Playgrounds don't offer the thrills and spills outings of yesteryear.
Playgrounds don't offer the thrills and spills outings of yesteryear.
Opinion
COMMENT
Has your child ever broken their leg, arm, foot or clavicle? If not, you may be a bad parent.
The nation was outraged last week when a playground across from the Oval in Dunedin reopened. The wooden swing bridge sits a dizzying 5cm above the ground. That ground iscovered with rubber matting to ensure a safe landing. Five centimetres is a long way to fall.
In the The Coddling of the American Mind Greg Lukianoff writes: "Protections come with costs, as kids miss out on opportunities to learn skills, independence, and risk assessment."
In that case this overly safe bridge presents a grave threat to the good children who cross it. Parents need to do something. How can we make our playgrounds dangerous again?
These days, most swings don't get much swing. They're not tall enough. But kids can still get some decent air if they launch themselves off at the top of the arc. A good parent goads their child to go higher and higher. When it feels like they are going to tip over yell "jump!". They'll get good flight time and after a few painful crashes they'll learn how to roll out the landings. When things start to get a bit dicey, a bit full on, that's when you walk away and leave them to it.
When I was at primary school, the swings near our house were positioned at the top of a bank. You could get serious height off those bad boys. One time, my mate Bryce launched himself at me. Kicked me right in the head. Left me on my backside at the bottom of a hill with bleeding lips and some valuable learnings. That day I learnt that standing in front of people swinging is a great idea. You have to be ready to dive, you have to be facing the right way, but having your friends flying through the air trying to kick you in the face is a good time for all.
The new Dunedin playground - too safe by half. Photo / Supplied
Merry-go-round
A wussy name but a real potential for excitement. The best merry-go-rounds are the well-lubricated ones. Your child builds up speed, spinning as fast as they can. With three or four on board, they can really get the centrifugal force going. Then it's all about hanging on as long as they can. One by one, kids fly across the playground, get up and fall down again from the dizziness. There's a bonus vomit risk here.
Flying fox
On the Dunedin City Council website it lists all the equipment at the city's playgrounds. That includes: "Navy park (South Dunedin) — old school flying fox — the only public one left!". That is a depressing sentence. Because you know "old school" actually means "fun". New flying foxes are flat and slow. The old ones are being systematically castrated in the name of safety.
The Normanby Rd playground in Mt Eden Auckland is great. We love it. It has an awesome train on tracks that gets up good speeds. It has a massive spider's net, sliding monkey bars and some wicked Dr Seuss-style huts that kids can climb all over. Until a few years ago it also had a super-fast flying fox. My son Charlie loved to get injured on it. As a 4-year-old he'd stand on the sitting part, fang down at a terrifying pace, smash into the end, fall off and crash to the ground. Only to dust himself off and run back up for another go, a big smile on his cute little face. Now it's all safe and slow and boring. The danger is gone. You have to step in and really violently whip your kid down there. Otherwise they'll never fall off.
Kids need to swing on trees and monkey bars like we did in the days of the old school yard. Photo / Getty Images
Seesaw
This classic piece of equipment is best seen as a catapult. Slam down your end as hard as you can. If the kid doesn't fly off they'll at least smash down painfully on their butts. My youngest son shared this insight on the issue: "Kids with broken arms get great publicity at school, everyone wants to hear what happened". Sadly there are less and less breakage opportunities for children. But it's not all bad out there. Some of our new playgrounds are impressive. Massive brightly coloured structures. Good on our councils for building and upgrading them.
Takapuna Beach playground is particularly spectacular. Love the massive hamster wheel. But we are also facing a dangerous anti-danger trend. What can we do? You could start by allowing your kids to push thing to the limit. You want them climbing outside the boundaries.
If they put a bridge 5cm above the ground your child will balance across on the railing. risking a broken limb. Let them. That's what good parents do.
