More articles :)
Feb. 2nd, 2012 07:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
conuly
Fun and Play Are Key to Survival for Bears, Dogs, Humans, Birds and Maybe Even Ants
New Playgrounds Are Safe—and That's Why Nobody Uses The
I've said it before and I'll say it again: playgrounds are designed differently than they were when we were young, and some of that is safety but a lot of it is a totally different idea of how the space should be used. Everybody always mentions "No more seesaws!" as their big bugaboo, but I'm not convinced that seesaws are less common simply for safety reasons. Rather, I suspect they're less common because they take up a lot of space, can really only be used in one or two ways (which don't as easily lend themselves to imaginative play as some newer concepts do, although kids always find a way), and can only be used by a very few children at a time. Safety is probably part of it, but I doubt it's all of it. (Of course, that doesn't mean that boring, uninspiring but "safe" playgrounds using older concepts of isolated structures don't exist. Of course they do. But there were boring playgrounds 50 years ago as well. And the children walked uphill in the snow both ways to play there, in the boring playgrounds, and they liked them anyway, right?)
And finally, a nice long clip about an outdoor "kindergarten" (in the more European sense of "preschool through age 5" rather than in the more American sense of "five year olds' class") in Norway. Many of the comments are in reply to some inane woman who is just terrified at seeing a knife in a 5 year old's hand or watching a small child light a match with guidance and a grown-up right there supervising.
"What could have happened!" Well, I suppose the match could have dropped into the child's clothing and he'd've had to stop drop and roll, as we tell them in America. But nothing did happen, and it's far better to teach a child how to light a fire safely than to risk that they'll get into the matches one day and NOT light a fire safely. "It's so scary seeing a five year old holding a knife!" It's so scary seeing a five year old who is unable to cut her own food at lunchtime. Hell, Ana went to open a can of tuna the other day and, as she didn't immediately see the can opener, hacked at it with a very dull kitchen knife (thank god, because when I heard this I panicked that she'd ruined one of my newly-bought ceramic ones!) until it was open. No, I'm not joking. It was a little frightening to see the can carnage after the fact. (She's very self-sufficient. Of course, she could've saved a lot of effort by simply asking where we'd put the can opener....)
(Also, yes, I know that for most cutting needs sharp knives are much safer than dull ones. I sometimes see people online saying they let their small children cut things "with butter knives". Please don't do this. If your child is old enough to cut anything harder than play-dough, give them a real knife. They're less likely to cut themselves, and if they DO cut themselves they'll do a lot less damage. Trust me. As a clumsy person, I know!
New Playgrounds Are Safe—and That's Why Nobody Uses The
I've said it before and I'll say it again: playgrounds are designed differently than they were when we were young, and some of that is safety but a lot of it is a totally different idea of how the space should be used. Everybody always mentions "No more seesaws!" as their big bugaboo, but I'm not convinced that seesaws are less common simply for safety reasons. Rather, I suspect they're less common because they take up a lot of space, can really only be used in one or two ways (which don't as easily lend themselves to imaginative play as some newer concepts do, although kids always find a way), and can only be used by a very few children at a time. Safety is probably part of it, but I doubt it's all of it. (Of course, that doesn't mean that boring, uninspiring but "safe" playgrounds using older concepts of isolated structures don't exist. Of course they do. But there were boring playgrounds 50 years ago as well. And the children walked uphill in the snow both ways to play there, in the boring playgrounds, and they liked them anyway, right?)
And finally, a nice long clip about an outdoor "kindergarten" (in the more European sense of "preschool through age 5" rather than in the more American sense of "five year olds' class") in Norway. Many of the comments are in reply to some inane woman who is just terrified at seeing a knife in a 5 year old's hand or watching a small child light a match with guidance and a grown-up right there supervising.
"What could have happened!" Well, I suppose the match could have dropped into the child's clothing and he'd've had to stop drop and roll, as we tell them in America. But nothing did happen, and it's far better to teach a child how to light a fire safely than to risk that they'll get into the matches one day and NOT light a fire safely. "It's so scary seeing a five year old holding a knife!" It's so scary seeing a five year old who is unable to cut her own food at lunchtime. Hell, Ana went to open a can of tuna the other day and, as she didn't immediately see the can opener, hacked at it with a very dull kitchen knife (thank god, because when I heard this I panicked that she'd ruined one of my newly-bought ceramic ones!) until it was open. No, I'm not joking. It was a little frightening to see the can carnage after the fact. (She's very self-sufficient. Of course, she could've saved a lot of effort by simply asking where we'd put the can opener....)
(Also, yes, I know that for most cutting needs sharp knives are much safer than dull ones. I sometimes see people online saying they let their small children cut things "with butter knives". Please don't do this. If your child is old enough to cut anything harder than play-dough, give them a real knife. They're less likely to cut themselves, and if they DO cut themselves they'll do a lot less damage. Trust me. As a clumsy person, I know!
