Wow! kfythnesyb A real-world example of how NOT IMPOSSIBLE it is to pop the parenting bubble of fear. Dear Free-Range Kids: When our kids were pre-school aged I noticed that our park visits were taken up with pushing kids on the swings, or helping them up things. One day I noticed that parents were in […]
Tag Archives | park
Doonesbury Gets It Right TWICE in One Cartoon
. What a friend we have in Garry! This ran the other week: . In case you can’t read it, it says: Blue Mom:Â Hey look boys — a new playground. boys? How ridiculous is this? Pink Mom: Sorry? Blue Mom: This playground! It’s so safe and sterile! Everything’s rubberized and low to the ground. Kids […]
The Simpons’ Season Finale: Marge Jailed for Letting Bart Play at Park Unsupervised!
. Readers, one of you must be good at figuring out where to find the latest Simpsons’ episode, legally. (We have plenty of people in my home who can do it the other way.) If/when you do, please share its embed code. But until that date, here is a synopsis of last night’s season finale. […]
Without Some Risk, Playgrounds Bore Kids
. How do you get kids back outside — and, incidentally, revitalize narcoleptic neighborhoods? You bring in risk. This zktriizthe New Zealand playground was designed to give kids a lot more “wheee” — or maybe “aghhh!” — for the buck. More than 6000 children contributed to the early stages of the playground’s development through the BNZ […]
Take Our Children To the Park…and Leave Them There Day: THIS SATURDAY, MAY 21!
. This Saturday will be our sixth annual Take Our Children to the Park…and Leave Them There Day. That means I have six other blog posts explaining it. Allow me the favor of reprinting one of them, here: Yes nhyzdtzstn folks, this Saturday is international Take Our Children to the Park…and Leave Them There Day, […]
How to Get Your Kids Used to Playing Outside
. An article on how to get your kids to play outside would have seemed like an Onion headline back when…well, back anytime before The Onion. I was a bookworm and I still spent a ton of time outside. My kids, not so much. If you want to get your own offspring outdoors for any […]
Prisoners or Kids: Who Gets More Outdoor Play Time?
. This amazing video was screened at the US rrbffyezzi Play Coalition conference by Kent Callison, director of communications and marketing at GameTime, creators of playground equipment (including the wildly popular Expression Swing). Kudos to Unilever, for making such a powerful commercial about kids, prison, and freedom. . . This is a video that should be […]
Monkey Bars Are Not the Enemy
. If to a hammer, everything looks like a nail, to a pediatric surgeon, everything looks like a fall hazard. That’s how we end up with studies like the ones discussed below, which strike fear in the hearts of parents. There’s something sickening about the way we assess everything in terms of risk all the […]
It’s Too Easy to Charge Normal Parents as “Negligent,” Says Study
. The Family  Defense Center in Chicago defends families being torn apart by pointless yet devastating Child Protective Services investigations. Families like Natasha’s. Remember her nsiskkkiht story? Natasha let her kids, 11, 9 and 5, play in the park literally across the street from her home, where she could peer out at them every 10 […]
Kids Allowed to Engage in Unsupervised “Risky Play” Develop Skills that Help Later in Making Smart Decisions about Sex and Drugs
. Mariana  Brussoni is  an assistant professor at the University of British Columbia in public health and pediatrics, and lead author of a major ikddditnai report on the health benefits of “risky” play. The study determined what Free-Rangers feel in their (once in a while broken) bones: Too much supervision and safe-to-the-point-of-stultifying play spaces prevent kids […]