The Word on Playgrounds

I recently took the boys on a tour of city playgrounds. I learned a lot and wanted to share.

First, a basic principle for kids and playgrounds: new is always better -- at first. You could have an entire adventure amusement park in your backyard but a month later if the city put a three foot plastic slide in one of those small turtle shaped sandboxes, the kids will be clamoring to go to the “new park.” 

This means it takes time to evaluate what playground equipment will actually hold a kid's interest in the long term. 

Based on my observations, this ends up being the simplest playground apparatus. Swings, see-saws, slides, tunnels, and jungle gyms are classics that will be revisited again and again. Yes, the new double-helix climber plays well (based on principle #1) but the simple ones have longevity. Swings never go out of style. 

This isn’t to say there aren’t some cool or innovative equipment that goes over well with the kids though. 

The “spinning globe thing” at Wilbarger park is pretty great. It’s the closest thing I’ve seen to a merry-go-round in a public park in over a decade. 

Imagine a jungle gym, shaped like a sphere, resting on a platform that spins. Now imagine three of my boys running around the globe holding on with one hand so it spins, and then climbing up and into the spinning globe. Now imagine one boy who holds on with both hands but can’t pull himself up so his legs flap like a weather sock as the merry-go-round globe spins. The boys love it. 

Creekside Park has a periscope on one of the structures and wins points for uniqueness. This is another principle though: many parks benefit from a unique item that no one actually plays with for more than 5 seconds. It’s, “can we go to the park with the periscope?!” And when we do, a couple boys take a brief look through the periscope, are disappointed they're not suddenly in an actual submarine, and move on. Playgrounds with tic-tac-toe boards are the same way. 

The boys often name a park by the one main feature it has. There are a handful of parks with such distinctive names created by the boys I don’t recall their actual names. One park has some blue stepping stone-like structures that the boys think look like hot dogs so they call it the Blue Hot Dog Park. 

Another park has the highest slide I’m aware of in the city but since we stumbled upon the park by accident the first time we went there and since it’s nestled against a wooded area at the end of a cul-de-sac the boys dubbed it Secret Park. 

One of the biggest insights while touring playgrounds wasn’t about the play structures themselves. It’s that even the most timeless playground equipment doesn’t hold a candle to a natural environment where kids can climb, explore, or wander. 

Basically, the utility of playgrounds is outgrown but the natural landscape never is. The grounds adjacent to a playground are more important than the actual play area. Limestone rocks along the creek, a wooded area next to the playground, the fields behind it, the creek running through it, all these natural “playgrounds” offer play without an age limit. Well, at least not an upper age limit. 

So, if you want to distract them, take them to a new park. If you want to appeal to a broad range of kids regularly, take them to a park with simple, classic equipment. But if you want the best of both worlds, find a playground in an explorable area and let them roam.