The dulling of American playgrounds (no more monkey bars or see saws)

MSNBC / AP ^ | 7.5.03

[mhking]

ALEXANDRIA, Va., July 5 — The playgrounds, like so much in Gigi McGaughey’s 4-year-old world, are not the way her parents remember. No 12-foot-tall metal slides shimmer and bake in the summer sun. The hulking jungle gyms where girls would hang by their knees, ponytails dangling over hard asphalt below, have been dismantled. It is hard to find those kid-powered merry-go-rounds that used to give giddy gut-level lessons in centrifugal force.

GONE, TOO, are the seesaws where earlier generations learned the art of cooperation and felt the betrayal of a sudden, bruising letdown.

Schoolyards and neighborhood parks have been transformed over the past two decades in the name of safety and in fear of lawsuits. The old standbys have given way to shorter, guardrail-lined plastic-and-steel play structures, leaving childhood experts complaining about cookie-cutter sameness and sterile designs that do not challenge today’s youngsters.

Many parents express a mixture of nostalgia and relief.

[StormEye]

"Guess kids don't play in the woods now either.

Not with the psychos the Liberals have let loose on the country.

[lawdude]

"“The sad fact, though, is that the injuries really haven’t come down significantly. Whether that’s because there are many more playgrounds in use today and more children using them, I don’t know.”"

This is obviously written by someone who is a product of the Pubic Skule Cystim!

Well, let's take a look at it! - We get a factual count of the number of kids hurt by playground accidents in 1951 (totally meaningless info alert *** - I was in the 5th grade that year)

Lets say it was 7,240. Hell, I dunno.. looks ok to me.

Now, how many kids were in school that year? Pulling a scientific number from the nether reaches of my anus, I come up with 15,000,000. (This is as accurate as the munber of people killed by second hand smoke...prolly better).


Now, that works out to .0004826666 or .0482666%. See how easy that is, NEA.

Now we take the same numbers for today.

Oh, we can't get those numbers because they are not kept, they include the kids hurt by Uzis and 50 Cal. sniper rifles. And besides, it is an invasion of privacy (you know ... the one found in the Konstitution).

[EggsAckley]

I love your scientific method!!

LOL!

[Sweet_Sunflower29]

You can't learn to dodge a hurtling rock until you have a few "hurtled" at you.

When my son Joshua was 5, he ran in front of a swing; paying no attention to the fact that someone was using that swing; he then required a trip to the emergency room where it took 6 staples to close the gaping wound in his head.

He is now quite aware of the consequences, and thus pays careful attention when walking in front of moving objects.

[hillyes]

You can never go home...unfortunately.

[Prodigal Son]

He is now quite aware of the consequences, and thus pays careful attention when walking in front of moving objects.

I'm sorry your son had to get staples but what you say is true. There are many hazards in life that we live with nonchalantly. It's hard to learn without getting burned. Visual and/or physical object lessons may be harsh, but they are apt teachers.

[Ben Chad]

We were like little animals when we played as children. The monkey bar fights were probably the tamest thing we would ever do. Great fun- great for improving your grip. Everything else was invariably some form of war involving projectiles, escape and evasion etc. You can't learn to dodge a hurtling rock until you have a few "hurtled" at you.

Us too. Once I got hit by a rock just above the eye that caused a gusher. When I came running home crying, my mom nearly died. I felt sorry for the older boy who threw the rock. After we returned home from the hospital, his mom caught hell like the scene in Christmas Story after Ralph uttered the F word. LOL

[glory]

That's about the time I made the jump too, but they hung around for a little longer and can still be found in lower income areas if you look hard enough or old parks. There is a very small, old park that is part of a historical home here in Ohio and there is on of the merry go rounds there that they mentioned--there is one in the small town of Richmond, Indiana too-we found that one time when we took a break from driving. My daughter, 5, just LOVES the merry go round and see saws.

BTW, I got a black eye when I ran into the cross bar of a swingset(circ 1974) one time while running away from a boy who had a frog!

