Let Your Kids Have Fun
According to one of Britain's leading play safety experts, parents are simply wrapping their children up in cotton wool and are not letting them have enough fun.
David Yearley, of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents has criticised the sanitised play areas that children now have to endure. In Davids words safety issues has led to 'boring' public playing areas. With over £100 miliion in lottery cash being made available for a playground refurbishment programme, Yearly suggests that a focus should be applied in 'controlled risk'.
There is no doubt that play can be dangerous, on average 40,000 children are injured each year as a result of an accident in a play environment, this from a population of around 12 million under 15's. Tragically, a child dies every two or three years as a result of an accident within a playground.
The sanitised play areas that children now have throughout the UK are thought to be unchallenging and thought not to be providing the stimulation that children require.
Yearly said that "unless playgrounds provide exciting, stimulating diversion for children, there is a danger that children will not use them, and will play instead on railway lines, by riverbanks or alongside roads."
The old style climbing frames and see-saws are being replaced by more 'tactile and more interesting' replacements Sports orientated equipment, including windsurfing simulators and climbing walls, have also been on the increase. So, too is the inclusion of water areas in some playgrounds.
Yearley, who was a keynote speaker at the recent international conference in Loughborough, said: 'We need to provide play environments so that children can experience risk in a controlled and managed way'.
With child obesity, it is unthinkable that central government is not chanelling more funds into better equipped play areas to actively encourage child participation.
Useful links: ROSPA - www.rospa.co.uk
For further information on playsets, climbing frames and playhouses visit www.climbingframesuk.com
