Are playgrounds too safe? Winnipeg school puts some risk into recess
Young children at Winnipeg's Lord Selkirk School are climbing rocks and jumping off logs on a playground that students and parents say has gone from dull to inspiring.
Recent research found many believe children's playgrounds are too safe and that many youngsters are bored and not engaged.
A few years ago, that might have described the playground at Lord Selkirk, an elementary school in the Elmwood neighbourhood.
"There was cement and grass and a play structure," school principal Stormie Duchnycz said, referring to when she first arrived in 2009.
"I thought 'how uninteresting for kids to play,'" she said.
Principal Duchnycz didn't see many children playing in the field and knew things had to change. She started talking to the community about adding more natural elements to the playground, including a hill with some rocks.
Safety concerns
At first that caused some worry among parents.
"When we talked about the rocks that was a little bit of a concern," she said.
"But when we spoke to the fact that being a natural element and having kids be able to use their balance skills and their awareness to be careful, it really helped our families to be more confident that it wouldn't be a huge problem."
Fast forward a few years and the rock hill has become a popular place at recess and there haven't been any accidents.
"It's interesting we've actually had more accidents in the last few years on our play structure than what we do on our natural elements," Duchnycz said. "That says a lot I think, too."
"There's not a lot of dangerous play. Kids know that they can't fool around a lot on this, so they keep away from it when they're running around."
A big thumbs up
Eleven-year-old Ryan agrees.
He has watched the playground at his school transform from boring to fun with a rock hill, a pole fort featuring logs to climb up and jump off, and a wiggle wall, with embedded logs at different heights that acts as an outdoor balance beam.
He said grown ups shouldn't worry so much about kids getting hurt when they play.
"As long as you play safe, then you're fine," Ryan said.
So what do parents think of risky recess? Theresa Tougas, a parent and crossing guard at the school, said with so many children spending their time playing video games, they're not learning social skills and that's something the new playground accomplishes.
"A lot of kids do a lot of video games and the social aspect has gone down," Tougas said.
"In a playground such as ours you see them working together and working out issues on their own, where in a lot of places kids can't because they don't know how to do the social aspect."
Duchnycz believes the better children do at recess, the better they do in the classroom.
"I think using your imagination, having fun, running around, using our physical abilities to play games and have those kinds of spaces available for them to use their imagination and trigger their imagination, that's really critical."