11 ms·

New Zealand school tossed its playground rules

158 points by cardamomo 13y ago

lnlyplnt 13y ago
This reminds me of this article in The Atlantic: http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2014/03/hey-parents-leave-those-kids-alone/358631/ http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2014/03/hey-pare... We might finally have some reversion from this awful "safety" obsessed parenting trend.
- cardamomo 13y ago
  Great article. A key quote that the editors highlight: “Reasonable risks are essential for children’s healthy development." As a teacher, I want kids to ask questions, explore, and inquire in the classroom. Why shouldn't this extend to physical and social exploration on the playground? It strikes me that in most Western culture, we reward risktaking behaviors in academic and business environments, so why should we devalue it in in childhood recreational environments?
- samsolomon 13y ago
  The Overprotected Kid was a great feature in The Atlantic. If you enjoyed this story I recommend you take a look at it.
bfell 13y ago
This is my favorite quote from the article: “I’ve been the principal who’s stood there and said ‘Oy, kid! Get off your bike! You’ve got to walk your bike!’ Then I’d go away and think ‘Why the hell did I say that?’”
- cardamomo 13y ago
  As a teacher in an after-school program myself, I find myself thinking this or something similar nearly every day. What upsets me is that more often than not, the answer to "Why the hell did I say that?" is not the children's safety, it's that it's what I'm expected to say or that I want to look responsible around other teachers or parents. The fact is, a principal is in a far better position than a teacher to change a school's culture, and indeed, a cultural shift is what is necessary for kids to have greater freedom on playgrounds. As a teacher, I have to weigh not only what I value (kids' freedom and developing understanding of social/physical interactions) but also what the school (administration and other teachers) and parents value.
contingencies 13y ago
I usually live an Asia and often tell local people that the great play equipment available to children there would be disallowed in parts of the west (eg. my native Australia) due to health and safety concerns, generally as a result of mandatory insurance and greedy insurance companies. No longer are swings and see-saws available! Instead, you get a padded piece of artificial plas-floor with a carefully rounded (so when your kid falls on it, they won't bleed - just pass out), mid-height (so you can't claim you didn't see it, but it's not high enough to fall off) not-thing (so you can claim it was custom designed for safety) in funkified ultra-hue (so it's easy to see and you can't claim it was a dangerous obstruction when your kid falls over it and knocks their teeth out). As a result, we are failing to teach our children to cope with the real world.
- mirsadm 13y ago
  I'm from Australia as well. I lived in Canada for a while and we use to joke that when there was snow there'd be signs saying you can't play in the snow.
  - bigfoot13442 13y ago
    Canadian parent here. You are absolutely right and it's ridiculous. Kids are extremely sheltered these days and it's ruining them. I find the problem is that there always needs to be someone to blame. Well, sometimes kids just do things that get them hurt. It's part of growing up. If you don't know what it feels like to fly down a ice covered hill on a piece of plastic, hit a jump, and run smack into another kid, you did not have a proper Canadian childhood.
    - bane 13y ago
      American here, I've been run over by guys on skis more than once at the local sledding hill growing up. My favorite sled was literally a rolled up piece of stiff plastic...fastest thing on the hill and I routinely had other kids wanting a ride.
- vacri 13y ago
  Not just insurance, though that is a factor. Parents get more hysterical over injured kids than they used to. If a kid gets injured, it's more likely for the parents to raise a stink. In ye olde days if a child got injured at the playground, parents would deal with the injury. Nowadays there's more (in relative terms) that would demand what it going to be done and harass the relevant manager. Add in that media love such stories these days, whereas previously the prevailing opinion was "well duh, kids skin their knees when they play". It doesn't take many such parents - you could have a hundred kids and only a couple of parents like this - and you too would be using this super-safe stuff. The other parents could be fine with skinned knees and bruises, but you may as well save your time dealing with the angry parents so you can do the rest of your job. Disclaimer: I am not a parent
jevinskie 13y ago
> “Of course a child is not allowed to kill another child,” Mr. McLachlan said. “One of the rules I said facetiously is kids aren’t allowed to hurt other people. But in fact they are. … If you hurt somebody in a game where you are playing hard, or a boxing match or a stone-throwing competition, for me it’s absolutely fine — as long as the other person was willing to get hurt.” This is a very interesting article but is the administrator being serious when he talked about boxing matches? My American English parses that to mean throwing punches actual physical contact between fists and the body. Surely that is a bad idea?
- sigzero 13y ago
  We had boxing matches in High School.
  - mrottenkolber 13y ago
    Any permanent injuries? This stuff is quite dangerous unless performed with disciplined caution. I would not want to observe kids boxing (ouside a boxing sports club). Hit the throat. Bad day.
    - sigzero 13y ago
      Nope, we had all the gear necessary and instruction.
    - seestheday 13y ago
      Got anything to back up your statement? Everything fight I've seen between two willing participants (not bullying) is that it isn't really very dangerous. I'm 36 and I still love to spar. I do it with boxing headgear, a mouthpiece and gloves now, but when I was young my friends and I always used to fight for fun with no gear. Sometimes it was fists only. Sometimes grappling, kicks, punches. Sometimes it was with hockey sticks. The worst that ever happened was a few bloody knuckles, busted lips or black eyes. When friends or brothers are fighting you know that you should stop if you punch someone in the throat or drop them in any other manner.
siliconc0w 13y ago
I can't see how the the same thing won't happen though - one kid suffers some form of awful permanent damage (or death) and then the rules and safer equipment come back. It seems like the wager the west has generally accepted is that we aren't willing to accept the the gains from 'risky' play compared with the small chance of tragedy.
- smtddr 13y ago
  The problem in the west is law suits. If New Zeland judges throw out any attempts from parents suing the schools, the fun times can continue. All these rules didn't exist when I was a kid in the '80s... http://thestir.cafemom.com/big_kid/165499/21_things_80s_kids_did http://thestir.cafemom.com/big_kid/165499/21_things_80s_kids...
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  - te_chris 13y ago
    As others have said, we have ACC == no personal injury lawsuits https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accident_Compensation_Corporation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accident_Compensation_Corporat...
  - bashinator 13y ago
