I’d Wondered Why The Kindergarteners Couldn’t Play on the Playground Till October

This note had my jaw dropping, which in itself is dangerous, because what it it dropped onto a hard surface and broke? Could I sue the commenter, who hails from Flemington, NJ?

My ybkftkhfda
second grader still has recess and breaks during the day. However, she routinely complains that they aren’t allowed to go upside down on the monkey bars and aren’t allowed to sit on the top of the climber. I always wondered why kindergarteners weren’t allowed on the playground until October or so. It turns out that it’s because the playground equipment is designed for ages 5-12 and the last kids turn five at the end of September. Because magically, one day, they are suddenly imbued with new skills that they didn’t have the day earlier.

I get that schools are covering their liability, but when are these kids supposed to learn risk taking and confidence if not on the relatively safe confines of the (heavily mulched) grade school playground?

How about never? Does never work for you? See earlier post about kids being SO SAFE that they are losing their ability to balance, just as if they had turned middle age. – L.

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Hey you kids! Whaddaya think this playground is -- a playground?

Hey you kids! Whaddaya think this playground is — a playground? (Stonehouse Signs)

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23 Responses to I’d Wondered Why The Kindergarteners Couldn’t Play on the Playground Till October

  1. Workshop December 2, 2016 at 9:45 am #

    Life must be so much easier if you outsource critical thinking.

    Sadly, bringing up that point of discussion will do nothing but generate looks of confusion and dumbfoundment.

  2. test December 2, 2016 at 10:00 am #

    Rules are the rules and must be followed. When the rules are not followed, someone gets punished or fired. Remaining people follow the rules no matter how stupid or reasonable.

  3. Linda December 2, 2016 at 10:10 am #

    I’m sorry, this one is hilarious.
    (Tragic in its stupidity, but hilarious.)

  4. Christina December 2, 2016 at 11:17 am #

    A kindergartner at my kids’ elementary school fell off th monkey bars last week and broke her arm. The monkey bars are off limits for the rest of the school year…

  5. Backroads December 2, 2016 at 11:36 am #

    When I was a youngster in kinder back in 1990, we had a kindergarten playground all to ourselves. Probably for safety reasons. Those toys were donated scraps from construction sites.

    Surely the October rule is to not let the under 5 crowd have their tender feel-bads hurt.

  6. Backroads December 2, 2016 at 11:40 am #

    “”A kindergartner at my kids’ elementary school fell off th monkey bars last week and broke her arm. The monkey bars are off limits for the rest of the school year…””

    We had a similar incident with a 1st grader. However, the monkey bars merely had a rule reminder and the injured girl in question was enraptured by being carried in by the hunky guy teacher.

  7. Dan December 2, 2016 at 11:49 am #

    Yep when one of my freinds broke their arm at school (not actually on any climbing equipment but had a high speed collision with a wall while playing tig(tag, it or whatever else it might be called where you are) I don’t remember any rules changing at all, just a reminder that if you run into the wall at full speed the wall will win! He was back in school the next day and the whole class ended up signing his plaster cast

  8. Christine Wynne December 2, 2016 at 12:37 pm #

    At most of the playgrounds around town there are signs saying playground is for ages 5-12 but usually I see mostly 3 -6 year olds playing on it because it is too safe and boring for older kids. I suppose if there were no adults in sight the 5-12 age might make some kind of sense but all the helicopter adult supervision everywhere, safety is not a problem with younger kids.

    Can’t believe the schools would enforce such a ridiculous guideline so strictly. It is just a guideline.

  9. Dean December 2, 2016 at 2:30 pm #

    Dan It’s a wonder there wasn’t a movement to ban walls.

  10. James Pollock December 2, 2016 at 4:15 pm #

    I guess it’s a good thing my daughter didn’t go that school, as she was 4 when she started kindergarten, and didn’t turn 5 in September, either. What’s more, she couldn’t read the warning signs that tell you what not to do yet, either. I would have had no choice but to sue for a gajillion dollars, and of course the courts would have given it to me.
    (She started doing the monkey bars long before she could actually reach them (“Put me up, daddy!”)

