Today's playgrounds may be too safe, critics warn

[Pete]

Today's playgrounds may be too safe, critics warn

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/43810459

"...............By gradually exposing themselves to more and more dangers on the playground, children are using the same habituation techniques developed by therapists to help adults conquer phobias, according to Dr. Sandseter and a fellow psychologist, Leif Kennair, of the Norwegian University for Science and Technology.

“Risky play mirrors effective cognitive behavioral therapy of anxiety,” they write in the journal Evolutionary Psychology, concluding that this “anti-phobic effect” helps explain the evolution of children’s fondness for thrill-seeking. While a youthful zest for exploring heights might not seem adaptive — why would natural selection favor children who risk death before they have a chance to reproduce? — the dangers seemed to be outweighed by the benefits of conquering fear and developing a sense of mastery.

“Paradoxically,” the psychologists write, “we posit that our fear of children being harmed by mostly harmless injuries may result in more fearful children and increased levels of psychopathology.” ..............."

And interesting story. Kinda' goes along with getting rid of kick ball, dodge ball, et al in school to protect feelings.

[Badger52]

Originally Posted by Pete

Kinda' goes along with getting rid of kick ball, dodge ball, et al in school to protect feelings.

WHAT?!?

Maybe that's the reason the little gymnastics/rope climb/rappelling board/rope bridge/climb-like-a-monkey mini-AirAssault facility down at the HS ballfield still looks pristine - someone with huevos donated the $$ to have it built, apparently to be proctored by people with 12-lb personal boo-boo kits afraid of being sued. No one's used it. When daughter's home on leave she looks longingly, wishing she'd have had one when she was growing up. What the heck is going on?

[Richard]

Playgrounds?

We had huge oak trees to climb and where we could build tree forts, haystacks to move bales to make tunnels and hay forts, large dairy barns to climb up in the rafters and chase owls, old iron trestle bridges 30'-60' above the water to jump off of into the rivers, ropes tied to trees on the riverbanks to swing out over the water and drop, threshers and other equipment to climb on and play, dams on non-navigable rivers with spillways to toube down, critters to chase, etc.

Playgrounds were for city kids.

Richard

[Slantwire]

Originally Posted by Richard

Playgrounds?

Playgrounds were for city kids.

Byline is New York Times. I think New York has a couple of city kids.

[akv]

A different culture, a different time, an exerpt from Nitobe's Bushido: Soul of Japan (1905) show's the other end of the spectrum. Japan moved away from this stuff after WW2, though perhaps in some small way the remnants of such views explain the absense of looting during the Tsunami?

Valour, Fortitude, Bravery, Fearlessness, Courage, being the qualities of soul which appeal most easily to juvenile minds, and which can be trained by exercise and example, were, so to speak, the most popular virtues, early emulated among the youth. Stories of military exploits were repeated almost before boys left their mother's breast. Does a little booby cry for any ache? The mother scolds him in this fashion: "What a coward to cry for a trifling pain! What will you do when your arm is cut off in battle? What when you are called upon to commit hara-kiri?"

We all know the pathetic fortitude of a famished little boy-prince of Sendai, who in the drama is made to say to his little page, "Seest thou those tiny sparrows in the nest, how their yellow bills are opened wide, and now see! there comes their mother with worms to feed them. How eagerly and happily the little ones eat! but for a samurai, when his stomach is empty, it is a disgrace to feel hungry." Anecdotes of fortitude and bravery abound in nursery tales, though stories of this kind are not by any means the only method of early imbuing the spirit with daring and fearlessness.

Parents, with sternness sometimes verging on cruelty, set their children to tasks that called forth all the pluck that was in them. "Bears hurl their cubs down the gorge," they said. Samurai's sons were let down to steep valleys of hardship, and spurred to Sisyphus-like tasks.

Occasional deprivation of food or exposure to cold, was considered a highly efficacious test for inuring them to endurance. Children of tender age were sent among utter strangers with some message to deliver, were made to rise before the sun, and before breakfast attend to their reading exercises, walking to their teachers with bare feet in the cold of winter; they frequently--once or twice a month, as on the festival of a god of learning,--came together in small groups and passed the night without sleep, in reading aloud by turns.

Pilgrimages to all sorts of uncanny places--to execution grounds, to graveyards, to houses reputed of being haunted, were favourite pastimes of the young. In the days when decapitation was public, not only were small boys sent to witness the ghastly scene, but they were made to visit alone the place in the darkness of night and there to leave a mark of their visit on the trunkless head.

Does this ultra-Spartan system of "drilling the nerves" strike the modern pedagogist with horror and doubt?

http://www.sacred-texts.com/shi/bsd/bsd09.htm

[Ret10Echo]

Originally Posted by Slantwire

Byline is New York Times. I think New York has a couple of city kids.

Any playgrounds that were wandered into were simply a baseline for activity. Who actually hung from the monkey-bars? It was better to stand on TOP of the monkey-bars, dive across the open space and attempt to grab the chin-up bar that was about 8-10 feet distant.


