Good article about over-protecting children. One section that amused me:
I had to laugh when an Australian study recently found that playground injuries continue to rise despite safety improvements. One of the suspected reasons: the safe new play structures are so boring that kids are taking more risks in order to have fun.
I went to what could be described as an experimental school- they dabbled in the “open” learning concept where children went from task to task in different groups and learned at their own pace and could choose what they worked on (my mother yanked me out of that in fifth grade- thanks mom). They also had one of the first modern playgrounds I had seen. It consisted of funky wooden structures with tire swings and half buried heavy equipment tires linking traditional jungle gyms, parallel bars, etc. We used to play tag on them- you couldn’t touch the ground, jumping from structure to structure kind of like chimps at the zoo. I was far from the daredevil, and over the course of my elementary school career, knocked myself out 3 times, and broke my nose 2 times.
The main difference to today seems to be supervision. Now my nephews and nieces have supervised “playdates” and get driven everywhere they go. We walked to school starting in kindergarten, and from the time we got out of school till dinner was our own.
Think Lord of the Flies.
The scary part was that we were so much more a danger to ourselves than anything else was. Imagine preschool Jackass. I think I went through 30% of elementary school with my eyebrows singed off.