Blue Mountains council says playground safety fences stop kids’ creativity and favour bullies
A WESTERN Sydney council is trying to stop fencing around park playgrounds because of concerns kids feel “caged”. It also says they make it easier for mums and dads to shirk their “parental responsibility” and allow bullies to corner their victims.
NSW
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A NSW council wants to “limit” fencing around play spaces because it “cages” children’s play and stops them from reaching their full creative potential.
The Blue Mountains City Council also said fences can “provide opportunities for bullies to corner their victims” and “reduce perception of immediate parental responsibility”.
Published “Play Guidelines” currently being considered by councillors state:
“Fencing a play space from the rest of an open space limits the scope and variety of children’s play, it effectively ‘cages’ play into a contained space.
“This is not in the spirit of child-friendly places.”
It was also noted fencing and childproof locks “restrict access” and provide the perfect environment for bullies to target victims.
But while the guidelines take issue with fences stifling kids’ creativity, they have no objection to “getting dirty or wet children running off”.
“This is not considered an unacceptable risk. The Child Accident Prevention Foundation of Australia — Kidsafe — says; ‘Kids need to …. make a mess, be noisy, get dirty”.
They acknowledged a portion of kids are “runners” and therefore “inclusive playgrounds and portion of others require some fencing”.
However, “council prefers to limit the fencing around play equipment, as opposed to barriers to dangers”.
Despite their efforts to allow kids greater creative freedom, experts said the guidelines went too far.
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Child and adolescent psychologist Dr Michael Carr-Gregg also said the fences around play spaces afforded parents a well-deserved break from worrying about their kids.
“We should let kids be kids and stop interfering in their and our lives,” he said.
Blue Mountains mayor Mark Greenhill said bullying may be an issue but equally “parents have a responsibility to watch their kids at the park”.
“I’ll be looking to see if the proposal genuinely does what it says it will do but if I think it doesn’t achieve a good outcome for kids then I won’t support it,” he said. “What we adopted are high-level guidelines but each individual park proposal has to come to council to be voted on.”
The play guidelines come after The Daily Telegraph revealed how Australians are drowning under a wave of wowserism. Last week The Daily Telegraph revealed the Australian Defence Force was instructing soldiers to use gender-neutral language in place of terms like “him” or “her”.
And last month The Telegraph broke the story that 1600 childcare centres were banning children from playing with toy guns, plastic swords and even Lego weapons over fears they promote violence.
Australian Childcare Alliance NSW president Lyn Connolly said if a child was to make a Lego gun from blocks then educators should discuss “why it’s not good to have guns and how they can hurt people”.
However, child psychologist Dr Justin Coulson said there was no evidence to suggest playing with guns changed children’s behaviour.