    The problem in the US isn't lawsuits, it's lack of decent health care. The lawsuits are a forseeable outcome of parents who could be financially devastated if their child has a bad injury.
    - nickonline 13y ago
      Wow, you're absolutely correct. I always assumed that in the US it was because of the litigious nature and never stopped to consider the fact that if your kid breaks their arm it's $10k for the parents to fix it. Thinking about it from the healthcare point of view is amazing.
    - 13y ago
bitwize 13y ago
When I was in elementary school, much of the playground was built out of old car, truck, and tractor tires. There were conventional swings and slides, but there was also a tractor-tire tower to defend, a couple of car-tire geodesic-sphere-like structures, and other such wonders but the jewel was TireTown, a fortress built out of tires with tire bridges connecting to two smaller structures. TireTown was easily two meters high, and an agile kid could easily climb onto the roof and slide down one of the provided poles. All of this was done with materials to hand, not safety-certified foam and plastic, although many of the tires were glued fast together for greater structural support. Nobody batted an eyelash. Nobody complained. This was the 1980s, which I still think of as being not that long ago, but compared to today we had it much better off. Just to be certain, and doubtful that something as wonderful as TireTown would be permitted by today's standards, I checked the satellite images of my old elementary school. All the tire structures -- completely gone. And the playground area seems a lot smaller than I remembered it...
- bane 13y ago
  Yeah, I grew up with something like that too. It was a huge wooden and steel fort. Mostly two, but even three "kid" stories tall. If you fell it was into hard mulch. All manner of unstable bridges, and tunnels and swings and things. Every so often they'd bring the kids out to paint designs on the fort. My favorite were the ones kids painted in the very adult inaccessible tunnel system made out of reused palette wood. It was rare to come home from a day of playing on it without a splinter of a bruise or something. The most awesome piece of a 4 story steel rocket ship. It was incredibly tall and once you got up in the top you could rally some friends together to coordinate shaking it and make some of the other kids cry from fear it would topple over. There was also a huge geodesic dome made out of steel piping (and a couple other various lattice like steel tube structures) that were pretty easy to climb wrong and get hurt on. A couple of the structures were maybe 10-12' tall and made of recycled telephone poles, so you leave the playground with a little tar or whatever they treat the wood with. If you climbed to the top, there was usually a comfortable platform or something to rest on. Any day of the week in summer you could go and there would be hundreds of kids climbing and fighting and fantasizing and falling all over that structure. Today the playground has a small slide and a small set of very safe and boring, very generic, equipment. I've driven by it quite a few times and have yet to see even a single child on it. edit oh and I almost forgot. In one neighborhood, our playground was literally made out of molded concrete. It looked almost exactly like this set. http://www.synthetrix.com/mpe/swisschs.jpg http://www.synthetrix.com/mpe/swisschs.jpg And it was awesome. Since it was so durable, you didn't feel bad scratching it with rocks or throwing rocks at it. It was rough surfaced too so you didn't want to be too tough with it. And if you fell, it was right onto concrete surface. All the interesting geometries and surfaces made kicking balls, or dropping balls and frisbees and things into the concrete tubes loads of fun.
mattchamb 13y ago
Before people say that this school will get sued, it is useful to know that this school is in New Zealand. Because of the way our healthcare system works, we cannot sue for personal injury here [1]. >Because of the wide range of help available from ACC after an injury, you can’t sue for personal injury in New Zealand, except for exemplary damages. This applies to overseas tourists too. [1] http://www.acc.co.nz/about-acc/overview-of-acc/introduction-to-acc/ http://www.acc.co.nz/about-acc/overview-of-acc/introduction-...
- patrickdavey 13y ago
  ACC is possibly the best thing about NZ, and most surprising. For example, you can go hiking (tramping as they call it here), fall down, break a leg... and ACC will fly out a helicopter to get you, bring you to the hospital, patch you up and send you on your way. All at no cost to you. As OP said, this counts for anyone on NZ soil, regardless of nationality. Keeps lawyers at bay. It's great. I know of friends in the US who don't go mountain biking etc. because they're between jobs and can't afford the potential hospital bills. That is simply sad.
  - aunty_helen 13y ago
    'All at no cost to you.' Really? the 400$ a year I pay for my motorbike rego that goes straight to ACC is no cost to me? (I do think it's a pretty good system however)
    - alongenemylines 13y ago
      Compare that to the thousands of dollars an average medical plan in the US costs - and we still have to pay out of pocket for many medical expenses too! I'd much rather pay $400 a year.
      - aunty_helen 13y ago
        The 400$ only covers the use of a bike. There's also 0.95% of you salary taxed for workplace injuries and 1.26% for non-work injuries. Then there's car registration which is about 200$/yr and a tax added to petrol which comes included in the $/Litre cost (they put the figure at 330$/yr). 2600$ is a rough estimate of my ACC levies paid each year. I think there's also some portion of cigarettes and booze that goes to ACC as well. One of the negatives is that when you're in need of an operation but it's not immediately life threatening you're prioritised and end up on a wait list which could be several years long. A bit off topic, but there are definitely good and bad aspects to both systems. http://www.acc.co.nz/about-acc/levies/current-years-levy-rates/index.htm http://www.acc.co.nz/about-acc/levies/current-years-levy-rat...
forgottenpaswrd 13y ago
Am I the only one that looking at what the kids are doing in the pictures consider it totally normal? In Spain we used to do way more dangerous things than those. And it was risky, one of our friends died in the river jumping over a slippery stone and hitting his neck with a stone while falling backwards. I have to say he was pretty nuts and was in constant danger everywhere. Another friend is in wheelchair after jumping badly from a big 20 meters high rock to the Mediterranean sea. We all jumped the rock. It was funny, but you need to know what you are doing. But those are two cases over hundreds of people I knew well over my life. We learned to do bunny hops and do jumps and go downhill. Skiing over rocks outside official circuit. You leaned early on how to manage risks and how to say no when your friends want you into doing stupid things(or you are not skilled enough for the task). I really appreciate those memories(and continue doing risky things like BASE jumping). I have to say that my friends doing risky things now that we are adults never had significant problems. They became experts managing risk and some of them even teach it. So in my opinion total freedom has its drawbacks and is not a pie in the Sky, but it is worth it.
- mathattack 13y ago
