ARTICLE TOOLS

E-mail story

Comments

Printer friendly version

iPod friendly version

Share This

Text Size: A A A A

Cleveland: Playgrounds still a place to create memories

By: Beverly Carroll
(Contact)

By: Randall Higgins
(Contact)

Included in this article

Mike Rich

Last week, as children ran from one play station to another at Cleveland’s Deer Park, Parks and Recreation employee James Stapp made his monthly rounds, clipboard in hand.

“The rubber hoses on the chains on the swings is to keep fingers from getting pinched,” he said.

A few steps later, he found a foothold missing from a climbing wall. Yes, that’s a feature that wasn’t around in the good old days, he says.

But the metal monkey bars that parents remember climbing are long gone. And on the ground — adults will remember it as hard-packed earth — there’s a layer of fresh wood chips to soften the landings.

Staff Photo by Patrick Smith -- Tracy Pitts watches as her children Xander, 2, and Bailey, 3, go down a slide while holding her son Parker at Heritage Point Park in Dalton, Ga.

Long summer afternoons at the playground may be a timeless memory, but there’s been an evolution in equipment.

“We got our fingers pinched,” remembered Melissa Carden, visiting the swings with her son and a friend and her children from Douglasville, Ga.

She remembers the merry-go-round that was in Deer Park when she played here.

“We would spin round and round on that thing till we got sick. We loved it,” she said.

Now, as a parent, Deer Park has another feature she likes. It’s open and small.

“You can keep an eye on them all the time,” she said. “Parks are meant for kids to have fun. If you are worried about safety, they are probably not having a good time.”

SUPERVISION AND SAFETY

More knowledge of potential danger has changed the look of playgrounds, said Heather Holmberg, director of the Childcare Network in Ringgold, Ga.

“Slides used to be 50 feet tall and metal,” Ms. Holmberg recalled. “They were very narrow and had no (cushioning) materials at the bottom. And they were hot. You’d ride down and have third-degree burns by the time you got to the bottom.”

Today’s slides are plastic and must have wood chips or mulch at the bottom. Swings must have a clear space of 6 feet beyond the point they reach when pulled out by an adult, Ms. Holmberg said.

Georgia day-care centers must provide 35 square feet per child for playgrounds. If a playground is licensed for 25 children, “that’s a pretty big playground, but that’s probably only room for two swings,” Ms. Holmberg said.

One North Georgia educator said media reports of serious accidents have heightened awareness of danger.

“I don’t think you can make a hard case that more accidents have happened,” said Mike Rich, principal of Davis Elementary School in Dade County, Ga. “I think news coverage has increased.”

According to the National Program for Playground Safety, about 205,860 preschool and elementary school children were treated in emergency rooms for playground injuries from 1990 to 2000.

During the same period, the Consumer Product Safety Commission received reports of 147 children under age 15 who died in incidents involving playground equipment. A third of those deaths occurred on public playgrounds and the remainder occurred at home, according to the Safety Commission.

The way people think about such incidents has changed over the years, Mr. Rich said.

“I think it was more common for parents to say, if an accident happened, if someone got hurt, ‘We’ll take care of it,’” he said. “Some parents in the new generation are looking for someone to blame. But some are becoming better advocates for their children.”

Experts say supervision still is the best way to prevent playground injuries.

A REAL WORKOUT?

Dionne Evans said she wonders if children are getting enough exercise on today’s playgrounds. She and her son, 6-year-old Cameron, recently spent some time together at Civitan Park in Dalton, Ga.

Though he was the only one on the playground, Cameron said he was enjoying clambering on the plastic slides connected by wooden walkways.

“I don’t know that they are getting the activity level we got when we were kids,” said Mrs. Evans, 36. “When I grew up, (playground equipment) wasn’t an issue. We were just glad to get outside.”

Back at Deer Park in Cleveland, Paula Neighbors kept an eye on her children and pointed out features, including the faux wood used on some play stations.

“That keeps a lot of splinters away,” she said.

She said summers include computer time and video games as well as the outdoors. She makes the most of summer for her sons by combining books and play.

“The good thing about Deer Park is the library is not far away. So we go to the library then come over here,” she said.

Comments