I'm currently on a committee to build a community playground, and I have to confess it's been fun. I've made it my job to seek out the coolest playground equipment and find out who makes it. We live in a rural redwood forested area, and families regularly drive down the hill to playgrounds in the more populated cities of the Peninsula. What we want is a safe, fun place for our children to play that doesn't require a 20 minute drive.
As I watch my own children growing older and becoming increasingly interested in playgrounds, I wonder at how different child rearing is from the days when I was a kid. My parents just used to open the door and let us go. But you can't really do that anymore. There are more cars on the road, and they drive faster. Predators are out there lurking, waiting for their chance to snatch unsupervised children. But I think it's more than a changing world. I think there's more focus on supervising children because we are obsessed with being the best parents we can, and sometimes, by trying too hard, we actually are becoming worse parents.
I was recently speaking with a woman who complained that when she has family friendly parties, the adults all end up sitting on the floor playing barbies with the kids. What happened to kids who could entertain themselves? What happened with being an adult around children, and letting them see how adults behave, rather than always trying to be on the child's level? These are good questions.
The NY Times wrote an article about a book addressing this very topic. It brushes on a lot of topics without going into depth on any of them: pointing out an empty playground (the children were all presumably in front of their tv's), the seismic shift in toys which occurred with the introduction of television (from open-ended imagination toys to toys that are prepackaged with a fantasy life and characters all made up for the children), and the idea that children should always be monitored and should be prohibited from doing anything too dangerous (like throwing balls or skipping rope, as an example of rules from one school).
As usual, it is easy to over-think playtime for our children, but not thinking about it enough could lead to a world of zombies buying all the latest products that dull rather than inspire creativity in our children and possibly even hasten the destruction of the environment (where does all this plastic end up?).
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Designing playspace for people who live in the redwoods is an interesting challenge as so many aspects of woodland life lend themselves to physical play. You could create willow mazes (the one at the Bay Area Discovery Center is wonderful)and a natural, soul-ful play environment. Or you can go for a contrast and put in materials that would never otherwise occur. There is an amazing playground worth checking out between Laural Village and the Presidio (actually just over the wall into the Presidio). They have some cool balance curves and a huge witches hat/spinning maypole/ scramble-net thingy. It all looks very sci-fi and durable.
Also look at flowform scuptures if you're putting in water. They produce endless whirlpools, which children become entranced by.
A school I taught at had all the kids donate old sneakers to make into the ground surface of the playground. It's bouncy and fun, plus it keeps hundreds of shoes out of a landfill! Have fun!
(Oh, and with regard to toys-ask not what a toy can do for your child but what your child can do with a toy!
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