5 ms·

I honestly don't think it's the playground design, it's the parents. There's a school near me with a nice large area great for skating around. Most of the equi

by alx__ 4y ago

I honestly don't think it's the playground design, it's the parents. There's a school near me with a nice large area great for skating around. Most of the equipment is the newer style plastic hunks with soft edges and a rubber mat surface on the ground. Have seen kids there find all sorts of ways to nearly injury themselves. They're having fun like I used to as a kid. And we had the murder bars and fling-yourself-gorounds. Newer designs might only help prevent scraped knees and pinched fingers. Now the kids with their helicopter parents look annoyed and miserable. The kid tries to run and gets yelled at to slow down. They get to excited and told to calm down. Parents will wait at the bottom of slides and catch kids before they have even reached the end. You'll have nosy neighbors calling cops on kids because they're walking down street without parents. We've created a fear bubble around kids and they don't know what danger is. Let them make mistakes! Let them explore their spacial surroundings and fall down!

phs318u 4y ago
> We've created a fear bubble around kids and they don't know what danger is I believe they do know, and its far worse than the danger of a broken arm or sprained ankle. It's the danger of being shot dead. I urge everyone to read this article and imagine yourself as a child being told this stuff and "practicing" hiding and being quiet in an active shooter scenario. Far more terrifying than any playground from the past. https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/life/parenting/a40732/what-to-do-in-mass-shooting/ https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/life/parenting/a40732/what-...
- dragonmost 4y ago
  It seems to be a trend all around the western world but the danger of being shot isn't present outside of the US. I think it's more of a fear culture then a real threat to the children themselves.
  - tasuki 4y ago
    I guess even in the US being shot by a mass shooter is several orders of magnitude less likely than being run over by a car? It appears to be feared disproportionately.
    - christophilus 4y ago
      Recency bias and a tendency to miscalculate the odds of something that is A) awful and B) played on repeat for days. Also, angry reactionaries always demand that the authorities “do something about this!” Those factors pretty much guarantee that there will be a swift, uncalculated, often showy response to public tragedy.
    - CalRobert 4y ago
      It's pretty insidious. Kids getting shot at school is rare, so it's reported on. Kids getting killed by drivers is so common that bereaved parents have to beg and plead and scream at their elected officials to get them to even notice, much less do anything.
    - concordDance 4y ago
      Like a lot of modern problems, the blame partly lies with the news media and partly with mass innumeracy.
    - tomatotomato37 4y ago
      Essentially. I distinctly remember an article about some multi-car pileup a couple days after a mass shooting, and noting that the otherwise unremarkable car accident ended up in 2x the causalities
- asdff 4y ago
  I was in school after 9/11 when they started having terrorist drills and such. It's not like we sat in fear all day. We were kids. We weighed it the same as the fire drill or the tornado drill. Even seeing 9/11 on TV and being of age to vividly remember it and understand what it meant didn't seem to do much of anything 20 years down the line now in terms of traumas in my generation. At least kids aren't being forced to die in a far away war when they turn 18 anymore like they were in my fathers generation and in his fathers generation.
  - threads2 4y ago
    oh yeah, drills were the FUNNEST. Earthquake drills were my favourite. No terrorist drills though, that's pretty American.
