Go Play
Making playgrounds appealing, safe and challenging enough to keep kids interested
By Elisa Kronish
Another kid-crowd-pleaser is the long-loved slide. Slides have come down in height, but the fun has been reassigned to other areas. Now slides have sections where kids scoot through tubes and double-slides so friends can race each other down or just go down in synch.
Kids also get a kick out of overhead events like monkey bars.
"It's great they're asking for these things," says Barnes, who's always looking at the learning aspects of each playground piece. "These are areas that are challenging for kids. Every time they can get to another rung, that kid's confidence goes up another rung too."
However, King predicts there could, naturally, be a slight increase in the number of injuries due to the more challenging apparatus.
"But it's to the benefit of kids," King says. "I don't think we should fear the increase in challenge. It's time to look at it from a kid's point of view and reach a compromise on safety vs. challenge."
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