  I recall climbing up our 2 story middle school's roof to look for tennis balls that we accidentally hit up there. I can't imagine that happening today. Same with climbing up our house's drain pipe to let ourselves in the 2nd floor window. And the list keeps growing.
  - zhte415 13y ago
    I love the memory of 'recalling' balls. Mainly footballs. Terraced by terraced houses, it was not unusual to scale a 10 foot brick wall (leg-up from friends) - getting back was the hard part. Exiting the school gates to walk up the road (because the particular wall was unscalable, or there were dogs) was uncomfortable: "Ding-dong [at the front door of the neighbouring house]. Please Sir, may we have our ball back?" where a usually polite person would visit their back garden to return a football'. And climbing on the roof of a Victorian structure where sand-brick was weathered sufficiently over a century of school children climbing up it to provide nice pockets and footholds. Is this seriously not the case today? I'm only in my 30s...
_asciiker_ 13y ago
I broke my arm in kinder garden.... what of it?
girvo 13y ago
Man... I'm only 23, and I grew up in New Zealand. This is really cool, but I think the parents are the main factor that needs to be dealt with regarding this general idea. When I was 8, my dad and I built a wood + iron motorised go-kart, and then I drove it all around ours (and the next-door neighbours) property. I crashed hard, broke my arm... and it was awesome. I'm still into high-octane risk-taking fun (I'm currently working getting my solo jump license yay), but I do it as safely as possible. I think learning risk-management is a key thing that kids are missing. I was lucky to have parents that pushed me out of my comfort zone into doing cool stuff (I trained in Taekwondo for 12 years, including 6 months in Busan, South Korea, and got my 16 year old ass kicked for the entire 6 months) -- my brothers also have grown up well adjusted to dealing with risk and excitement and danger. But others I know in my generation and below are afraid of risk, afraid of danger, and I think that's a shame...
- NamTaf 13y ago
  > I think learning risk-management is a key thing that kids are missing. I agree completely. Call it 'common sense', 'street smarts,' whatever. It's having the nous to think through what you're about to do and judge whether you're at risk of ending up in trouble, and it starts with learning the hard way that the branch you're about to stand on to climb up the tree is woefully rotted and is about to give way under you. You can't teach this stuff in classrooms, either. It's really something that has to be learned through running across a slippery piece of ground and falling over. I still remember back when I was 6, I was playing soccer in the school grounds with other kids at lunchtime and went to slide tackle some kid. Turns out he jumped, and I didn't realise until it was too late that there were big wooden plank hurdles right behind him. I slid into them and split my eyebrow open pretty decently (I still have a patch of no eyebrow from the scar, 2 decades later). When the school first aid room called my mum to have her come and get me, she told them that she was busy at work and I'd have to wait a bit. She knew I was alive and not going to get any worse and so knew it wasn't an emergency. Kids get hurt, it's what happens. The other cool thing was that we had quite a bit of bushland on the school grounds and the children were allowed to play in it. We ended up forming fiefdoms and building forts and having little mock wars. It is fascinating to look back at because on top of the flagrant OH&S issues it'd raise (kids stabbing and beating each other with sticks), there was a huge political aspect to it all. Every year, you'd work out which teacher had a classroom clock that was slightly ahead of the rest, and therefore would get out to lunch slightly sooner. Those kids would be super valuable as they'd be able to run to the forts and protect their own / sabotage others freely, before the reinforcements arrived. There was serious negotiation and political power play going on amongst kids and it would've no doubt made a bunch of child development PhDs happy had they known about it. It's hard to quantify, but I am sure that the exposure to this sort of playground environment had undoubtably a huge role in my upbringing and subsequent approach to risk and risk management in life. As such, I've been fascinated by the OP's study for a bit now and I am really glad it's being done. A lot of people talk about the problems with bubble-wrapping children these days and it's going to be good to see if it is an actual phenomenon instead of just rose-coloured reminiscence.
pyromine 13y ago
Interestingly enough I've been on a bit of a kick today researching Sudbury schools that are entirely kid run, and from what I can tell every initiative that gives students more freedom seems to be beneficial. The problem is giving students freedom is often thought of as synonymous to allowing more violent behavior to take place. When rules are put in place to protect victims that is understandable, but most rules instead decide that students should not be allowed to voluntarily choose to do things adults think are unsafe. Honestly, I hope we can break that belief.
tnuc 13y ago
Amazing how people behave better when they have to think of each other instead of some rule that makes little sense. Reminds me of the town in the Netherlands that took out all its street signs and traffic lights. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drachten#Traffic_experiment http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drachten#Traffic_experiment
jamii 13y ago
In London, Parkour Generations runs kids parkour classes (http://parkourgenerations.com/class?classtype=youth http://parkourgenerations.com/class?classtype=youth). While they do have dedicated gyms most of the classes are still run outside, in keeping with the general philosophy of parkour. A lot of what is taught in these classes is not specific physical techniques but instead how to be aware of your own limits, how to push your limits safely and how to deal with fear. The effect on the confidence and maturity of the kids is incredible. The general feeling of a lot of traceurs is that not only do padded floors and crash mats not keep you safe, but that training only in 'safe' environments makes you dangerously complacent. Soft landings disguise lots of dangerous habits and it only takes an awkward angle or a turned ankle to turn that into a broken bone. Anecdotally, my only parkour injury occurred in NYC where (thanks to the wonderfully friendly NY police) I spent a few months only training indoors in a padded gym.
- 2muchcoffeeman 13y ago
  I've been trying to get into parkour for the last couple of years. Just to understand the moves. But it's different from just letting kids run amok. A parkour class actively teaches you the progressions, how to safely bail etc. Not sure I want to remove all the rules. But I definitely agree that kids should be exposed to dangerous situations.
joshfraser 13y ago
