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On a recent morning at the Bay View Elementary School playground, a small group of kindergarten boys is racing around enjoying an impromptu recess.

The twisty slide is a focal point on this day, and as the boys clamber on and off like excited monkeys, not one of them is remembering the rules.

"On your bottom," shouts Sue Helms, a teacher's assistant, over and over again. "Don't climb up. That's not safe. If I see you do that again, I'm going to have to sit you out," she cautions, clearly frazzled by the daunting task of corralling and controlling such an energetic group.

Her tallest order is to enforce the "no running" rule in the concrete play area.

"It's almost impossible to get them to stop running. That's

where their natural instincts are, to run. I try to get them to skip or to gallop instead," Helm said.

Such rules are part of a popular and decade-long movement nationwide to reduce injury rates by taming play in public places.

California is just one of more than a dozen states that has legislated compliance with safety standards developed by the Consumer Product Safety Commission and the American Society for Testing and Materials.

So, at Bay View Elementary, as at all local public schools, administrators are implementing a much stricter safety code than in previous years, both in the choice of new playground equipment, and in the commitment to maintaining it.

The height of swings, slides and monkey bars has been

lowered, surfacing underfoot is cushier, ropes are gone to prevent entrapment, attachments like bolts and screws are concealed - and any project tied to public funding requires clearance from a certified playground inspector.

"When we're dealing with how to spend our facilities dollars, we put health and safety as No. 1," said Alvaro Meza, assistant superintendent of business services at Santa Cruz City Schools, which spent more than $12,000 last year just to replenish cushioning like wood

chips on its four playgrounds.

"(Kids) have more fun because they're safe and secure," he said. "It allows for a more relaxed environment."

OLD-TIME FAVORITES NO MORE

But a parallel movement, brought to the fore by new research, has some parents and educators questioning these new standards, and lamenting the disappearance of such age-old kid favorites as merry-go-rounds, seesaws, and flat-seated or high flying swings, all now almost extinct in public play areas.

"The evolution of playground equipment has been to this ever safer, less challenging, less interesting assemblies of equipment," said Gever Tulley, founder of Brightworks, a private school in San Francisco geared around hands-on learning, and author of

"Fifty Dangerous Things (You Should Let Your Children Do)."

"Being able to jump off a swing is actually a useful and meaningful thing for a child to do ... those are the tests that help us understand the limits of our body. That's a positive learning experience that we deny children on a regular basis," Tulley said, adding that modern playground design is fear-based rather than based on what's best for children, or even on sound injury data.

"The idea that we can make all things safe for all behaviors is in itself a dangerous and slippery slope," he said.

Tulley's premise is echoed by new research like a January article in the journal Pediatrics in which authors conclude an overwrought concern for injury-free child care

centers has homogenized playgrounds to the point they are considered boring and physically unchallenging by the children they serve, some of whom even choose to sit out active playtime as a result.

Last summer, a report in the journal Evolutionary Psychology, led by Norwegian psychologist Ellen Sandseter, created a buzz with the idea that risk-taking on the playground is an important part of childhood development, and that fast-moving, spinning apparatus, as well as the chance to experience heights allows kids to achieve increasing levels of mastery and thus be less fearful people later in life.

"Children learn to protect themselves when they get hurt, through occasional accidents and occasional impacts," said Tony Hoffman, a

UCSC lecturer in child development. "Developmental psychologists have known for 50 years that kids need to take risks and engage in their natural environment through direct experience," he added.

At Mountain Elementary School, a small public school in the Soquel Hills, a fully compliant play structure was installed last year. It features a "caterpillar," a modified seesaw, and "the wheel," a large suspended spinning wheel from which one can dangle by the arms.

"We wouldn't have put in a bolt ... without having it formally inspected and meeting all of the safety guidelines," said the school's superintendent, Diane Morgenstern. "For me it's piece of mind.

"If children can have the same experience dropping from 2 or 3 feet as they can dropping from 5 or 6, I'm going to go for the low risk equipment for the high reward. So that's the win-win," she said.

INJURIES NOT DECREASING

Ironically, despite the push for safer equipment, the numbers for playground accidents have remained fairly constant nationwide during the past decade. They have come down slightly statewide, where about 15,000 injuries (usually the result of falls, the most common injury being fractures) were treated and released at emergency rooms last year, according to the California Department of Public Health.

In Santa Cruz County, that number hovers around 125 injuries annually; there have been no local fatalities since the data has been tracked.

"Structures are built for a certain age level but what I observe in a park is people don't pay attention to that," said Bob Olson, park planner for the Santa Cruz County Parks Department.

Olson posits theoretically safer equipment is not enough to prevent kids from getting hurt if it doesn't come with vigilant adult supervision.

Tulley, author of "Fifty Dangerous Things," goes further to say the more you focus on safety at the expense of fun, the more risk-loving kids will push the boundaries. Take, for example, the now defunct monkey bars, high up and over concrete. He said in many cases this is a safer choice than lower monkey bars with padding underneath.

"There is nothing subtle about concrete ... you recognize the dangers implicitly or inherently because they are so obvious," he said.

"[Children] will play harder until they'll achieve that same level of adrenaline and excitement," he said. "If you put them on padded monkey bars, they'll jump rope on top of them."

LIABILITY RULES

Whatever the reason for the constancy in injury data, educators and park designers said they don't feel hampered by safety parameters when deciding how to furnish a playground.

"Things are more innovative now. If you look at what was in parks in the early 70s, there was a swing set, a slide, a chin-up bar and a merry-go-round, real basic things," Olson said. Now, he has climbing walls, spider-web-like "space nets", themed fantasy play areas, as well as modified seesaws, tire swings and merry-go-rounds, to choose from.

And even though newer playground equipment may not be dramatically bringing down the injury numbers, the fact it meets industry standards for safety offers invaluable protection from lawsuits, said Betsey Lynberg, the county's assistant director of public works.

"We do have to look at our exposure. If it were a different legal system in the country, you might see different results (on the playground)," she said. "It can cost the government a lot of money if someone is hurt."

Lynberg also noted that a different liability standard at county skate and bike parks allows kids an opportunity to take risks if that's what they are looking for.

Playground injuries by the numbers

200,000: Total number of playground-related injuries nationwide.

0: Number of playground accident fatalities in Santa Cruz County since data has been tracked.

9: Inches of loose-fill material required under most playground apparatus.

4: Number of playground accidents requiring hospitalization in Santa Cruz County in 2009. The number has been in the single digits for more than a decade. In 1993, that number was 3.

89: Percentage of playground injury cases requiring hospitalization due to fractures. Forty-five percent of ER visits in the state were to treat fractures.

Figures compiled by California Department of Public Health, the Centers for Disease Control and the Consumer Product Safety Commission.

For more information

To read more about research or safety standards mentioned in this article visit: http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/129/2/265.full?sid=00f6ff89-b81a-4132-b4a6-748ede10bcab

 

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http://www.cpsc.gov/CPSCPUB/PUBS/325.pdf