Why safe playgrounds aren't great for kids

"If presented with an overly safe space, they end up seeking thrills and danger that the design didn't account for." This is the exact reason we had competitions for who could jump off the swing from the highest point

I can guarantee that when I was on a playground as a kid I did not play safely. "Hey wanna see who can jump off the swings the farthest"

“Oh boy! A steering wheel in the middle of a wall! This will entertain me for hours!”

Kids on modern playgrounds: slides off the slide, dust themselves off, run to their mom for ice cream because they bored Kids on adventure playgrounds: Trench warfare intensifies

as a kid i would literally want to play more in a ditch, creek or a field with rocks and planks rather than at a playground with plastic toys

This explains why kids tend to run up slides

We definitely tried to make our “safe” playground more risky as kids by climbing on top of the slides, bars, roofs. They definitely have a point here

In the Netherlands, "natural playgrounds" have started sprouting recently. They're essentially small pieces of land, landscaped with small hills, water with stepping stones in them, small wooden bridges, winding paths, and a funicular. They're all about getting kids to go on adventures and figure it out themselves, rather than creating a fixed playground. They're also esthetically really pleasing as they're a small piece of nature.

It’s like a wise man once said “if a kid gets injured, they learn not to do whatever got them injured in the future”

kids should be "safely endangered" in other words, the play should allow them to take risks, but none of the risks should be inherently life-threatening

0:41 that kid is a hero. He isn't putting a nail into the wood, he's just hammering the bare wood. I don't know why, but I find this extremely funny.

Next to my school there was this field that we called “paddock” and we went out to it every day for an hour. In paddock there was a whole bunch of stuff; tires, planks, crates, trees, random bits of broken pottery, tarps, and branches. The kids could build whatever they wanted like dens and obstacle courses and our class even came up with a system for money, the broken pottery shards, the cooler the shard, the more valuable. Sometimes kids would bring stuff from home, like old bedsheets, and we’d make hammocks out of them. It was a really fun experience and I 100 percent recommend that schools have some form of adventure playgrounds.

The problem is the people designing playgrounds are focusing more on looks than play. Honestly modern play grounds look more like modern art then play grounds.

"Kids respond well to being taken seriously" is a very wise observation. If I have kids I really don't want to be a helicopter parent.

"A risk is different from hazard" He's got a point and parents always say "it's too risky" Rather than "it's hazardous"

I just love that this woman saw kids playing in the wreckage of war and instead of just cringing at how sad that was she saw the full potential and decided to capture that spirit of discovery in spite of danger by intentionally setting up spaces in more wreckage to inspire more kids and ultimately encourage the creativity of the next generation. Seriously, props to her for doing something that apparently had a bigger impact than she likely originally thought.

As a child when I saw a slide with a roof on, I’d have just climbed on the roof.

Here's the thing: Theres gonna be that one kid who hogs the hammer and threatens they will hit anyone if someone touches it

I had a 'safe' playground at my school as a kid. I decided to come up with an obstacle course to use every single section of it incorrectly. No injuries, just a lot of flak from teachers and administrators.