A great book on this topic is How to Live Dangerously by Warwick Cairns. He tells the story of a school in Norway that conducted a similar playground experiment. In that study, they had two playgrounds -- a "safe one" with rubberized mats and chaperones keeping a watchful eye and a "dangerous" one with tall structures, concrete, piles of wood, metal poles and no adult supervision at all. Within a couple days, several kids in the dangerous playground had broken limbs or had minor scrapes, but they continued the experiment. Within a couple weeks, the injuries had subsided and the kids in the dangerous playground were exhibiting all sorts of positive behavior. Compared to the "safe" playground, these children were happier, healthier, and more socially developed and getting along better with each other. I did all sorts of crazy stuff growing up. I'm thankful I had parents who gave me a large radius to roam and didn't freak out (too much) when they had to drive me to the emergency room on occasion. The radius for which kids are allowed to play outside has been shrinking dramatically over the past few years. Humans are notoriously bad at risk assessment. We're more worried about child abductions than childhood obesity. Statistically speaking, only one of those is a real issue today.
- az0xff 13y ago
  I still think that if you live in a large city that it's unsafe to let your kid ride on the bus by themselves too early. I might be totally wrong in using this analogy, but just because it's statistically unlikely that I will die in a fire doesn't mean I will tempt fate and use fire recklessly in my home.
- jasonwocky 13y ago
  > Humans are notoriously bad at risk assessment. We're more worried about child abductions than childhood obesity. Statistically speaking, only one of those is a real issue today. Quit talking nonsense. A young boy got abducted mere blocks from where I live not more than 3 years ago. Those parents would give anything to have an obese kid right now. Asking parents to make decisions based on the aggregate damage child obesity does to society rather than the acute damage an abduction does to their family is ridiculous.
  - joshfraser 13y ago
hippoman 13y ago
The probability of one kid being killed or seriously injured in this one school in, say a year is nearly zero so it won't happen and everyone will think it's wonderful. But if all schools do it all the time, you'll start to see some fatalities and brain damages where rules would have prevented them and people will start saying "let's forbid high forts with concrete to fall on" etc. Anecdotal story. As a kid playing in the street I ended up under a moving car. The only reason I'm alive is somebody alerted the driver in time. We don't notice rare accident deaths, but we do notice pervasive safety measures (don't play on the road even in a culdesac anyone?)
ronnier 13y ago
This reminds me of something related. I don't force my children to wear helmets when they ride their bikes. When we are out, people yell at me "Where's their helmet dad?". These are the same type of people who force the removal of swing sets at the parks in my area.
- baconhigh 13y ago
  I would, because I've seen what happens when kids fall off their bikes and hit their heads on the pavement. :(
  - NamTaf 13y ago
    Agreed. IMO helmets are one of those treatments against a low-likelihood, high-consequence risk. The treatment also comes at very little inconvenience, so it's a no-brianer (pun not intended) to choose to do so. Banning kids from riding bikes around cars? I can understand why that's considered a bit too overprotective, but helmets to me seem like a common-sense method of resolving a significant risk with insignificant inconvenience.
    - collyw 13y ago
      You can learn to fall / jump off a bike properly as well. Watch some videos of dirt jumpers, despite doing backflips, a lot of them go without helmets.
  - fineline 13y ago
    Yeah, look I agree with the general sentiment of letting kids take risk and learn responsibility, but my two small kids (who do skateboarding, BMX racing, surfing, rugby and a lot of general "rumbling") are NOT allowed to ride without helmets and I wear one too. I survived not having one as a kid (nobody did then), but I wear one too now, and seriously the upside/downside equation here is a no-brainer. Other than that - let 'em at it!
    - ronnier 13y ago
inluck 13y ago
This is great and can/should be applied to other schools within New Zealand. Extreme restrictions do effect the kids and I believe that having the freedom to learn some valuable life lessons (while they are already absorbing so much) is a massive positive that outweighs the risk of injury. My younger brother came home from primary school (elementary school) last year with a playground "Rule Sheet" -- You should have seen the response to ridiculous rules such as "Children can climb trees as long as they have one foot on the ground at all times." -- Even though the trees mentioned are less than 3-4 metres high. It is a hard thing to manage just due to so many parents and their different styles of parenting but I do think a medium can be reached.
kimonos 13y ago
I give my son his freedom to play but I also make sure that he is away from serious injuries..
will_hughes 13y ago
I moved around a lot as a child, but one of the schools I went to for a couple of years when in primary school was a Steiner school. The school had a large pond, with geese (that would chase and bite you if you got too near), and a school cow that would wander around keeping the grass trimmed. Next to the school was an huge piece of land we used to call the quarry. It was an developed piece of land that had hills with trees and bushes growing all over. I'm sure there were snakes around, there were definitely plenty of large ant hills, and other small critters. Usually once a week our class would tramp over there, and play tag. People would get scratched up running through a bush or fall over and skin a knee. But that was part and parcel of the experience. I think I recall someone breaking an arm or getting a knock to the head when they tripped over something - that was treated appropriately by the teacher. I remember going on a week (or two?) school camping trip up to Queensland; at one spot we found a natural spring pool for swimming and a small waterfall (maybe 5-10 meters high? scarily high for me anyway) - everyone took turns jumping off the waterfall into the pool. Nowdays I look at what schoolkids get to do, and it's none of that stuff. Climb a tree? no way, you might fall and hurt yourself. So what, it's part of living and learning.
tim333 13y ago
I think the school thing is symptomatic of an irrational attitude to risk in general. We're all going to die one day and life should be about having the best experience along the way.
Aoyagi 13y ago
It's sad that in some cultures/places/families this is considered as something "unconventional or even quirky. The modern "children should live in a bubble" overprotective approach is not only making the kids useless for some things in the future, but also causes some mental issues or even disorders of varying severity (but of course, on the other hand, diagnosing every kid with ADHD and every teenager with depression is equally unfathomable for me). There was a TED talk (can't find it, possibly [1]) with some guy describing how he's doing 'dangerous' summer camps for kids. It included fire, sharp tools, etc. That's when I realized the summer camps I went to and I still visit as a supervisor/counsellor/leader would probably be banned and I executed in some places... [1] - http://www.ted.com/talks/gever_tulley_on_5_dangerous_things_for_kids http://www.ted.com/talks/gever_tulley_on_5_dangerous_things_...
tomohawk 13y ago
Self regulation is so much more powerful than externally applied regulation. The law of natural consequences is a very effective teacher. I have to wonder, as regulations and laws and state surveillance increase, does our ability to control ourselves atrophy?

