Friday, August 9, 2019

A place to play

I recently visited a park that I had known in my childhood. Yes, it looked smaller than I remembered, but the swings still squeaked, the slide was still made of metal burning up in the hot sun and the monkey bars didn't have a soft ground to land on.

I watched my son play on that equipment and thought about the more modern park next door. It was made of the molded interlocking plastic, had a recycled tire ground for a soft bounce, and safe areas to jump, climb and play.

Neither of these would be something that children would pass up.

Playgrounds are a curious thing - they are a mix of controlled and uncontrolled play: Adults design them for one purpose, and yet I hardly every see children playing on them the "right" way. They climb up slides, they jump off edges, they crawl over the tops of things. To them, there is no "right" way to play. There is just play.

And that is the way it has always been

I stopped trying to direct my son on the playground the moment he didn't need me to catch him at the bottom of the slide. There is no use in asking if he can climb something, or for him to show me how he can hang upside-down from the monkey bars. I am interrupting his playtime.

And that is no fun.

What was your favorite piece of playground equipment when you were young? Tell me in the comments.

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