Inclusive Play

By designing children’s play spaces with inclusive risk in mind landscape architects can play a role in childhood development.

It is essential that children are exposed to age-appropriate managed risk and by designing children’s play spaces with this in mind, landscape architects play a vital role in childhood development. Children need to be given the chance to stretch themselves, to test and verify their skills without exposing themselves to unacceptable risks. Children who are not exposed to managed risk can be denied the chance to learn necessary skills and may be more likely to direct their energy into inappropriate activities – where the risks are significantly greater. Recent media discussion about the dangers of “bubble-wrapping” our children suggest a need to consider the role of inclusive risk for children at play. Are we breeding a generation of children who don’t know how to use a swing or have not experienced the thrill of being so dizzy from riding a merry-go-round that they can hardly stand? Children who have not played after school until they are so tired they can hardly eat their dinner?

Safety in the playground does not necessarily mean no tears. We should be encouraging our children to take risks and to challenge themselves so that they can gain confidence and develop resilience. This risk exposure needs to be managed, inclusive and balanced. It needs to be layered, allowing children of different ages and abilities to explore and take considered risks that expand their boundaries. There is a lot of important experiential stuff going on in a child’s active and developing brain when they take a risk, try something they haven’t done, and then try again. When a child climbs higher on the space net they may fall, they may sustain a bruise – but they won’t kill themselves. If they do inadvertently fall, the flexible ropes beneath them will attenuate their fall and they may come home with rope burn. They will also come away with a little badge of honour and personal duty of care skills that will come in handy in the university of hard knocks. Any injury can be distressing for both the child and their carer, but the exposure to minor injuries also has benefits and can form part of a healthy childhood development. When children sustain or even witness an accident, they are exposed to proximal experiential learning. They are directly learning the consequences of their actions and choices and, through this, a deeper understanding of their abilities and competencies.

A space net is a good example of appropriate risk as the risk is clearly apparent to the child – as the child climbs higher they can appreciate that the increased height increases their risk exposure. Risks that children cannot appreciate and are not clearly apparent are classified as hazards, and should be engineered out of the playground. Examples of this include strangulation situations, head and neck entrapment, chest entrapment, potential finger crush points or amputation hazards.

It is generally taken as a given that playground designers will design inclusiveness into their play space. Unfortunately, increasing numbers of playgrounds around Australia purporting to be inclusive are actually exclusive in that they do not present physically-active able-bodied children with sufficient excitement, challenge and exposure to managed risk. Inclusive play is more than the installation of disability access ramps within the play space. There are too many examples of playgrounds where ramps have unintentionally provided access for small children to apparatus that are way beyond their age capability. A better example of inclusiveness is the provision of a transfer station at the base of a space net to enable a wheelchair-bound child to access the net. The transfer station itself could be accessed by an impact-attenuated pathway that would be of sufficient width, level and grade, certified to the maximum free height of fall of the net, and have edges that gently taper off into the loose-fill impact attenuating surface. Another example is a transfer station at the top of embankment slide. Both of these examples are inclusive because they allow all children to use and obtain excitement, enjoyment and value-added play.

Many people fail to realize that risk can have both positive and negative consequences. In the workplace we have legislated a zero tolerance policy with respect to accidents. This is a good thing and should not be diluted. Children are not employees in the workplace, however, they are children at play and they need to learn how to be a generation of safe employees and resourceful and adaptable adults who can think on their feet and question the consequences of their actions. They are not going to develop the appropriate safety skills to protect themselves and their fellow workers if we “cottonwool” them. In much the same way as our immune system requires appropriate exposure to germs, so too do our children require exposure to new and challenging situations.

We need to correct the counterproductive mindset and replace it with a mindset that includes the benefits of risk. This means that positive risk needs to be included in the design of playgrounds, embedded so that the child is unaware of its inclusion. An example of this is a large embankment slide where the child can drop several metres and experience a high degree of apparent risk while their actual risk is relatively low.

In previous generations it was okay to come home with a graze or even a broken arm. But these days, we think we are bad parents if our child suffers an injury like that. We need to break the horrible nexus and say, yes, statistically these things happen but we need to take a reality check about them. Parents need to be empowered to allow their children to do things like playing outside until the sun goes down and coming home dirty and tired, having been exposed to some germs and having grazed a knee or elbow. Our governments need to send a message that you are not a bad parent because you allowed your child to be a child and play, and they had an accident. We also need to change our blaming and litigious mindset as this attitude has created a negative feedback loop where providers of children’s play facilities are less inclined to take a risk for fear of litigation – an ironic contradiction. We need to shift our society to a mindset that is more aligned with that of the Europeans who encourage the installation of exciting and challenging playgrounds because they can appreciate the holistic advantages this managed risk exposure provides.

We definitely should not design unsafe playgrounds and turn back the hazard reduction clock. To do so would undo the progress and intervention strategies imbedded in our various safety standards – it would be akin to removing seatbelts and airbags from our cars. We have a duty to protect children from fatal or permanently disabling injuries and this duty of care is greater for children than adults. So let’s design some fear and adventure in our playground designs while retaining a firm hand on the hazard removal filter. Adventurous play experiences help children learn how to deal with many of the everyday risks they will encounter throughout their lives.

Source

Practice

Published online: 21 Apr 2016
Words: David Edger
Images: Brett Boardman

Issue

Landscape Architecture Australia, February 2010

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