- concordDance 4y ago
  Which is ridiculous as kids being shot is extremely extremely low risk. Slightly tricky to get the numbers here as most sources include colleges full of adults under "school shootings" and most school shooters shoot teachers rather than students, but it looks to be around 70 since the year 2000. Which is such a small number that it should be completely irrelevant from a public policy and safety perspective. Heck the nuances of road signage law and hazardous chemical labelling are probably hundreds of times more important. The stress of worrying about it probably costs more life years than the shootings (which average at around one life hour per person).
kqr 4y ago
The thing I don't get is how do these parents have the energy for that? I quickly discovered with my son that if I set the bar much higher than "will he die or lose a limb from this?" then I would be exhausted and done for the day by 10 AM. I love him very much, but I just wouldn't be physically able to prevent every accident. Is there some sort of exercise regime or diet or other lifestyle change that gives you energy for that? (Not that I necessarily want to change that, I'm just very curious.)
- permo-w 4y ago
  it's fear
  - avidphantasm 4y ago
    Maybe part of it is fear of an ER bill you can’t afford or don’t have insurance to cover?
    - citrin_ru 4y ago
      Personal anekdata: I've seen much more unsupervised children in low-income neighborhoods than in upper-middle class ones.
      - threads2 4y ago
        just say anecdote
        permo-w 4y ago
        it's not an anecdote. an anecdote is a single story. this is his/her collection of anecdotal evidence/data. I don't see why they've spelt it with a k though
        citrin_ru 4y ago
        It's just a spelling mistake, I've meant https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/anecdata https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/anecdata
makeitdouble 4y ago
> I honestly don't think it's the playground design, it's the parents. Let's go one more step. It's not the parents, it's the society. Parents don't live in a vacuum, and if you think back to your school days, the kids in your class were probably not writing essays on why they'll want to be watching over their future kids like crazy maniacs for a decade and more until they leave home.
bmacho 4y ago
> I honestly don't think it's the playground design, it's the parents. I don't think that it's the parents. I believe it's entirely the playground design, the laws, and the mentality of finding someone responsible. The parents would be fine if some kids broke bones, get disabled or die, it's a fair trade-off for better playgrounds. But the hands of the playground designers are tied.
- oaiey 4y ago
  It is both. But also it is the administrative effort/cost of a playground. Plastic is easier to maintain than wood. Less dangerous things produce less complaints by helicopter parents. Sand is expensive to maintain (I shuffled 30 tons of sand with some other parents for a kindergarten).
akomtu 4y ago
We are in the "weak men create hard times" phase. Societies have their four seasons too.
sajrar 4y ago
There is another aspect though that my childhood playground looked not completely unlike the pictures but most kids didn't bother using anything. Most kids didn't want to climb on the monkey bars because it was boring after the first few times. The playgrounds I see now while being safer look way more fun and the kids actually use them. There is one near me that while the ground is this almost foam padding the actual playground looks like something from American Ninja Warrior. No kid would pick a bunch of scrap metal over it if given the choice. This whole thread reminds me of Danny Carvey's Grumpy Old Man character from old SNL. Back in my day the playground was 30 foot off the ground and if you fell off they had to amputate your leg.

