Susie O’Brien: Playground risks were once all part of child’s play

By replacing individual, old playgrounds with uniform play spaces, we’ve turned our back on the idea that it can be good to let kids take risks.

Growing up in the 70s and 80s, we’d double-dink on our Malvern Star bikes, swing off the clothes line onto deathtrap trampolines covered in dishwashing liquid and burn our legs on sizzling metal slides.

It was a time with no helmets, no seatbelts, no bans on birthday cakes, no gluten-free, no indoor play centres and no tan bark to break our fall.

Back then playgrounds were fun. We took risks. We got scared. We got bullied into things by older siblings. And yes, sometimes we got hurt. But we also learnt to push ourselves and test our physical abilities.

A planned overhaul of the much-loved Rocket Park in Hawthorn — officially called Central Gardens — has prompted an outpouring of nostalgia for old-style playground equipment in recent weeks.

The rocket, you will not be surprised to find, doesn’t meet current safety standards and may be either replaced or — more likely — modified. It’s a tall metal structure with three platforms and a ladder in the middle.

It’s different and it’s fun — although I didn’t feel that way when I had to climb up it to rescue my kids who would always refuse to climb down when it was time to go.

Today’s way is to assume everything is unsafe, everyone’s about to sue and everything fun and a bit risky needs to be removed.

Everyone suffers because of the possibility of a non-existent unlikely risk that hasn’t ever happened before. Unique, individual old playgrounds are being pulled out and replaced with uniform play spaces with the same boring equipment.

Monkey bars — which haven’t changed in years — are also being replaced with spiral nets because they’re thought to be unsafe.

A planned overhaul of the much-loved Central Gardens has prompted an outpouring of nostalgia for old-style playground equipment in recent weeks.

In a generation we’ve turned our back on the idea that it can be good to let kids take risks. A recent survey of shows parents who were allowed to roam around their own neighbourhoods until the sun went down are raising children who spend most of their days inside under adult supervision.

They don’t leave the house with friends, they don’t play outside unless it’s a scheduled activity and they can’t take risks in playgrounds designed for safety, not fun.

It’s a reflection of today’s society — no kid wins or loses, no one gets punished, and for every put-down they hear, they get three “put-ups”.

But would you believe that as playgrounds are getting safer, injury levels are increasing?

Monash Uni accident data shows the rate of childhood falls (mostly due to playgrounds) went up by 21 per cent between 1998 and 2012.

Surely this is because kids are losing their sense of what’s dangerous and because they rarely get out of their comfort zone?

Paediatricians call this “systematic avoidance of risk”. But it’s also because kids are doing less muscle-strengthening physical exercise than when we were kids. Back then we’d just calling it playing.

I don’t blame people for wanting to be able to raise their kids the way we were raised. But it seems the world has moved on, and many of the parenting practices of these past eras are now seen as lazy, crazy or neglectful.

There are a few things around today that have improved our quality of life, like bike helmets, car seats and cages on trampolines.

But it also feels like we’ve lost a lot too — and I don’t just mean our first-issue footy cards from the 1980s that are probably now worth a gazillion dollars.

Many of the icons of our childhood are now too unsafe and too risky for our own kids to be allowed to enjoy.

Talk to a few midults — adults in their midlife — and they’ll tell you about all the fun they had getting run over by a train in one playground, climbing on a big rusting locomotive, going on Arthur’s Seat when it was just small metal chair with a little bar over the front and playing on metal rollers left to rust in the corner of parks. We’d break our arms on monkey bars and burn our legs on metal slides. Sure, those slides were dangerous. But we knew that if it sizzled when you spat on it, it was too hot to go on.

See? Kids find a way to look after themselves. Back in the 70s and 80s, we didn’t have a choice. Now kids don’t get a chance.

Susie O’Brien is a Herald Sun columnist
Her new book, The Secret of Half-arsed Parenting is out now

[e-mail]