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Monkey bars are so old school

HEATHER SOKOLOFF

From Tuesday's Globe and Mail

Latest comment posted at 11:56 AM EDT 23/09/07

No swings. No seesaws. No lame monkey bars. At the new playground at Edmonton's Greenfield School, kids navigate Wobble Pods, Swiggle Stix and Slalom Gliders designed to make them play harder by challenging them mentally as well as physically ...Read the full article

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  1. snow lander from Edmonton, Canada writes: Hmmm. . . stuff in the photo look like monkey bars to me.
  2. Andrea C from Vancouver, Canada writes: It would be nice if more parks incorporated play areas for younger children. Children under 2 still need challenges, but play equipment designed for 2- to 5-year-olds isn't appropriate. And many of the play structures intended for children older than 5 are easily accessed by children as young as two. As a parent, it's hard to corral your kid and keep them on the structure for the younger set. By simply making the first rung or the first step higher, many playgrounds could keep the wee ones away from high structures. Sure, you need to be with your kid when they play, but this is a difficult task when you have two children in a busy playground.

    Another problem comes from city playgrounds that have not been properly fenced. My local playground opens up to the street because there is a large gap between the fence and hedge. This opening is directly in front of a tube slide, the exit for which is hard to see from anywhere but in front of the slide. Moreover, the hedge often contains debris from homeless people (including syringes). So, if you so much as glance at your other child for a second or turn to say something to another parent, your child is right in front of a busy road.

    That being said, the play structures in this article look great.
  3. Tom Ponessa from Canada writes: Excellent design and function. Kudos to the designers for the total rethink and beautiful execution. The education extends to the objects themselves as lessons in structure and engineering.
  4. Toby Maloney from Winnipeg, Canada writes: I can see this is an improvement over static equipment that imposes the kind of use kids can make of the playground, but I wonder if it really is what kids need.

    There was a book I flipped through a few times when I was working in a library, that looked at the history of play and playgrounds and concluded that imposing any structure on kids free play time was an interference with the invention of unorganized games, and the negotation of rules and parameters that go with them. Can't remember the name of the book and always meant to take it home for a read, but didn't get to it.

    And maybe it's too late for that now, maybe if kids were left in an empty field, they would just stand there instead of drawing a hopscotch in the dirt with a stick, or playing tag or something. Or do kids ever actually get to play on their own any more without adults to tell them what to do?
  5. John LaBattaglia from Aurora, Canada writes: Try telling my 5 year old daughter that monkey bars are old school.
    It's one of her favoite things at the park. She's like the energizer bunny, she just keeps going and going and she is great
  6. albert rose from Canada writes: Looks nice, but I still like swings, 40 years after I first tried one.
  7. jiri Z from Canada writes: Ever-improving safety features effectively dampen any attempt at independent thinking and enterprise.
  8. John Medrzycki from Vancouver, Canada writes: Rather than a 'one is right & one is wrong' discussion, I feel that both the traditional & innovative concepts can be incorporated. An earlier poster mentioned that his 5-year old loves the monkey bars - our 5-year old son does, as well. This is, in essence, a gymnastic tool which requires (& develops) upper-body strength. As well, the traditional swing should alsway have it's place - if anything, as a rest during vigorous activity.

    However, some of the innovative tools (rock climbing, log rolling) are certainly a challenge & great fun. There is terrific physical exertion - with an emphasis on strategic thinking.

    Nothing is static - certainly, in the past, playground design was limited by available tools to build them. As we are able to produce more innovative items in a cost-effective manner, then more & more variety will result.
  9. Sean McManus from Canada writes: Safety has taken away much of the fun. My 5 and 7 year olds had never seen or tried a real see-saw, you know the kind that a kid can get lifted waaay up high and then the kid on the ground gets off, sending the high lkid crashing down. All of the local playground removed them long ago and put in see-saws with a big spring in the middle so they just wobble up and down a bit, never going high or hitting the ground.

    But we found an old gem in Haliburton (cottage country) this summer. They immediately went over to it and jumped on, and off, and despite the obvious danger and pain they stayed on it for about 20 minutes.

    They loved it because it was real, and yes, pain and a bit of danger is also real, and so is the chance to do something a bit mean to your sibling.
  10. Someone Canada from Canada writes: Yes quick wrap your kids in bubble wrap, they might get hurt. Seriously how many of us were hospitalized during our childhood from playgrounds? I played on seesaws and swings etc and I am just fine. As my mother always said "According to today's experts you should all be dead."

    I like some of the new things but can't we keep the old too?
  11. Hugh Draper from Canada writes: Giant catapults would be fun.
  12. R C from Toronto, Canada writes: Oh my. 30 years ago Greenfield was my school fo a couple of years. The monkey bars were pretty cool, although I do recall a broken arm. Still, the winter was the best time - there is a very small hill behind the school that you could slide down.
  13. Johnny B Good from GTA, Canada writes: Nothing wrong with monkey bars ....

