Houston Babies
newinhouston
member
Can playgrounds be too safe?
newinhouston
member
I've always been amazed by American playgrounds. No landing on concrete? No high swings and slides? What do you think of playgrounds? how do they compared to the playgrounds when you were growing up?
https://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/19/science/19tierney.html?hpw
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Re: Can playgrounds be too safe?
Interesting article. I miss old playgrounds. I LOVED jungle gyms and monkey bars, tarzan ropes, and tire swings. I was a very acrobatic monkey-child and a daredevil too. So is my kiddo, my mom likes to remind me that "what goes around comes around" and "payback's a ***" LOL
That said, I do think the softer surfaces are good, but I don't remember any playgrounds when I was a child that were built on concrete. They were all mulch, sand, grass or just dirt. I remember a lot of sand. I do really miss all the unique wooden climbing structures. I hate hate hate that pretty much every park has a variation of the exact same primary colored equipment. It is boring. We used to beg our parents/grandparents to take us to such and such park to play on whatever special feature that park had.
The parks near me still have monkey bars and some have some pretty cool climbing apparatus. Donovan Park in the Heights is awesome and full of adventure for kids. All of our parks have slightly different structures. I guess I am lucky.
I was very dismayed to learn recently that merry-go-rounds are no longer being installed in any parks. They were my fave as a kid. I do also miss high, high swings. Of course, I still swing at the park and I am 38.
I think this article probably relates more to NYC. When I was in MA, we went to a great park several times on the campus of an elementary school. It had 2 kinds of monkey bars, a mini zip line-ish kind of thing and tire swings.
I never remember concrete, except at school and that was only under the swings. Everything else was always grass or sand. These days it's mostly mulch or sand.
As much as I loved merry-go-rounds as a kid, the thought of getting on one now makes me turn green.
There is a cool park in Corpus on the bayfront called Kid's Place that I would love to have in Houston. I don't know what it has for climbing, but it is different than anything I have seen here. It seems to be easy for kids to disappear in it, so I'd be a hot mess if I was there with my kids by myself.
Suzi - there is a park on Eldridge before Westpark that has a few more climby things and a fairly high slide. It isn't like the old school ones, but it is one of the better ones I have seen on the west side.
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For the little ones, I like the new playgrounds. For older kids, I think they are really lame.
My elementary school playground had a giant wooden fort. Not like the blah wooden playstructures today, but actual big round logs. It was a fort, it was a castle, it was a ship... There was mulch on the ground. I don't think I've ever seen a paved playground in my life. Dirt, grass, mulch, pea gravel, sand... but concrete seems like a lousy choice for a hard landing and just for making it feel even hotter.
When we travel, I stop in small town parks. The park in Buffalo about halfway up 45 to Dallas has a merry go round. The tiny town my cousins live in has a merry go round, see saws, and a tall slide. Wichita Falls has one of the highest slides I've ever seen in one of their older parks. Scared the crap out of me, but DD loved it.
Oh, Holbrook elementary here in town had a jungle gym... they just did a big remodel so I don't know if it's still there. They took out the see saws about a year ago. They had a decently high slide too, hope it's still there.
Unless you had a big roll of wax paper.
Interesting. I may try that with Evan on the metal side at our park. There are 2 slides, one is metal and one is plastic. His shoes get stuck on them and he is miserable., but I'm not taking his shoes off because of the mulch. I'd probably let him go barefoot if it were all grass.
When I was a kid there was a McDonald's near our house with green metal grate flooring. I was pushed off the top of the slide by another kid and landed on my back and had to go to the ER. A few months later they changed the gound cover to mulch.
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that was the best thing ever! except maybe secretly putting furniture polish on linoleum and pulling each other on blankets. you would fly!!
we actually have some great playgrounds here. there's a huge wood one with lots to do, plus some amazing ones built for special needs kids. There's lots to hear that you play with, and seesaws for kids in wheelchairs and the regular kind of seeesaw. I'm impressed with most of the parks here. but I do miss the big iron climbing things we had, hot as hades sometimes but a good challange to climb.
We went to an "old school" playground with DS recently. Luckily the metal slide was in the shade, or he would have burned his thighs off! However, his shoes were tripping him up b/c he wasn't sure how to keep them up and I didn't want to take them off b/c of the mulch (similar to what pp said).
There was a merry-go-round there, too, and his older cousins started making it go around, and I just imagined him flying off of it. I guess he is only 2, and doesn't get the concept of holding on - an older child wouldn't have a problem with it, but it still seems pretty dangerous. Remember trying to get on or off of one of those things while it was still going? SCARY!