Are Playgrounds Worth The Risk? - Comments

If you get rid of playgrounds because of their danger, physical or mental, you might as well put your kid in a plastic bubble and 'save' them for the world. What are you teaching your kids by not letting them fall and get that scrape. I've fallen on playgrounds before and got bumps and bruises, and I've learned from them. Accidents happen, and a lot of times you learn from your mistakes. Playgrounds and Recess are both important to this, especially as a child.

As a child, i refused to wear dresses. i always played hard and got hurt. Now, as a 12 year old girl, i play football on a recreational team and am strong enough to withstand any injuries. my friends are all wimpy and when i gently hit them on the should they scream in pain. and guess what? they all played with barbies and wore dresses to school and never wanted to play on playgrounds.

I personally Don't think that a girl playing on a play ground has any relevance to the article because it doesn't depend on the equipment used or anything rather the way the child was raised and societies pressures.

This is a great article :)

Play grounds are amazing.
I don't ever remember wearing dresses to school unless it was for picture day.
As a twenty year old, I still enjoy those playgrounds.
:]

I enjoyed your article. You did a great job of stirring up childhood playground nostalgia while also making a few well supported points exploring the risks and benefits of playground play. The references were a nice touch and you generally kept them in context. I felt like it got a bit disorganized towards the end- it seemed as though you were beginning to summarize, but then you sort of transitioned back into the realm of proving gender biases in play behaviors, and then back to summarizing.
I think it'd be interesting to see how you flesh out the effects of parental bias on gender and how that affects play behavior, although I think that could be a separate article completely, as that would make it even less relevant to the main topic of playground pro/cons. To make what you've got support your main point, you might suggest that playgrounds can help to provide girls with the physical outlet they may be lacking at home...
Overall, I enjoyed reading your article. It definitely brings me back to the days where I was spending many an afternoon in the school's clinic after having bashed my head on the ground (falling off the equipment- go figure).

Aww. Either my mom must have been an out-of the-norm parent, or Texas parents in general just aren't big on sending their little girls to school in dresses, because I remember being in jeans and tennis shoes everyday, huffing and puffing while playing tag, beating up boys, and violently passing cooties. I got some scuffs and scrapes, yeah, but they were battle scars. I was quite proud of them. :) I figure as long as parents toughen up their kids and have the common sense God gave a lemon to teach them that somersaults several feet in the air are *bad*, there shouldn't be as much of a safety issue. I never hurt myself too seriously, and neither did my siblings. I suppose it boils down to parenting.

I liked this article. :-)

If and when I have kids I'm for sure going to let them run around the playground and have fun, no matter their gender. Boy or girl, they're going to wear good clothes for playing when we go to the park. :-)

I'll definitely encourage my girl especially to be adventurous, curious and playful when it comes to the playground considering all the benefits it has for her development. That, and of course, as I know from being a kid, it's just fun.

I love wooden play grounds. When I was 7 there was this AMAZING playground. It had these swings that were flat so you could go really high and I would AWAYS jump off. (Even tho my mother dressed me in small "Lady-like" Shoes and dresses.) haha :D
Good times....

Playground are worth the risk if a parent is willing to cut a couple strings. I grew up with massive wooden forts, creaky swingsets, metal slides and jungle-gyms, and I handle pain quite well. I've busted my chin, run into a metal pole, jumped off swingsets, had a hundred and one splinters, and jammed my toed and busted the nail all at once. The only time I knew of a girl not playing on the playground was on picture day, same went for the boys. I never knew a girl who didn't at least wear shorts underneath her dress so that she could play. I raced against the boys, I played in the dirt, and I would go home sweating like a pig from all the games of tag.

I don't like the plastic playgrounds, simply because wood never gets as scalding hot as plastic does nor as freezing cold as metal. I much prefer the recycled tire bits instead of gravel, though, it gives a softer landing and if I were a parent I'd rather lessen the risk of chipped teeth and broken arms. I guess I'd rather have a mix of old and new. I was directly responsible for one of my old friends getting gravel impacted into her cheek as a result of piggy-back racing gone wrong, and I wouldn't want that to happen to anyone else. Keep the bulky splinter givers, but give a softer landing too.

I miss metal slides and wooden swings. :(

Kids today don't know what they're missing.

Just one part that stood out to me that brings up memories. Wood vs. plastic playgrounds... ugh.
There used to be this nearby playground. It was made entirely of wood, mirrors, and rope. The slide was scalding in the summertime, everyone fell off the tire swing, kids got lost in this funky little maze thing they had going on. I got all bloodied up on that playground, flipping around upside down, falling off the top of their buildings, fingers riddled with splinters, legs burnt, clothes dirty, and it was the single most AMAZING playground I've ever been on.
It's no fun when everything is bright and soft and plastic. It's not the same. But since it's safer...
They tore down the playground. No more spinning disc thing (you know the ones? I don't think people make them anymore because so many kids get hurt when they spin too fast), no more crazy mazes, no more scalding slides. It's now plastic and generic and every time I see it, I want to cry. It doesn't look like a promising haven of kid-danger and adventure. It looks like a plastic lump. Nice and safe.

Anyway... Playgrounds are definitely worth the risk, but not if they're just lumps of safe-and-sound attempts at fun.

I hope to God they don't ruin this.
I hated growing up the way I did, I was always babied too much and every time I fell and bumped something, someone was always there to tell me I was fine.
It only took me until I was 15 to realize that people weren't there and nobody gave a damn if I got hurt or not, and I finally got over it.
I'd want my kids to grow up experiencing everything. So what if they break their arm on a playground? If they stop playing on there because they're scared, you just keep encouraging them, they'll go back when they're ready.
The last thing I wanna do is baby my children and give them hope that I'm always going to be there when they fall down.

Wow, I sound like I'm being a cruel mom.

It's like in the daycare I used to work for. We got new people one day and conveniently two kids ended up knocking into each other and bumping heads. They both fell down, and since the noobies came running to their aid they started crying.
Every time that happens when the usual team is around we just sit there and talk to them. Most likely they'll get up and walk off thinking nothing happened.

I'm a qualified nursery nurse and have been working in a nursery with young children for 3 years. Some of our boys break the stereotypes and like to dress up in the princess dress whilst some of the girls love taking bikes up the hill to ride them down. It is very true, though, about the differences between the genders however at the nursery in which I work we actively encourage all the children to be risk takers; if you don't let them play with a hammer, they won't know it hurts if you whack your thumb. If you don't let them ride a bike at precarious speeds, you won't know that when you fall off at the bottom you are going to get muddy. Children are natural risk takers, it's just part of their development :)