    It sounds like the for the money charged, the school was taken to the cleaners by the contractor big time.... what a waste of money.
  14. noton yourlife from Edmonton, Canada writes: Anyone remember Bill Cosby's "the Playground" monologue? If you liked this article, listen to Bill's story ;-)
  15. Karina_I (my art at windstream.ca) from Canada writes: The structure on the picture looks nice, but I feel sorry that as author writes "Sandboxes are often scrapped because they require costly upkeep". It was my favorite one when I was kid. As a child I was extremely clumsy (still is) and all those climbing, jumping things were way out of my abilities. I fell off every time I tried one of them. So sandbox with it's potential to create imaginary structures and creatures was my favorite place. I think they stimulate kids imagination and desire to create, they also provide opportunity to socialize and "co-create" for such kids as I was and who could not get all competitive on those "physical" things, but still wanted to play with others.
  16. Dennis sinneD. from Calgary, Canada writes: Sadly, sandboxes and cats/handguns/syringes don't mix.
  17. Bonnie Lass from Canada writes: Hang on...swings and slides don't foster imaginative play? Did I miss something? I think basic toys and equipment do MORE to foster imaginative play. You have to use your imagination to make them fun. I can remember being a kid and finding a nice big stick and finding a MILLION things to do with it (play Cheerleader by twirling it like a baton, pretend to be an explorer and use it as a walking stick, be a wizard and use it as a magical staff....). Playgrounds were great. Slides were forts or bases for tag when I got sick of sliding and I could swing for hours. Are kids today finding it that hard to come up with stuff to do that they need fancy schmancy equipment that does all the imagining for them?

    ...not that the palyground pictured isn't nice and all, but is it really worth the effort and money? Meh.
  18. Brad Knoll from Canada writes: Another indication that thousands of years of child raising was proved all wrong within the last 20 years. How did the human race even survive till now let alone become one of the most successful species. We are raising a generation of weaklings.
  19. D K from Canada writes: Kinda cool. I want to try!
  20. My eyes are open, Are yours? from Canada writes: For my son, 6yo, the whole world is a playground.
  21. John Curtis from Toronto, Canada writes: I'm not surprised to see these imaginative, colourful and clever designs coming from Landscape Structures (LSI.) A few years ago I had an opportunity to do some professional work for the folks at LSI; this was after they had invented their previous generation of industry-leading playstructures. These people are committed to a business that they truly enjoy. I'm happy to see that they are still leading their industry.
  22. B.C. Expat from Ottawa, NCR, Canada writes: Someone Canada from Canada writes: "Seriously how many of us were hospitalized during our childhood from playgrounds?"

    [Raises hand] :)

    It's OK, though, no regrets. And I'm sure the school is thrilled that my mom never sued, as it was pretty bad negligence on their part, heh.
  23. Andrea C from Canada writes: There's a big difference between a six-year-old falling off monkey bars and a two-year-old falling off a structure twice their height, though. By imaginative play, I think these designers mean that there's more than one way to use the equipment. Basic monkey bars can mostly be used to swing across or climb over. But ones that are curved or circular can be climbed in a variety of ways, used as steps and so on. Lots of parks now have little windows with small ledges under the slide...the perfect coffee shop, toy store, hot dog stand, ticket window, house, jail, dungeon and so on.
  24. Albin Forone from Toronto, Canada writes: I'd have to see kids trying and responding to these gadgets - but have never noticed that kids themselves are ever disappointed with ordinary playground stuff - a sandbox and bucket, swingset, teeter totter, and climbing bars all become exotica in the minds of the young and free. Now, adults looking for reasons to justify moving into neighborhoods they can barely afford - they want civic hardware to match.
  25. Rick Czarnota from Calgary, writes: Swings, seesaws and monkey bars also don't cost $100,000.
  26. J Rock from Canada writes: It was 200 k all in. YIKES!
  27. r p from Canada writes: Um, doesn't imagination foster imaginative play, or am I missing something here? Were all of us raised on traditional swings and slides (and blindman's bluff, hide and go seek, hospcotch) lacking in imagination? I think our biggest incentive to movement was the fun of it, and being told to go outside and run around by parents and teachers in our spare time. Cheaper than a $200,000 playground, but the new structures do look cool.
  28. Michael Ireton from Calgary, Canada writes: A group of folks involved in our neighbourhood community association are currently in the midst of a complete makeover of a playground with old, decaying, obsolete, and even outright dangerous (by anybody's standards!) equipment. They are planning to use similar industry-leading equipment and designs. The price tag will be even more than 200K--but the equipment itself represents just a small portion of the overall costs. Don't be misled into believing that the equipment alone is atrociously expensive. The equipment in the article is beautifully designed and looks like a lot of fun to me!
  29. Yase Miller from Canada writes: Pretty cool that we get to spend 100's of thousands to save one or two kids from breaking a bone. I'm sure the 50,000 children who starve each day around the globe will be impressed.
  30. John Smith from Ottawa, Canada writes: Having kids is so old school.
  31. Rob Doupe from Calgary, Canada writes: I loved this part:

    "You have kids that age doing dangerous things like jumping off platforms and tunnels," he says, "because they are not being challenged."

    Umm, I thought doing 'dangerous' things like jumping off a platform was a challenge. A perfectly healthy and normal challenge. That's how you learn about the physical world as an active child - you run and leap and climb and push the boundaries until you get hurt. Then you know what your boundaries are.

