious injuries children suffered when children were allowed to roam free more. Anyone remember those frightening public information films you used to have to watch at school in the 70s eg Apaches, there was a reason for them.

3 children in my peer group in my Primary School were knocked over by cars at different times whilst out playing, 2 suffered broken bones, 1 died.

I didn't think that's what you were going to mean by dangerous and dirty - that place looks fun!

I was thinking of one of our local playgrounds where I don't think the equipment has been changed or fixed for 20 odd years and no one uses it because everything is rusty/chipped/or frayed looking.