[glory]

This depends where you live. In larger city suburbs, I have noticed less bike riding and kids out, but we moved to a semi rural area in Ohio(it's on the cusp of remaining rural and becomign a suburb of a larger town), kids ride their bikes on the street here all the time--ages 4 or 5(most of those with parents) on up. Our 5 yr old rides her bike up and down the sidewalk, but she's young and still on training wheels so she has to stay in the very generous area between our neighbors driveways, but for a 5 yr old, believe me, she thinks she's going a mile!

[glory]

I'll never forget this time we were out playing in a fort another kid had built in the woods. I was grounded and couldn't watch "Puff the Magic Dragon" that night because I got home nearly an hour late. I was pretty upset--this was back in the days before videos so you had no idea when you might see that flick again! We had a blast though!

[Pikachu_Dad]

ribbbbit.

[glory]

Hey, you didn't jump off from high enough unless it sent a seering pain up your shins when you landed--LOL

[Dianna]

Now that is a shame. What do they do? If I couldn't go in the woods when I was a kid (for whatever reason) I would at least climb a tree and pretend I was Tarzan. Many many hours spent happily in the woods. I can't think of any more natural place for a kid to play.

My kids play in the woods, ride bikes without helmets, climb trees and my oldest owns a BB gun (but he can only use it while supervised). I admit that I cringe from time to time, imagining injuries, but I force myself to keep my mouth closed.

[Squawk 8888]

Guess kids don't play in the woods now either.

How sad. I grew up in a neighbourhood in Toronto where a forest was behind all the backyards on my side of the street, which was the perfect place to be if you knew you were in trouble. I would hide out all day and stuff myself with wild berries, and by the time I got home my parents were so worried they forgot that they were going to punish me for something :-D

[HairOfTheDog]

I ran away once when I was a kid..... hid out all day (kid-days), but trouble was, when I got back, they hadn't even noticed I'd left.... I now wonder if I was really only gone an hour or two!

Agreed, I love the woods. I now live on acreage with a few trails but no kids, and I practically had to force my friend with her city-raised kid to let her go run and explore on her own.... Parents have a hard time letting kids out of sight now.

[Clintons Are White Trash]

You sound like you grew up on our road! My brothers and I were turned out every day to stay out of Mom's hair and we played in the woods all day. Dirt clod fights were classic. I remember collecting sticks and dirt clods one afternoon then picking a fight with the neighbor kids to have someone to throw them at :).

Our elementary school had a deadly piece of equipment that was great fun - it's the only one I've ever seen. It was called a maypole and was a tall metal pole with chains suspended from a bearing of some kind on the top of it. At the bottom of each chain was a multi grip metal handle. The object was to get a bunch of kids to grab their handle and run in a circle then when you got the momentum going you could lift your feet and fly around the pole for a while. Needless to say metal handles on chains made for great thunks in the head for those not watching, not to mention those who lost their grip when it was really flying and went skidding across the asphalt :). Ahhhh, the memories.....

[glory]

There really is no excuse. It is labor intensive, but a fence will solve any problems a parent who doesn't want to supervise her children may have. It's a great way to let littler ones have at it without mom hovering all the time. We just put one up and my 5 and 3 year old spend hours out there in the sandbox or in the pool or just running around!
It's just easier, I guess, to just plop down 30 bucks for a video game and put the kid in front of it. I wouldn't want my kids to miss out on catching fireflies or dreaming up what cloud formations look like that day or splashing heartily in a kiddie pool. My parents kept us in way too much and I hated it!
Putting up a fence did eat in our budget a some and it was HARD work, but it is so worth it for EVERYONE, especially the kiddos.

[glory]

I was thinking the same thing.

[okie01]

"The heroic Trial Lawyers are hard at work correcting that problem too....."

Trial lawyers and liberal do-gooders have done so much for us. What would we do without them...???

[freedumb2003]

>>There are many hazards in life that we live with nonchalantly. It's hard to learn without getting burned. Visual and/or physical object lessons may be harsh, but they are apt teachers.<<

No, that is where you are wrong. Don't you know that life and the universe are fair? The State has Mandated So. By ensuring that our little Darlings are Protected, Life itself will not put anything (such as, say, a swing set) in front of them. Life will bow to the will of the State. No Bad Things Will Occur.

This is good bacause kids today are not being taught to see and avoid problems, but that problems are magically removed from before them. And of course, as we all know, life works Exactly Like That.