Everyone remembers the blazing fast slide, gut-wrenching merry-go-round or colossal jungle gym they rushed to every recess. Many of us also remember the scabs, scrapes, bruises and even broken bones we collected throughout our elementary school careers.
Changes in playground safety guidelines over the past several years have had a profound impact on the design and operation of the modern American playground. Playgrounds are safer now than the ones we grew up on, and dramatically safer than those of our parents, but some critics aren’t sure that’s a good thing.
A recent study published in the journal Pediatrics explored playground safety by talking to parents and employees at 34 day care centers. Many of those surveyed called playground regulations too strict and believe the newer safer equipment is not challenging enough for children.
While some playgrounds certainly are boring, their dullness stems from poor design, not their adherence to safety concerns. Safer versions of most of the playground equipment we remember from our childhoods are available. Some new equipment, like giant flexible rope climbers, is even more fun than old metal jungle gyms with the added benefit of not cracking open a falling child’s skull.
Arguing that playgrounds should return to the jungle gyms and Tarzan swings on concrete slabs of our parents’ generation is completely ridiculous. Parents who believe their children would be better off if they just toughened up and played without safety regulations are whitewashing their childhoods and ignoring a growing body of playground safety research.
Biological engineering professor Marybeth Lima has worked with local public schools for more than a decade to design, fund and build 26 playgrounds for budget-strapped public schools in the Baton Rouge area. Lima is an advocate for playground safety but is also a firm believer in the importance of active adventurous play.
Lima finds the current national dialogue on playground safety disturbing.
“Focusing national attention on potential psychological damage from children falling from a lower height to a protected surface is a non-issue,” Lima said.
Debating whether a playground is too safe is a luxury for Lima, who believes the national discussion on playgrounds should be more concerned with availability, accessibility and the involvement of caregivers.
Those hoping to toughen up their children or siblings will be pleased to know children can still hurt themselves falling from monkey bars onto protective surfacing, but the chances of their suffering a catastrophic head injury is significantly reduced.
The US Consumer Product Safety Commission investigated 40 playground-related deaths from 2001 to 2008. Personally, I am against children dying on playgrounds and I have no sympathy for lovers of Tarzan rope swings or other possible head entrapments, since 27 of those fatalities were the result of hanging or asphyxiation.
Many critics of stricter playground regulations seem blinded by their nostalgia for their youth. In the 1990s, New York City Parks Commissioner Henry Stern protected a specific jungle gym he remembered playing on as a child, saying, “As long as I was parks commissioner, those monkey bars were going to stay.”
Opponents of new playground safety requirements like Stern want to share their childhood experiences with the next generation, but fond memories should not outweigh empirical evidence.
Playground-related injuries are currently the second-most common reason children visit emergency rooms, with more than 200,000 children ages 14 and younger treated annually. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 45 percent of these visits involve severe fractures, internal injuries, concussions, dislocations or amputations.
If anything, these numbers make a case for stricter adherence to safety guidelines since many injuries are caused by old or poorly maintained equipment. A lack of safety surfacing under climbers and swings creates a serious risk for life-threatening head injuries, but some nostalgic parents long for the days when playgrounds sat on concrete or asphalt slabs.
Everyone seems to believe he or she is an expert on playgrounds because we all spent hundreds of hours on them growing up, but we are simply not qualified to accurately assess safety risks on playgrounds any more than those of us who drive are qualified to build a safe car.
Playground designers like Lima are not trying to limit children, but set them free to explore and realize their potential without risking life and limb every recess.
Andrew Shockey is a 21-year-old biological engineering junior from Baton Rouge. Follow him on Twitter @TDR_Ashockey.
 
____
Contact Andrew Shockey at [email protected]