158 points by cardamomo 13y ago

This reminds me of this article in The Atlantic: http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2014/03/hey-parents-leave-those-kids-alone/358631/ http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2014/03/hey-pare... We might finally have some reversion from this awful "safety" obsessed parenting trend.

cardamomo 13y ago
Great article. A key quote that the editors highlight: “Reasonable risks are essential for children’s healthy development." As a teacher, I want kids to ask questions, explore, and inquire in the classroom. Why shouldn't this extend to physical and social exploration on the playground? It strikes me that in most Western culture, we reward risktaking behaviors in academic and business environments, so why should we devalue it in in childhood recreational environments?
samsolomon 13y ago
The Overprotected Kid was a great feature in The Atlantic. If you enjoyed this story I recommend you take a look at it.

bfell 13y ago

This is my favorite quote from the article: “I’ve been the principal who’s stood there and said ‘Oy, kid! Get off your bike! You’ve got to walk your bike!’ Then I’d go away and think ‘Why the hell did I say that?’”

cardamomo 13y ago
As a teacher in an after-school program myself, I find myself thinking this or something similar nearly every day. What upsets me is that more often than not, the answer to "Why the hell did I say that?" is not the children's safety, it's that it's what I'm expected to say or that I want to look responsible around other teachers or parents. The fact is, a principal is in a far better position than a teacher to change a school's culture, and indeed, a cultural shift is what is necessary for kids to have greater freedom on playgrounds. As a teacher, I have to weigh not only what I value (kids' freedom and developing understanding of social/physical interactions) but also what the school (administration and other teachers) and parents value.

contingencies 13y ago

I usually live an Asia and often tell local people that the great play equipment available to children there would be disallowed in parts of the west (eg. my native Australia) due to health and safety concerns, generally as a result of mandatory insurance and greedy insurance companies. No longer are swings and see-saws available! Instead, you get a padded piece of artificial plas-floor with a carefully rounded (so when your kid falls on it, they won't bleed - just pass out), mid-height (so you can't claim you didn't see it, but it's not high enough to fall off) not-thing (so you can claim it was custom designed for safety) in funkified ultra-hue (so it's easy to see and you can't claim it was a dangerous obstruction when your kid falls over it and knocks their teeth out). As a result, we are failing to teach our children to cope with the real world.

mirsadm 13y ago
I'm from Australia as well. I lived in Canada for a while and we use to joke that when there was snow there'd be signs saying you can't play in the snow.
- bigfoot13442 13y ago
  Canadian parent here. You are absolutely right and it's ridiculous. Kids are extremely sheltered these days and it's ruining them. I find the problem is that there always needs to be someone to blame. Well, sometimes kids just do things that get them hurt. It's part of growing up. If you don't know what it feels like to fly down a ice covered hill on a piece of plastic, hit a jump, and run smack into another kid, you did not have a proper Canadian childhood.
  - bane 13y ago
    American here, I've been run over by guys on skis more than once at the local sledding hill growing up. My favorite sled was literally a rolled up piece of stiff plastic...fastest thing on the hill and I routinely had other kids wanting a ride.
vacri 13y ago
Not just insurance, though that is a factor. Parents get more hysterical over injured kids than they used to. If a kid gets injured, it's more likely for the parents to raise a stink. In ye olde days if a child got injured at the playground, parents would deal with the injury. Nowadays there's more (in relative terms) that would demand what it going to be done and harass the relevant manager. Add in that media love such stories these days, whereas previously the prevailing opinion was "well duh, kids skin their knees when they play". It doesn't take many such parents - you could have a hundred kids and only a couple of parents like this - and you too would be using this super-safe stuff. The other parents could be fine with skinned knees and bruises, but you may as well save your time dealing with the angry parents so you can do the rest of your job. Disclaimer: I am not a parent

jevinskie 13y ago

> “Of course a child is not allowed to kill another child,” Mr. McLachlan said. “One of the rules I said facetiously is kids aren’t allowed to hurt other people. But in fact they are. … If you hurt somebody in a game where you are playing hard, or a boxing match or a stone-throwing competition, for me it’s absolutely fine — as long as the other person was willing to get hurt.” This is a very interesting article but is the administrator being serious when he talked about boxing matches? My American English parses that to mean throwing punches actual physical contact between fists and the body. Surely that is a bad idea?

sigzero 13y ago
We had boxing matches in High School.
- mrottenkolber 13y ago
  Any permanent injuries? This stuff is quite dangerous unless performed with disciplined caution. I would not want to observe kids boxing (ouside a boxing sports club). Hit the throat. Bad day.
  - sigzero 13y ago
    Nope, we had all the gear necessary and instruction.
  - seestheday 13y ago
    Got anything to back up your statement? Everything fight I've seen between two willing participants (not bullying) is that it isn't really very dangerous. I'm 36 and I still love to spar. I do it with boxing headgear, a mouthpiece and gloves now, but when I was young my friends and I always used to fight for fun with no gear. Sometimes it was fists only. Sometimes grappling, kicks, punches. Sometimes it was with hockey sticks. The worst that ever happened was a few bloody knuckles, busted lips or black eyes. When friends or brothers are fighting you know that you should stop if you punch someone in the throat or drop them in any other manner.

siliconc0w 13y ago

I can't see how the the same thing won't happen though - one kid suffers some form of awful permanent damage (or death) and then the rules and safer equipment come back. It seems like the wager the west has generally accepted is that we aren't willing to accept the the gains from 'risky' play compared with the small chance of tragedy.

