No cotton wool here
‘RISKY PLAYGROUNDS BUILD RESILIENT KIDS’
Fear may have led New Zealand down a path of cotton-wooling children’s playgrounds but we’re starting to buck the trend as more childcare centres recognise the value of some good, old-fashioned risk-taking.
According to childhood experts, many children are not being challenged enough in playgrounds because of adults’ safety concerns, which they claim can have a crippling effect on crucial life lessons, such as resilience and respect.
East Harbour Kindergarten in Eastbourne, in Lower Hutt, has embraced the use of nature’s resources for learning – children use real tools at a carpentry table, climb trees, and build obstacle courses.
In recent years, the centre ripped up its safety matting and replaced it with chip-bark, head teacher Gemma Bunning said.
Small groups of children aged between 2 and 6 embark on adventures to the beach each week. Children are also encouraged to turn over logs in the garden to reveal a world of creepy-crawlies.
‘‘They’re curious about the natural world,’’ Bunning said.
The playground has ladders, planks, hoops and tyres and is used in all weather conditions.
Bunning said it wasn’t so long ago that children of her parents’ era would have roamed farm lands and explored the world.
‘‘I think there was a big movement of cotton-wooling. People are trying to shift it back. Things like trees, where they can be challenged and learn, are a really important part of our programme.
‘‘It supports children to become more resilient. Risk is just such an important part of children’s learning through trial and error and problem-solving.
‘‘There’s a difference between hazards and risks,’’ Bunning said, and the majority of parents were aware that scrapes, bumps and bruises were a part of learning.
‘‘We generally have minor incidents. It’s very rare we have an accident.’’
Children learn through play, asking questions, interacting with others and ‘‘devising theories’’ about how things work, according to Ellen MacGregor-Reid, the deputy secretary of early learning and student achievement at the Ministry of Education.
She said when it came to risktaking, the sector’s Te Wha¯riki guidelines gave providers principles they were expected to implement, such as: meaningful, spontaneous play; growing children’s confidence and control of their bodies; and learning to strategise.
In the southern city of Dunedin, Russell Ballentyne’s early childhood centre has a strong focus on outdoor play and encourages risktaking.
Children from Daisies Early Education and Care Centre in Johnsonville also explore the bush and play in streams each week.
Lower Hutt’s Avalon Park hosts a plethora of risk-associated items.
The playground opened in 2016, welcoming the public’s children to a 6-hectare block with a sandpit, a sloping hill with protruding rocks, climbing walls and a flying fox.
A year earlier, parents and schools were concerned outdoor school activities would be threatened by changes to the health and safety laws, but politicians rejected the need for those fears.
The same year Scottish outdoor play and playground education consultant Juliet Robertson told a Christchurch audience modern playgrounds were too ‘‘sanitised’’ and children were unable to take real risks or use their imagination.
She said children learnt more from a collection of old tyres and tin cans.
ACC revealed the same year that thousands of injuries costing hundreds of thousands of dollars were a result of the humble monkey bars. Flying foxes, jungle gyms and climbing frames also caused a large number of injuries.
The sentence ‘‘Don’t! You might hurt yourself’’ has hindered the development of children’s motor skills, Christchurch educational consultant Gill Connell said.
Kids were no longer climbing high fences and trees because adults were concerned they might fall but those actions help prepare them for classroom activities as simple as holding a pen and sitting up straight, Connell added.
‘‘Children aren’t learning about depth-perception and all the things that are associated with that, like consequence. If kids are told they can’t do that, what that instills in them is a fear to try.’’