    Over the summer, the local school replaced 100% of their playground, taking out all of the stuff that had been there all her life (discovered when she was home for a week, hunting Pokemon.) Actually, the week she was home coincided with the period when all the old stuff was gone, and the new stuff hadn’t been installed yet. Meanwhile, all the stuff that was on the playground at MY childhood school is still there, even though the building isn’t even a school anymore.

  11. Curious December 2, 2016 at 4:25 pm #

    Did it ever occur to y’all that the culture is not only misogynistic but that it hates all those born of women?
    We have a problem and it is as old as our root myths. Change the myths, change the culture and set the children free.

  12. Mark Davis December 2, 2016 at 7:09 pm #

    Oh, goodness Lenore, sometimes you really make me laugh.

    “… had my jaw dropping, which in itself is dangerous, because what it it dropped onto a hard surface and broke? Could I sue the commenter?”

    That made me LOL.

  13. Jess December 2, 2016 at 10:54 pm #

    @Christine Wynne, i totally agree. Both my boys were bored with their “age-appropriate” playground by the time they were two, and the 5-12 playground lost its appeal shortly after that. The playgrounds where i don’t have to engage them to keep them playing are the so-called dangerous ones, and they’re so good i want to play on them too.

  14. sexhysteria December 3, 2016 at 4:04 am #

    Teachers could stand under four-year-olds with arms outstretched in case of possible falls until their fifth birthday.

  15. ChicagoDad December 3, 2016 at 10:45 am #

    It seems like the easiest solution would be to change the label on the playground equipment so it says “Ages 4 to 12” Problem solved.

  16. Backroads December 3, 2016 at 11:57 am #

    Teachers could stand under four-year-olds with arms outstretched in case of possible falls until their fifth birthday”””

    Yeah. When suddenly safety kicks in.

  17. Jessica December 3, 2016 at 1:44 pm #

    My husband is a lawyer, and loves lawyers. But even he, on this one, blamed “ambulance chasers.” They will literally cold-call parents in the hospital with an injured child, encouraging them to find someone to sue. And then imagine what the teacher could be put through during a lawsuit. “Did you see the label reading ‘Ages 5-12’? Were you aware that Timmy was under the recommended age? He was four, did you know that? Are you in the habit of allowing your students to play on age-inappropriate equipment? As a teacher, you felt you knew better than the manufacturer of the equipment?”

  18. Cara December 3, 2016 at 4:21 pm #

    I still think it is crazy that 4 year olds are in modern kindergarten.

  19. Paul Payne December 4, 2016 at 9:05 am #

    My thoughts go around in pointless circles when I try to figure out what can be done about the risk of expensive lawsuits. No risk is too small to eliminate.

  20. cinnamon December 4, 2016 at 9:36 pm #

    fear of litigation, not much do with safety…. bureaucratic mindset

  21. Sassy Stepmom December 5, 2016 at 3:49 pm #

    Why Cara? I started KD at the age of 4, back in 1981.

  22. Kaydee December 5, 2016 at 4:16 pm #

    A few years ago we finally got playground equipment at our local school. My son came home with a minor bump and proudly proclaimed that he was the first kid to fall off of the new equipment. It was treated like an honour by the teacher on yard duty.

  23. Stephanie F December 7, 2016 at 9:42 pm #

    I’m glad my kids’ school has some good sense.Not in every way, but they do allow some risk, even after a kid gets hurt, in this case my son. They were doing a practice hike in the local hills to prepare for the week in Yosemite field trip, and my son badly twisted his ankle on the way down. We were fortunate enough that one of the dads along happened to be a captain with the local fire department and was able to come back to us when he heard about the injury and carry my son down the steep hillside.

    The class still went on the next practice hike a few weeks later, and have continued the practice hikes for every class since. I can think of a few school rules that we broke that day so I could get him to a doctor as soon as possible to be certain it wasn’t a break, but no one cared because we were handling the problem in the way that got my son to help promptly, rather than sticking to rules that weren’t suited to that particular occasion.