smtddr 13y ago
The problem in the west is law suits. If New Zeland judges throw out any attempts from parents suing the schools, the fun times can continue. All these rules didn't exist when I was a kid in the '80s... http://thestir.cafemom.com/big_kid/165499/21_things_80s_kids_did http://thestir.cafemom.com/big_kid/165499/21_things_80s_kids...
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- te_chris 13y ago
  As others have said, we have ACC == no personal injury lawsuits https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accident_Compensation_Corporation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accident_Compensation_Corporat...
- bashinator 13y ago
  The problem in the US isn't lawsuits, it's lack of decent health care. The lawsuits are a forseeable outcome of parents who could be financially devastated if their child has a bad injury.
  - nickonline 13y ago
    Wow, you're absolutely correct. I always assumed that in the US it was because of the litigious nature and never stopped to consider the fact that if your kid breaks their arm it's $10k for the parents to fix it. Thinking about it from the healthcare point of view is amazing.
  - 13y ago

bitwize 13y ago

When I was in elementary school, much of the playground was built out of old car, truck, and tractor tires. There were conventional swings and slides, but there was also a tractor-tire tower to defend, a couple of car-tire geodesic-sphere-like structures, and other such wonders but the jewel was TireTown, a fortress built out of tires with tire bridges connecting to two smaller structures. TireTown was easily two meters high, and an agile kid could easily climb onto the roof and slide down one of the provided poles. All of this was done with materials to hand, not safety-certified foam and plastic, although many of the tires were glued fast together for greater structural support. Nobody batted an eyelash. Nobody complained. This was the 1980s, which I still think of as being not that long ago, but compared to today we had it much better off. Just to be certain, and doubtful that something as wonderful as TireTown would be permitted by today's standards, I checked the satellite images of my old elementary school. All the tire structures -- completely gone. And the playground area seems a lot smaller than I remembered it...

bane 13y ago
Yeah, I grew up with something like that too. It was a huge wooden and steel fort. Mostly two, but even three "kid" stories tall. If you fell it was into hard mulch. All manner of unstable bridges, and tunnels and swings and things. Every so often they'd bring the kids out to paint designs on the fort. My favorite were the ones kids painted in the very adult inaccessible tunnel system made out of reused palette wood. It was rare to come home from a day of playing on it without a splinter of a bruise or something. The most awesome piece of a 4 story steel rocket ship. It was incredibly tall and once you got up in the top you could rally some friends together to coordinate shaking it and make some of the other kids cry from fear it would topple over. There was also a huge geodesic dome made out of steel piping (and a couple other various lattice like steel tube structures) that were pretty easy to climb wrong and get hurt on. A couple of the structures were maybe 10-12' tall and made of recycled telephone poles, so you leave the playground with a little tar or whatever they treat the wood with. If you climbed to the top, there was usually a comfortable platform or something to rest on. Any day of the week in summer you could go and there would be hundreds of kids climbing and fighting and fantasizing and falling all over that structure. Today the playground has a small slide and a small set of very safe and boring, very generic, equipment. I've driven by it quite a few times and have yet to see even a single child on it. edit oh and I almost forgot. In one neighborhood, our playground was literally made out of molded concrete. It looked almost exactly like this set. http://www.synthetrix.com/mpe/swisschs.jpg http://www.synthetrix.com/mpe/swisschs.jpg And it was awesome. Since it was so durable, you didn't feel bad scratching it with rocks or throwing rocks at it. It was rough surfaced too so you didn't want to be too tough with it. And if you fell, it was right onto concrete surface. All the interesting geometries and surfaces made kicking balls, or dropping balls and frisbees and things into the concrete tubes loads of fun.

mattchamb 13y ago

Before people say that this school will get sued, it is useful to know that this school is in New Zealand. Because of the way our healthcare system works, we cannot sue for personal injury here [1]. >Because of the wide range of help available from ACC after an injury, you can’t sue for personal injury in New Zealand, except for exemplary damages. This applies to overseas tourists too. [1] http://www.acc.co.nz/about-acc/overview-of-acc/introduction-to-acc/ http://www.acc.co.nz/about-acc/overview-of-acc/introduction-...

patrickdavey 13y ago
ACC is possibly the best thing about NZ, and most surprising. For example, you can go hiking (tramping as they call it here), fall down, break a leg... and ACC will fly out a helicopter to get you, bring you to the hospital, patch you up and send you on your way. All at no cost to you. As OP said, this counts for anyone on NZ soil, regardless of nationality. Keeps lawyers at bay. It's great. I know of friends in the US who don't go mountain biking etc. because they're between jobs and can't afford the potential hospital bills. That is simply sad.
- aunty_helen 13y ago
  'All at no cost to you.' Really? the 400$ a year I pay for my motorbike rego that goes straight to ACC is no cost to me? (I do think it's a pretty good system however)
  - alongenemylines 13y ago
    Compare that to the thousands of dollars an average medical plan in the US costs - and we still have to pay out of pocket for many medical expenses too! I'd much rather pay $400 a year.
    - aunty_helen 13y ago
      The 400$ only covers the use of a bike. There's also 0.95% of you salary taxed for workplace injuries and 1.26% for non-work injuries. Then there's car registration which is about 200$/yr and a tax added to petrol which comes included in the $/Litre cost (they put the figure at 330$/yr). 2600$ is a rough estimate of my ACC levies paid each year. I think there's also some portion of cigarettes and booze that goes to ACC as well. One of the negatives is that when you're in need of an operation but it's not immediately life threatening you're prioritised and end up on a wait list which could be several years long. A bit off topic, but there are definitely good and bad aspects to both systems. http://www.acc.co.nz/about-acc/levies/current-years-levy-rates/index.htm http://www.acc.co.nz/about-acc/levies/current-years-levy-rat...

forgottenpaswrd 13y ago

Am I the only one that looking at what the kids are doing in the pictures consider it totally normal? In Spain we used to do way more dangerous things than those. And it was risky, one of our friends died in the river jumping over a slippery stone and hitting his neck with a stone while falling backwards. I have to say he was pretty nuts and was in constant danger everywhere. Another friend is in wheelchair after jumping badly from a big 20 meters high rock to the Mediterranean sea. We all jumped the rock. It was funny, but you need to know what you are doing. But those are two cases over hundreds of people I knew well over my life. We learned to do bunny hops and do jumps and go downhill. Skiing over rocks outside official circuit. You leaned early on how to manage risks and how to say no when your friends want you into doing stupid things(or you are not skilled enough for the task). I really appreciate those memories(and continue doing risky things like BASE jumping). I have to say that my friends doing risky things now that we are adults never had significant problems. They became experts managing risk and some of them even teach it. So in my opinion total freedom has its drawbacks and is not a pie in the Sky, but it is worth it.

mathattack 13y ago
I recall climbing up our 2 story middle school's roof to look for tennis balls that we accidentally hit up there. I can't imagine that happening today. Same with climbing up our house's drain pipe to let ourselves in the 2nd floor window. And the list keeps growing.
- zhte415 13y ago
  I love the memory of 'recalling' balls. Mainly footballs. Terraced by terraced houses, it was not unusual to scale a 10 foot brick wall (leg-up from friends) - getting back was the hard part. Exiting the school gates to walk up the road (because the particular wall was unscalable, or there were dogs) was uncomfortable: "Ding-dong [at the front door of the neighbouring house]. Please Sir, may we have our ball back?" where a usually polite person would visit their back garden to return a football'. And climbing on the roof of a Victorian structure where sand-brick was weathered sufficiently over a century of school children climbing up it to provide nice pockets and footholds. Is this seriously not the case today? I'm only in my 30s...