Swings were not to swing in...they were launch platforms for distance and acrobatic attempts usually ending up with pancake landings and moments semi-consciousness.

THAT was what a playground was for....

[Dusty]

My Dad was ahead of his time on the safety issue-he bought .39 cent sunglasses for all the neighborhood kids who had bb gun wars around my house.

[BOfH]

Seriously?!

Whats childhood without a few bumps, bruises and broken bones?

This isn't new, I recently built a swing set for my children and my mother-in-law read me the riot act on how dangerous swing sets are, in the meantime, my wife's siblings were quite accident prone in their younger years, no matter how hard my mother-in-law tried to wrap them in veritable bubble wrap... Makes you wonder...

[PedOncoDoc]

Part of the reason we moved into our chosen home is that the back yard opened into a city park with a merry-go-round, multiple slides and "jungle gyms" for our kids to climb on (and fall off from).

I've seen a few broken bones back there (the parents know I'll check them out and bring 'em home if they need additional attentoin), but it's good seeing kids congregate in an area that can be monitored by parents from afar for predators.

I often send my son out there with some wooden swords for the boys to swing at each other; but the BB gun comes out only when there's no one in the park at this point.

[mugwump]

Originally Posted by Dusty

My Dad was ahead of his time on the safety issue-he bought .39 cent sunglasses for all the neighborhood kids who had bb gun wars around my house.

..and rags stuffed down the pants to protect the 'nads. My Mom insisted. The rich kids fired strike-anywhere kitchen matches out of .22 Crossman pellet guns.

[XJWoody]

We used to have lots of fun climbing out the 2d story window, jumping off, and PLFing onto the grass or snow. "Geronimo" If any of us broke something, we never claimed it, and things were All OK!

Mum caught us one afternoon, liked to have a stroke, and shut down BAC Just like a Leg to nix good training. We adapted, and moved operations further away from the flagpole.

Most of my licks were delivered via poor bicycle skills. Evel K was the dude back then, and that led to some interesting new variations of pain. Slow & Tender meet Stopped & Unyielding. Rinse & Repeat. We were early adopters of helmets (MX style) but that was something bro & I took on, it wasn't a command from the tower, just made lots of sense. The jumps and courses were getting less kid-like.

I don't know that I'd say the playground areas I've seen lately are gelded too far from the ones I remember. I agree with the mulch or something softer than nat. ground, below & around the apparatus. (I use bark mulch around the swing-set at the house too) It's cheap & serves a purpose.

We're coming to a point where I want to get my 4yo granddaughter a Honda 50 mini-bike. Grandma has leg genes, and is somewhat against. I already have her a helmet, but would enforce eye-pro, long pants/shirt gloves/boots too...

I'm of a notion that folks should world-proof their own, not child-proof the world. Especially not if their wanting to pick my pocket to fund their proposed endeavor.

[Shadow1911]

All right, c'mon now... who didn't make out on the merry-go-round when it got dark? Playgrounds were the best.

Not so bad during the day, but you had to bring some ropes. Made it a lot better.

[rdret1]

We can't be too adventurous now! Our kids might get hurt!

[Richard]

Originally Posted by rdret1

We can't be too adventurous now! Our kids might get hurt!

I used to send my boys out to spend time with my ffolkes and brother on the ranch where I grew up just to let them do "BOY DOG" stuff - jump, climb, dig, wander, wade, get bit, sweat, work, build, dig fence post holes and put in a fence line, operate and repair equipment, step on nails, help deliver and nurse animals, eat fruits and veggies straight out of the garden and orchard, butcher, dig out a stuck TD9, etc. Topical antibiotics (mercurachrome in my day), bandaids, and a periodic tetanus shot work wonders when letting males grow up to be...well...males.

I've never regretted it and neither have they.

Richard

[rdret1]

Originally Posted by Richard

I used to send my boys out to spend time with my ffolkes and brother on the ranch where I grew up just to let them do "BOY DOG" stuff - jump, climb, dig, wander, wade, get bit, sweat, work, build, dig fence post holes and put in a fence line, operate and repair equipment, step on nails, help deliver and nurse animals, eat fruits and veggies straight out of the garden and orchard, butcher, dig out a stuck TD9, etc. Topical antibiotics (mercurachrome in my day), bandaids, and a periodic tetanus shot work wonders when letting males grow up to be...well...males.

I've never regretted it and neither have they.

Richard

That is how I grew up. Mom had no idea where I was, other than within a 5 mile radius, about half the time. I ran my own trap line for beaver, coyote, bobcats, raccoons and such from the time I was 12. I lost a bunch of traps one cold winter morning when I piled my horse into the creek. It was deeper than I thought. By the time I got home, I had a layer of ice on my chaps, my coat, everywhere. After I warmed up, dad told me to get a pitchfork and go find them. They were expensive. I found evey one of them.