Can the Playground Be Too Safe?

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Can the Playground Be Too Safe?
Plays are one of the ways through which parents use to help in the development of the motor skills of children. The type of play designed to trigger certain emotions in a child varies from one age to another. Therefore, this acts as a challenge during the construction of a playground because it should incorporate games that are conducive for play by all the children. The parent should be in a position to choose which playground and games that their child will play. However, when unsupervised, children tend to try the games that their parents have denied them to play. According to the authors of "everything's an argument, the playground cannot be too safe for children because of their desire to explore risks and outgrow their fears.
Ellen Sandseter argues out that children should be allowed to encounter risks so that they can overcome their fears (Lunsford, Andrea, John, Ruszkiewicz, and Keith 269). This would, in turn, help in the development of the child by ensuring that they do not have fears in the future whenever faced with a risky situation such as heights. We know of a lot of people who have a phobia of heights. Such phobia develops within an individual while they are still young. The obvious explanation would be the fact that the individual was not exposed to high areas or once fell from high ground and was discouraged from playing in height again. The memory of a child is very good at remembering things while still young. Therefore, whatever is recorded in their minds does not change even when they have grown. It is due to the avoidance of such phobia among adults that the playground cannot be too safe for the children. For example, the monkey bars provide a child with the opportunity to climb at the top hence enabling them to develop confidence for high areas. However, at the beginning of the play, a child may not be able to climb to the top. Given the fact that children like challenges, the game would soon become boring and, therefore, every child would try climbing to the top. This brings out the question of how safe the monkey bars are. What if the child falls from the top? Research shows that they would not suffer major injuries and they would have developed a lot of confidence in regard to heights. Some parents might also discourage their children from playing in such heights, but this would instead, create fear in the children. Therefore, the playground cannot be too safe because the children will occasionally get minor injuries in an attempt to create an interesting play environment.
As well, the designs of the playgrounds have been changing over the years as the manufacturers try to make them safe for the children to play. An example is the replacement of concrete pavements with rubber or wooden materials. Such replacement aims to create a safe environment for the kids to play. However, given the fact that the playground cannot be too safe for the children, then such replacements do not mean that the...