_asciiker_ 13y ago

I broke my arm in kinder garden.... what of it?

girvo 13y ago

Man... I'm only 23, and I grew up in New Zealand. This is really cool, but I think the parents are the main factor that needs to be dealt with regarding this general idea. When I was 8, my dad and I built a wood + iron motorised go-kart, and then I drove it all around ours (and the next-door neighbours) property. I crashed hard, broke my arm... and it was awesome. I'm still into high-octane risk-taking fun (I'm currently working getting my solo jump license yay), but I do it as safely as possible. I think learning risk-management is a key thing that kids are missing. I was lucky to have parents that pushed me out of my comfort zone into doing cool stuff (I trained in Taekwondo for 12 years, including 6 months in Busan, South Korea, and got my 16 year old ass kicked for the entire 6 months) -- my brothers also have grown up well adjusted to dealing with risk and excitement and danger. But others I know in my generation and below are afraid of risk, afraid of danger, and I think that's a shame...

NamTaf 13y ago
> I think learning risk-management is a key thing that kids are missing. I agree completely. Call it 'common sense', 'street smarts,' whatever. It's having the nous to think through what you're about to do and judge whether you're at risk of ending up in trouble, and it starts with learning the hard way that the branch you're about to stand on to climb up the tree is woefully rotted and is about to give way under you. You can't teach this stuff in classrooms, either. It's really something that has to be learned through running across a slippery piece of ground and falling over. I still remember back when I was 6, I was playing soccer in the school grounds with other kids at lunchtime and went to slide tackle some kid. Turns out he jumped, and I didn't realise until it was too late that there were big wooden plank hurdles right behind him. I slid into them and split my eyebrow open pretty decently (I still have a patch of no eyebrow from the scar, 2 decades later). When the school first aid room called my mum to have her come and get me, she told them that she was busy at work and I'd have to wait a bit. She knew I was alive and not going to get any worse and so knew it wasn't an emergency. Kids get hurt, it's what happens. The other cool thing was that we had quite a bit of bushland on the school grounds and the children were allowed to play in it. We ended up forming fiefdoms and building forts and having little mock wars. It is fascinating to look back at because on top of the flagrant OH&S issues it'd raise (kids stabbing and beating each other with sticks), there was a huge political aspect to it all. Every year, you'd work out which teacher had a classroom clock that was slightly ahead of the rest, and therefore would get out to lunch slightly sooner. Those kids would be super valuable as they'd be able to run to the forts and protect their own / sabotage others freely, before the reinforcements arrived. There was serious negotiation and political power play going on amongst kids and it would've no doubt made a bunch of child development PhDs happy had they known about it. It's hard to quantify, but I am sure that the exposure to this sort of playground environment had undoubtably a huge role in my upbringing and subsequent approach to risk and risk management in life. As such, I've been fascinated by the OP's study for a bit now and I am really glad it's being done. A lot of people talk about the problems with bubble-wrapping children these days and it's going to be good to see if it is an actual phenomenon instead of just rose-coloured reminiscence.

pyromine 13y ago

Interestingly enough I've been on a bit of a kick today researching Sudbury schools that are entirely kid run, and from what I can tell every initiative that gives students more freedom seems to be beneficial. The problem is giving students freedom is often thought of as synonymous to allowing more violent behavior to take place. When rules are put in place to protect victims that is understandable, but most rules instead decide that students should not be allowed to voluntarily choose to do things adults think are unsafe. Honestly, I hope we can break that belief.

tnuc 13y ago

Amazing how people behave better when they have to think of each other instead of some rule that makes little sense. Reminds me of the town in the Netherlands that took out all its street signs and traffic lights. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drachten#Traffic_experiment http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drachten#Traffic_experiment

jamii 13y ago

In London, Parkour Generations runs kids parkour classes (http://parkourgenerations.com/class?classtype=youth http://parkourgenerations.com/class?classtype=youth). While they do have dedicated gyms most of the classes are still run outside, in keeping with the general philosophy of parkour. A lot of what is taught in these classes is not specific physical techniques but instead how to be aware of your own limits, how to push your limits safely and how to deal with fear. The effect on the confidence and maturity of the kids is incredible. The general feeling of a lot of traceurs is that not only do padded floors and crash mats not keep you safe, but that training only in 'safe' environments makes you dangerously complacent. Soft landings disguise lots of dangerous habits and it only takes an awkward angle or a turned ankle to turn that into a broken bone. Anecdotally, my only parkour injury occurred in NYC where (thanks to the wonderfully friendly NY police) I spent a few months only training indoors in a padded gym.

