Equipment less than 30 inches high can overlap use zones with 6 feet between each structure. Equipment higher than 30 inches must have 9 feet between each structure. The to-fro area of swings, exit area of slides, standing rocking equipment, and merry-go rounds cannot overlap use zones.
Install swings and other pieces of moving equipment in an area away from other play equipment. Trip hazards: Exposed concrete footings, abrupt changes in surface elevations, containment borders, tree roots, tree stumps, and rocks are all common trip hazards that are often found in play environments. Lack of supervision: Increased supervision on the playground directly relates to increased safety and fewer injuries. Design your play area so that it is easy for caregivers to observe children at play.
Position supervisors so they can immediately respond to emergencies. Make sure that elevated play equipment is supervised at all times. Age-inappropriate activities: Make sure that your play equipment is age-appropriate for the children who will use it. Areas for preschool age children should be separate from areas for school age children Lack of maintenance: A sloppily maintained playground is dangerous, and can invite vandalism.
Make sure play equipment has no missing, broken, or worn-out components, and that all hardware and parts are secure. Kids should always have adult supervision on the playground. Keep your eyes on young kids and sometimes older ones because they can't always be sure of distance and may not expect dangerous situations. Older kids like to test their limits on the playground, so it's important for an adult to keep them in check.
Before you visit a playground, check to make sure that play areas are designed to allow an adult to clearly see kids while they're playing on all the equipment. Another key part of playground safety: Kids must know how to be safe and act responsibly at the playground. Swings, slides, and climbing equipment have different safety concerns.
And some kinds of equipment are not safe for playgrounds, no matter how careful kids are. Swings are the most common source of childhood injuries from moving equipment on a playground. But a few simple precautions can help keep kids safely swinging:. Using a seesaw requires cooperation between kids.
They're generally not recommended for preschoolers unless the seesaw has a spring-centering device to prevent sudden contact with the ground. Regardless of design, both seesaws and merry-go-rounds should be approached with caution. Climbing equipment comes in many shapes and sizes — including rock climbing walls, arches, and vertical and horizontal ladders.
It's usually more challenging for kids than other kinds of playground equipment. Be sure your kids are aware of a safe way down in case they can't complete the climb. The highest rate of injuries on public playgrounds are seen with climbing equipment. This is dangerous when not designed or used properly. Adult supervision is especially important for younger kids.
Climbing equipment can be used safely if kids are taught to use both hands and to stay well behind the person in front of them and beware of swinging feet. When they drop from the bars, kids should be able to jump down without hitting the equipment on the way down.
Remind kids to have their knees bent and land on both feet. Reviewed by: Kate M. Cronan, MD. Under the right or wrong conditions, everything we need for life can also maim or kill: water can drown, food can poison, air can choke.
Mary Jeavons is an Australian architect who has been designing playgrounds for 30 years. Good playgrounds, she says, provide challenges and do not overly predetermine choices for children, combining "risks with choice: how high to climb; how to move your body". She says it's important to provide situations where children learn to recognise what risk is, rather than have it taken away. In other words, some elements need to be 'dangerous' in order for a child to develop the skills to recognise the danger involved.
If they don't, they will be more likely to encounter graver danger at a later stage. Ms Jeavons' firm helped design the playground surrounding the meerkat enclosure at the Melbourne Zoo.
The much-celebrated tunnel system, with its uneven surfaces and hard rock-like finishes, apparently does not strictly follow industry standards, but "the client [Melbourne Zoo] understood that a torn shirt or cut or scrape was not a great issue, so thankfully they supported the project". In late David Eager, professor of risk management at the University of Technology Sydney, called for an end to the use of monkey bars in playgrounds and schools. He cited the high rate of injuries suggesting that monkey bars should be replaced with the now-ubiquitous "space nets".
According to Ms Jeavons, the issue is not necessarily monkey bars themselves, but how few there are in any given play space they are naturally popular, which leads to overcrowding, which leads to falls and injuries , and that they are often not provided at graded heights, for different ages and skill levels. Additionally: "The theme of this year's Report Card highlights the seemingly forgotten component of our national physical activity guidelines — that children should engage in muscle and bone strengthening activities on at least three days per week.
Get our newsletter for the best of ABC Everyday each week. I feel the reliance on the term "risk" adds to the issue, as the word itself is negatively-geared. In order to promote the positive side of "risk", the term requires continuous reimagining, or rebranding, which is inevitably a lost battle. But in an attempt to try, within the playground design industry the term "risk benefit" is increasingly being used. Perhaps the answer is to leave 'risk' to one side and instead consider our environment as a set of challenges; challenges that teach us physical skills and resilience.
As the research reveals, we have been actively denying our children these challenges for some time. Playground designers are already up for the task.
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