Our playgrounds are stick figures in a Michelangelo world - Why are playgrounds boring?

By Walter Steinwald. (Originally written June 26, 2015.)

Image by Molly Steinwald.

There are too many options for most of our life’s needs. Anytime we go to the store or Amazon we are forced to look at reviews, compare prices, options, styles and on and on. There are alternatives to pretty much any product on the market until suddenly we come to our children’s playgrounds. Any park our family has stopped at from New Mexico to New Hampshire is basically the same: swings, a slide, and some sort of platform. In city parks, National parks, private lands these play areas have withstood the free market force of research driven change or even novelty. Of all the products that could improve with research I think kids’ play areas ranks fairly high. But instead their form has been concretized.

What are the expectations for our kids regarding these play areas? What is the functional vision for these areas? It seems they could come with a plan or instructional booklet, because many are uni-directional, (“Don’t climb up the slide”, How many times have we heard that?) which amounts to running in circles with obstacles. Is this what we take them to the park for? And they have much fun doing this, but kids are amazing. Children trapped in war torn countries play soccer with tin cans and bare feet and have a great time doing it, but there is so much more that could be done. My kids won’t even attempt that game.

Playgrounds hold the potential to see children through a great deal and fill some of what childhood asks, the more obvious being: novel things, physical and mental challenges, and freedom tinctured with safety. Curiosity at times appears to be the motor for the child, driving them on and on, and giving them answers only spawns more questions. What does our basic play area do for this force? Well, unless they’re interested in tensile strength of rubber-coated steel, there’s not much to feed them here.

As far as freedom and challenges…. With nowhere to hide from sight or anything manipulative, I don’t know what kind of freedom these structures offer. As far as a challenge of some sorts, they offer stairs, which sometimes a toddler finds daunting, but other than those there is really nothing to cause alarm. How safe can we make a play place? Well it does seem we have hit the limit some ways back.

We wonder why so many children lack a healthy self-esteem after we have taken away challenges and replaced them with safety. I don’t think we have the ability to believe in ourselves if we are never tested - at least it is more difficult.

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More often then not my family has found these structures in the open with the blazing sun heating the whole place to a searing point. If the swing is a meditative endeavor why is set out in the direct heat, where meditation becomes hallucinating? Where was the market force when we needed it? It appears the impetus for the whole thing is not from the child but rather to the child. I mean to say; it’s a chainsaw for an eight-year-old, a present bought without asking or knowing what the person wants or desires. This is easily grasped by realizing all the parks are the same: climate, culture, demographic has no bearing. These play structures are not the end all, ultimate in fun. We know that there is room for improvement. The parks are built and we bring our children; parents buy play equipment and expect kids to play on it. Have the parks investigated what is useful for play? Have parents investigated what is useful for play? Innovation for play areas seems to be waiting for us to say something.

What are our expectations for play areas? We, parents, ought to set for ourselves a standard of some sort for them, recognizing their power for our children. If you Pinterest or google images “natural play” or wild play” or something to that effect, (which I have done on my blog and you can visit) you can start to see the amazing creativity and challenge and fun that’s out there. I’m sure we know how ingenious our children can be at times. How creative they are and how this creativity builds on itself, becoming richer and more complex. With outdoor play areas we have the ability to nurture these bursts of verve. Once we have a certain notion of play’s ability and breadth we can grade the parks with that scale.

Whatever their design describes, practically speaking through observation this equipment is used from five to nine years of our kids’ play life. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could expand those numbers, so our thirteen year olds found it interesting and fun? What if a fifteen year old could actually “play” with their siblings and enjoy it? Take a look at the Pinterest stuff. There are options out there.

Once we see the problem and are holding the fire what do we do with it? Get involved. We ought to find out who is the person holding the power to change the parks in our neighborhood. What about our homeowner associations and their ability to transform an existing play area or start one? The organizations responsible for the park and play equipment don’t want to spend money. New or novel play places don’t need to be expensive; in fact, it is the cheapest materials that give the most transitional, open play abilities. Logs are great things for kids, piles of dirt, gravel, sand are wonderful, loose toys like sticks for forts, huge stones are all easily constructed and inexpensive. Organized groups can maintain flowerbeds even with edibles in order to complicate the play experience. Possibly a play group could take the local play area away from the city’s responsibility. This would force weekends at the park maintaining and novelizing it. It would be a focus other than sports and school, so whatever one’s preference, I guess.

If we want to see our kids outside, then we need to give them reasons to get out there. The more fun it is to be outside the more likely they are to go.