2muchcoffeeman 13y ago
I've been trying to get into parkour for the last couple of years. Just to understand the moves. But it's different from just letting kids run amok. A parkour class actively teaches you the progressions, how to safely bail etc. Not sure I want to remove all the rules. But I definitely agree that kids should be exposed to dangerous situations.

joshfraser 13y ago

A great book on this topic is How to Live Dangerously by Warwick Cairns. He tells the story of a school in Norway that conducted a similar playground experiment. In that study, they had two playgrounds -- a "safe one" with rubberized mats and chaperones keeping a watchful eye and a "dangerous" one with tall structures, concrete, piles of wood, metal poles and no adult supervision at all. Within a couple days, several kids in the dangerous playground had broken limbs or had minor scrapes, but they continued the experiment. Within a couple weeks, the injuries had subsided and the kids in the dangerous playground were exhibiting all sorts of positive behavior. Compared to the "safe" playground, these children were happier, healthier, and more socially developed and getting along better with each other. I did all sorts of crazy stuff growing up. I'm thankful I had parents who gave me a large radius to roam and didn't freak out (too much) when they had to drive me to the emergency room on occasion. The radius for which kids are allowed to play outside has been shrinking dramatically over the past few years. Humans are notoriously bad at risk assessment. We're more worried about child abductions than childhood obesity. Statistically speaking, only one of those is a real issue today.

az0xff 13y ago
I still think that if you live in a large city that it's unsafe to let your kid ride on the bus by themselves too early. I might be totally wrong in using this analogy, but just because it's statistically unlikely that I will die in a fire doesn't mean I will tempt fate and use fire recklessly in my home.
jasonwocky 13y ago
> Humans are notoriously bad at risk assessment. We're more worried about child abductions than childhood obesity. Statistically speaking, only one of those is a real issue today. Quit talking nonsense. A young boy got abducted mere blocks from where I live not more than 3 years ago. Those parents would give anything to have an obese kid right now. Asking parents to make decisions based on the aggregate damage child obesity does to society rather than the acute damage an abduction does to their family is ridiculous.
- joshfraser 13y ago

hippoman 13y ago

The probability of one kid being killed or seriously injured in this one school in, say a year is nearly zero so it won't happen and everyone will think it's wonderful. But if all schools do it all the time, you'll start to see some fatalities and brain damages where rules would have prevented them and people will start saying "let's forbid high forts with concrete to fall on" etc. Anecdotal story. As a kid playing in the street I ended up under a moving car. The only reason I'm alive is somebody alerted the driver in time. We don't notice rare accident deaths, but we do notice pervasive safety measures (don't play on the road even in a culdesac anyone?)

ronnier 13y ago

This reminds me of something related. I don't force my children to wear helmets when they ride their bikes. When we are out, people yell at me "Where's their helmet dad?". These are the same type of people who force the removal of swing sets at the parks in my area.

baconhigh 13y ago
I would, because I've seen what happens when kids fall off their bikes and hit their heads on the pavement. :(
- NamTaf 13y ago
  Agreed. IMO helmets are one of those treatments against a low-likelihood, high-consequence risk. The treatment also comes at very little inconvenience, so it's a no-brianer (pun not intended) to choose to do so. Banning kids from riding bikes around cars? I can understand why that's considered a bit too overprotective, but helmets to me seem like a common-sense method of resolving a significant risk with insignificant inconvenience.
  - collyw 13y ago
    You can learn to fall / jump off a bike properly as well. Watch some videos of dirt jumpers, despite doing backflips, a lot of them go without helmets.
- fineline 13y ago
  Yeah, look I agree with the general sentiment of letting kids take risk and learn responsibility, but my two small kids (who do skateboarding, BMX racing, surfing, rugby and a lot of general "rumbling") are NOT allowed to ride without helmets and I wear one too. I survived not having one as a kid (nobody did then), but I wear one too now, and seriously the upside/downside equation here is a no-brainer. Other than that - let 'em at it!
  - ronnier 13y ago

inluck 13y ago

This is great and can/should be applied to other schools within New Zealand. Extreme restrictions do effect the kids and I believe that having the freedom to learn some valuable life lessons (while they are already absorbing so much) is a massive positive that outweighs the risk of injury. My younger brother came home from primary school (elementary school) last year with a playground "Rule Sheet" -- You should have seen the response to ridiculous rules such as "Children can climb trees as long as they have one foot on the ground at all times." -- Even though the trees mentioned are less than 3-4 metres high. It is a hard thing to manage just due to so many parents and their different styles of parenting but I do think a medium can be reached.

kimonos 13y ago

I give my son his freedom to play but I also make sure that he is away from serious injuries..

will_hughes 13y ago

I moved around a lot as a child, but one of the schools I went to for a couple of years when in primary school was a Steiner school. The school had a large pond, with geese (that would chase and bite you if you got too near), and a school cow that would wander around keeping the grass trimmed. Next to the school was an huge piece of land we used to call the quarry. It was an developed piece of land that had hills with trees and bushes growing all over. I'm sure there were snakes around, there were definitely plenty of large ant hills, and other small critters. Usually once a week our class would tramp over there, and play tag. People would get scratched up running through a bush or fall over and skin a knee. But that was part and parcel of the experience. I think I recall someone breaking an arm or getting a knock to the head when they tripped over something - that was treated appropriately by the teacher. I remember going on a week (or two?) school camping trip up to Queensland; at one spot we found a natural spring pool for swimming and a small waterfall (maybe 5-10 meters high? scarily high for me anyway) - everyone took turns jumping off the waterfall into the pool. Nowdays I look at what schoolkids get to do, and it's none of that stuff. Climb a tree? no way, you might fall and hurt yourself. So what, it's part of living and learning.

tim333 13y ago

I think the school thing is symptomatic of an irrational attitude to risk in general. We're all going to die one day and life should be about having the best experience along the way.

Aoyagi 13y ago

It's sad that in some cultures/places/families this is considered as something "unconventional or even quirky. The modern "children should live in a bubble" overprotective approach is not only making the kids useless for some things in the future, but also causes some mental issues or even disorders of varying severity (but of course, on the other hand, diagnosing every kid with ADHD and every teenager with depression is equally unfathomable for me). There was a TED talk (can't find it, possibly [1]) with some guy describing how he's doing 'dangerous' summer camps for kids. It included fire, sharp tools, etc. That's when I realized the summer camps I went to and I still visit as a supervisor/counsellor/leader would probably be banned and I executed in some places... [1] - http://www.ted.com/talks/gever_tulley_on_5_dangerous_things_for_kids http://www.ted.com/talks/gever_tulley_on_5_dangerous_things_...

tomohawk 13y ago

Self regulation is so much more powerful than externally applied regulation. The law of natural consequences is a very effective teacher. I have to wonder, as regulations and laws and state surveillance increase, does our ability to control ourselves atrophy?