by alx__ 4y ago

phs318u 4y ago

> We've created a fear bubble around kids and they don't know what danger is I believe they do know, and its far worse than the danger of a broken arm or sprained ankle. It's the danger of being shot dead. I urge everyone to read this article and imagine yourself as a child being told this stuff and "practicing" hiding and being quiet in an active shooter scenario. Far more terrifying than any playground from the past. https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/life/parenting/a40732/what-to-do-in-mass-shooting/ https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/life/parenting/a40732/what-...

dragonmost 4y ago
It seems to be a trend all around the western world but the danger of being shot isn't present outside of the US. I think it's more of a fear culture then a real threat to the children themselves.
- tasuki 4y ago
  I guess even in the US being shot by a mass shooter is several orders of magnitude less likely than being run over by a car? It appears to be feared disproportionately.
  - christophilus 4y ago
    Recency bias and a tendency to miscalculate the odds of something that is A) awful and B) played on repeat for days. Also, angry reactionaries always demand that the authorities “do something about this!” Those factors pretty much guarantee that there will be a swift, uncalculated, often showy response to public tragedy.
  - CalRobert 4y ago
    It's pretty insidious. Kids getting shot at school is rare, so it's reported on. Kids getting killed by drivers is so common that bereaved parents have to beg and plead and scream at their elected officials to get them to even notice, much less do anything.
  - concordDance 4y ago
    Like a lot of modern problems, the blame partly lies with the news media and partly with mass innumeracy.
  - tomatotomato37 4y ago
    Essentially. I distinctly remember an article about some multi-car pileup a couple days after a mass shooting, and noting that the otherwise unremarkable car accident ended up in 2x the causalities
asdff 4y ago
I was in school after 9/11 when they started having terrorist drills and such. It's not like we sat in fear all day. We were kids. We weighed it the same as the fire drill or the tornado drill. Even seeing 9/11 on TV and being of age to vividly remember it and understand what it meant didn't seem to do much of anything 20 years down the line now in terms of traumas in my generation. At least kids aren't being forced to die in a far away war when they turn 18 anymore like they were in my fathers generation and in his fathers generation.
- threads2 4y ago
  oh yeah, drills were the FUNNEST. Earthquake drills were my favourite. No terrorist drills though, that's pretty American.
concordDance 4y ago
Which is ridiculous as kids being shot is extremely extremely low risk. Slightly tricky to get the numbers here as most sources include colleges full of adults under "school shootings" and most school shooters shoot teachers rather than students, but it looks to be around 70 since the year 2000. Which is such a small number that it should be completely irrelevant from a public policy and safety perspective. Heck the nuances of road signage law and hazardous chemical labelling are probably hundreds of times more important. The stress of worrying about it probably costs more life years than the shootings (which average at around one life hour per person).

kqr 4y ago

The thing I don't get is how do these parents have the energy for that? I quickly discovered with my son that if I set the bar much higher than "will he die or lose a limb from this?" then I would be exhausted and done for the day by 10 AM. I love him very much, but I just wouldn't be physically able to prevent every accident. Is there some sort of exercise regime or diet or other lifestyle change that gives you energy for that? (Not that I necessarily want to change that, I'm just very curious.)

permo-w 4y ago
it's fear
- avidphantasm 4y ago
  Maybe part of it is fear of an ER bill you can’t afford or don’t have insurance to cover?
  - citrin_ru 4y ago
    Personal anekdata: I've seen much more unsupervised children in low-income neighborhoods than in upper-middle class ones.
    - threads2 4y ago
      just say anecdote
      - permo-w 4y ago
        it's not an anecdote. an anecdote is a single story. this is his/her collection of anecdotal evidence/data. I don't see why they've spelt it with a k though
        citrin_ru 4y ago
        It's just a spelling mistake, I've meant https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/anecdata https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/anecdata

makeitdouble 4y ago

> I honestly don't think it's the playground design, it's the parents. Let's go one more step. It's not the parents, it's the society. Parents don't live in a vacuum, and if you think back to your school days, the kids in your class were probably not writing essays on why they'll want to be watching over their future kids like crazy maniacs for a decade and more until they leave home.

bmacho 4y ago

> I honestly don't think it's the playground design, it's the parents. I don't think that it's the parents. I believe it's entirely the playground design, the laws, and the mentality of finding someone responsible. The parents would be fine if some kids broke bones, get disabled or die, it's a fair trade-off for better playgrounds. But the hands of the playground designers are tied.

oaiey 4y ago
It is both. But also it is the administrative effort/cost of a playground. Plastic is easier to maintain than wood. Less dangerous things produce less complaints by helicopter parents. Sand is expensive to maintain (I shuffled 30 tons of sand with some other parents for a kindergarten).

akomtu 4y ago

We are in the "weak men create hard times" phase. Societies have their four seasons too.

sajrar 4y ago

There is another aspect though that my childhood playground looked not completely unlike the pictures but most kids didn't bother using anything. Most kids didn't want to climb on the monkey bars because it was boring after the first few times. The playgrounds I see now while being safer look way more fun and the kids actually use them. There is one near me that while the ground is this almost foam padding the actual playground looks like something from American Ninja Warrior. No kid would pick a bunch of scrap metal over it if given the choice. This whole thread reminds me of Danny Carvey's Grumpy Old Man character from old SNL. Back in my day the playground was 30 foot off the ground and if you fell off they had to amputate your leg.