    A lot of these kids who are protected from all possible physical harm until they're about 14 years old are going to end up doing incredibly risky and dangerous things in their teen and young adult years because they never did learn those physical limits. They're going to be terrible at assessing risk.
  32. I B Happy from Victoria, BC, Canada writes: A low-cost monkey bar beats some $200,000 waste of money any day! It's time parents let their children be kids. Yes, they fall down (sometimes bloodying a nose), and LEARN by not doing stupid things twice. It's called...GROWING UP. You can't put a kid in a bubble-wrap environment forever. Also, quit running to lawyers every time Junior does a face plant on the play ground. Maybe these yummy-mummies should spend less time yacking on their cell phones and participate while the kids play.
  33. Cycling Commuter from Canada writes: This won't do much to help with the obesity problem. Walking to school instead of getting chauffered to the door in mommy's SUV would be better exercise than playing with these $200,000 ornaments. The money would be better spent building safer sidewalks, more pedestrian/bike overpasses, walking schoolbuses and lots of Dance-Dance Revolution type active video games (which have proven to be very effective at taking the lard off even the chubbiest kids and adults).

    As far as the creative play side of things goes, nothing compares to the fun of messing around with a bunch of large, empty cardboard boxes which each kid can cut into their own idea of forts, castles etc. (using safe, round-ended scissors) before the boxes are torn-down and recycled. Not many kids are going to grow up to be circus acrobats, but plenty can apply their cardboard box construction concepts to future home maintenance/renovation projects.
  34. Christal Watson from North of Steeles, Canada writes: Our community has one of these new play structures. My kids (9 and 7) are slightly underwhelmed by it. They prefer going to the park with the swings and the real slides and I prefer taking them there, as they are able to entertain themselves for more than 10 minutes on the "old school" stuff.
  35. Jim Cairns from St. Catharines, Canada writes: I think we're spending too much on kids. They should be locked up until they're 18 or have them work in sweatshops. :-)
  36. Barton Lincoln Jonesboro, the Second from Metro Toronto, Canada writes: Well, folks, one has to be careful with those 'monkey-bar' things. When I was a kid I had a friend, Wilbur. He loved to play on those monkey-bars - in fact it seemed as though he spent most of his free hours swinging around the things.
    Last time I saw him, he was in his 30's and his poor arms had stretched so much from all that exercise, everytime he walked he kept tripping on his hands !

    Barton Lincoln Jonesboro, the Second
  37. Angelique Davis from St. John's, NL, Canada writes: When I was a kid, we might have only had swings, monkey bars, a merry-go-round, a slide and teeter totters, but we managed to get really creative with them. We could play tag on almost all of them, we designed specialized obstacle courses for each and we could do flips and tricks on them all. I would never say I found them boring as a child. If anything needs to be strengthened in children today, it's their imagination!
  38. Broken Record from Victoria, B.C., Canada writes: They took away the merry-go-round (we called it a roundabout) in the little park near my house! I'm 43 and that thing was still fun to play on. I bet some kid was having too good a time, fell off it and his stupid parents went to the city to demand its removal. At least they didnt' take away the swings but some nervous nellie's kid will fall off it one day too and that will be the end of the fun. I don't care if children are having a good time; I want the old-fashioned swings, roundabouts and teeter-totters to stay. If only they made them more adult-sized...
  39. My eyes are open, Are yours? from Canada writes: It seems like all of the twirling, falling, swooping type items are being taken from the playground. If we don't make our kids familiar with that pit-of-the-stomach feeling, how will they ever know when they're in love?
  40. stand up mimi from Canada writes: Broken Record - I'm with you on the merry-go-round. That was the best. Our school had the most fantastic adventure playground. There were two high forts connected by a rope bridge, as well as a bunch of other climbing structures. We loved it, but it was eventually taken away because too many kids were falling off. The thing is, anything that's really fun is inherently dangerous. Danger is fun. You can't take every speck of danger out of a contraption and expect kids to love it. Even swings are dangerous. Ever been slammed in the head after doing an underduck? And what's with the 200K price tag on these new things? Yikes!
  41. B H from Toronto, Canada writes: I want to see it -- some of the things do sound fun. I also kind of wonder though if the best toys aren't the simplest (like snow, as they point out, or fort-like things like tunnels). That way it's the kids who have to make up something to do with them. I seem to remember most of my most active playground play as a child was in the open spaces or the snowdrifts. At one school we had a huge grassy area, in another it was a small asphalt area, but there was generally a lot more to do there than on the climbers.
  42. B H from Toronto, Canada writes: By far the best pieces of playground equipment I've ever experienced, anywhere, anytime, are those mountains of packed snow created when an asphalt area is plowed.
  43. Upper Canadian born and raised in Western Canada from St Albert, Canada writes: All that stuff looks too complicated for little kids. Little guys need simple things - unless you want to build them into neurotic teens.

    I found an old park - complete with teeter totters. You should have seen the kids playing, including my son, who had the time of his life on the teeter totter.

    What a waste of taxpayer's money!

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