Making Childhood Memories

 Richard Louv prefaced his book, Last Child in the Woods, with a quote from a 4th grader.  "I like to play indoors better 'cause that's where all the electrical outlets are."  The subtitle of Louv's book is "Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder." In farming communities and smaller towns, it may be easier to make sure that children spend time outdoors.  Pratt, Kansas seems to be a good example of a community that provides a variety of places to encourage kids to get outside--from a natural park to playgrounds to a wonderful ballpark.  Yet, the balance between the need to protect kids adequately while also encouraging the freedom to explore and take risks that build both courage and good judgement seems to be increasingly difficult.

It was a photograph from 1900 of children playing on playground equipment that inspired this blog.  Can you imagine the community uproar such a dangerous place to play would bring today!  The school superintendent would be fired, the school board would be sued, and parents would carry guilt for failing to protect their children from exposure to such danger.

Today the Consumer Product Safety commission has a Public Playground Safety Checklist requiring such things as "at least 2 inches wood chips, mulch, sand, or pea gravel, or mats made of safety-tested rubber or rubber-like materials for playgrounds, as well as the play area to be covered.  The list includes all kinds of potential dangers to check against regularly and concludes with the need to "Carefully supervise children on playgrounds to make sure they're safe."

I am not suggesting that the listing of possible playground dangers are irrelevant or that supervision is unnecessary.  I am just considering what the explanation is for why so many of the wonderful parks I see are often empty.  Has our desire to keep children safe stolen the desire for adventure that is necessary to pull them away from the lure of the internet?   

When I went online to see what playground equipment could be purchased today, I found many colorful and elaborate examples, available at prices that shocked me.  One example, 'on sale,' cost $30,500!  I'm sure it met all of the safety requirements, although it didn't seem to include the wood chips, mulch, sand, or pea gravel surfacing recommended by the Consumer Product Safety commission.  I'm sure that children might be excited to see such a colorful thing, with five or six safe, fairly low slides.  However, I could not help but wonder how many times the fun of sliding down those safe, low slides would last.  Or, whether all the bright colors and carefully positioned options had left much room for imagination? 

I am probably the wrong person to be evaluating how to encourage children to make childhood memories they will never forget, for I am relying on my own memories of a different time--playing in the pasture without fear of snakes or poking out my eye with a sandhill plum thorn (although both of those things would have been possible).  I wandered country roads far from home without fear, grabbed an old rope thrown up to me by my older brother and leaped out into space to wrap my legs around an old gunny sack with a little straw inside to soar through the air, never worrying about whether the strength of an old cottonwood tree limb could hold me.  I am sure that I did countless things that were quite dangerous, and I know that times have changed and parents must be more watchful than my parents were.  I am sure there must have been broken arms or worse that happened, and I know of the injury of a young classmate who fell from a horse.  There were and are dangers for unsupervised children.    

Now perhaps the greatest dangers parents face have nothing to do with the dangers I faced as a child.  As wonderful as the internet is, it brings dangers my parents never needed to consider.

Maybe the 1900 photograph that inspired this blog had its own secrets of broken arms or worse.  Obviously, that playground equipment was crazy dangerous, even then.  I am not blind to all of the dangers parents and teachers must face today.  

I guess that my point is that there has always been the need for balancing risk.  I am fearful of the risks of AI.  I understand the potential abuse of the internet.  I know that our world has changed, and kids no longer have trees in their backyards to climb or entirely safe roads to walk alone.  However, somehow, we need to find ways to balance safety and risk.  We need to provide opportunities without overlooking responsibility.  And none of this is easy!