I can understand padded out playgrounds when you're only one bad leg break away from medical bankruptcy. Get your healthcare system together, my American friends.
I would be way more protective (and restrictive) with my children as well with those bills looming. But at the same time they encourage their children to play american football - thats where i don't understand it anymore...
@@davidroddini1512 It's a fascinating sport, don't get me wrong. It's just the glaringly obvious inconsistency of padded out playgrounds and this sport coexisting that i can't understand.
My dad was an architect for our local municipality (in Germany) and as such built, designed and renovated many schools and playgrounds. One thing he said that I'll never forget was "when designing a playground I'm building something that would tempt an adult to climb around on, this way a child will have a guaranteed blast playing on it." And yeah, whenever I see one of those 4 meter tall spiderweb-pyramids I get _the itch_ to climb to the top (I'm almost 40 now), whilst I get bored from simply looking at the american playgrounds. 😂
Falls du mal in der Nähe von Haltern am See bist, geh unbedingt in den Ketteler Hof! (geht auch ohne Alibi-Kind 😅) da gibts sooo tolle Klettergerüste, wo auch Erwachsene reinpassen! War da um die Einschulung meines Patenkindes zu feiern, es war großartig! 😄
By far the best thing about viaiting the grandparents (both sides) were the playgrounds. With my maternal grandparents, it was the huge spider web construction with the platforms where you could climb around 4m above ground. Wuth the paternaö grandparents, they had an old farm and a playground next door with a carousel. Awesome!
Also german playgrounds are regularly and relatively thoroughly inspected. With that check list it will be hard to sue because the argument that everything was as it has to be and everything else is in the responsibility of the person with the child...
It makes sense to get a bit upset when your kid goes and jumps in a mud puddle in their 'sunday best' but their day-to-day clothes are going to get dirty and torn. Heck and if they don't, they be outgrown in a short time anyway 🤷
@@dealbreakerc Imo if your kid is out at the playground in their "sunday bests" you done fucked up as a parent. They needa have at least one set that's just there to become filthy and abused.
Living life means risk, to avoid all risk means to not be living life. Many german playgrounds look more dangerous than they are. That rope-climing tower for example has no straight line down from the top, if a child were to fall down from all the way up they'd tumble through the ropes and never reach a dangerous falling speed ... sure, scrapes and bruises but those heal and are an important lesson.
Actually, in the 90's many of these playgrounds were implemented to keep children there and lower risks, because children would instead do other things like going on construction yards, industrial areas (which are also close to residential areas), provoke dogs or else. The MC Donalds was probably the most secure and lame one, and you got "free food".
@@urlauburlaub2222 Yeah, growing up in the 80-90's in rural Bavaria without any proper playgrounds around i agree, the times i've been chased off that one half-demolished ruin of the old 'pub' (Wirtshaus + Biergarten) in our village ...
@@urlauburlaub2222 Yeah. Growing up in a 70's/ 80's mixed use area and there constantly being construction and rebuilding going on: The heaps of topsoil stored for later reuse, "finding" discarded transport palettes (creosote, rusty nails poking out and all) and building huts from them.
@@stefanj1610wow wirklich interessant. Finde heute, beschweren sich zu viele, dass andauernd überall Baustellen sind, aber so wie ich deine Erzählungen wahrnehme, war das wohl mal schlimmer. Aber vllt ging es damals auch deswegen schneller... Man musste die Kinder von Baustellen fern halten 🤭😂😂
@@mrnice81 LOL, growing up in the 60-70's in Munich, we lived close to the Paulaner brewery on Nockerberg, and somehow we played in delapidated old storage caves that were remnants of WW2. My other favorite was the coal storage in some dark corner of our multifamily house labyrinth of cellars. My mom somehow did not appreciate me coming home all black tip to toe.
Small children rarely get injured on playgrounds; there are far more dangers in the home. Children's bones are not yet properly developed and have cartilage, which prevents them from breaking. However, there are hot, sharp, poisonous and electrical things in the home. In US households there are even often firearms that are accessible to children. All of this is much more dangerous than a playground, at least statistically.
I also think the statistic that is lost in the conversation is that when you hear of “playground injuries” the significant majority occur on home playgrounds, not public parks or at schools, yet the numbers are collectively reported in the US.
@@TypeAshton In the US, in many places without sidewalks and whatnot, there's more risk getting *to* the playground than playing in it once there... often these stats don't properly capture the riskiest parts of our days. Nice video!
Nah. 90% my injuries as a kid came from the playground. 38 years ago playgrounds weren't as safe in the US. My first concussion and broken vertebrae came from falling off a 2 story slide at the playground. I played hard and sometimes stupid at playgrounds.
My daughter jumped from a playhouse in Kindergarten and broke her foot. The supervisors had forbidden her to jump. In Germany we call this: "Learning by pain" But she learned not much, because she said that she just jumped the wrong way from the playhouse. Next time she will do it the right way.
Given her interest in jumping, have you taught her how to jump well, or found someone who can? It sounds like she's expressing what she's drawn to, so maybe supporting that could be helpful. Just a thought. Maybe she'll end up in airborne in the military.
@@bearcubdaycare the playhouse is 2m high and she was 5 years old. She had hip dysplasia grade 4 on both sides and she shouldn't jump at all. I hope she will never go to the military. She is a one girl army and makes no prisoners.
@@KALLER76 Don´t worry she will learn. As Child I also tendet to do a "Double blind test". So I burnt both hands because I put them on the hot stove. FIrst the left one and then a short time later the right one... I broke both arms because I couldn´t belive that my slide couldn´t get between two trees. So on year the left one and next Winter the right one... And all I got to hear from my mother and grandparents was: "Well, you didn´t believe us when we told you that it doesn´t work, now yo have to live with it :D"
@@thomasalbrecht5914 Especially the food industry. If being poisoned is your personal issues and doesn't effect literally everyone like in a single-payer-system politicians have far less motivation to slap sense into the people making the poison.
I was a personal injury lawyer in the US. Based on what my clients told me, I think we could eliminate 90% of injury cases if people had good health insurance. Practically everyone came in because they needed a way to pay the doctor. ETA: The ACA was designed to leave around 20 million people without insurance, and it overperformed, fluctuating from 30 to 40 million. Then there’s another tranche, similarly sized, that are only nominally insured, meaning that they have insurance that’s mostly loopholes and exceptions. So unfortunately we don’t have an insurance system that would eliminate these lawsuits.
@@Hans-gb4mv An ACA with a public option would have allowed a smooth transition to a public health system. And given the the private insurance companies a lower bound that they would have to beat.
@@Hans-gb4mv There’s a tendency to be glib about the supposed benefits of the ACA, as better than what came before. This analysis is simplistic. We had a growing consensus that our healthcare system was in urgent need of improvement. What we got with the ACA is a retrenchment of the basic commitment to using spotty access to healthcare as a threat: lose your job, lose your health. And those who are at the bottom end, approximately 10-20% of the population (depending on who you include), are now even less likely to be helped. How do we define “better?” We have redoubled our commitment to using healthcare as a means to force people into jobs they don’t want, and to maintaining a large population of people in medical poverty, all to benefit a tiny cohort of oligarchs. I would argue that’s not better, it’s just resetting the fundamental evils back on a firm foundation where they won’t be dislodged for a few more generations.
@@Hans-gb4mv There’s a tendency to be glib about the supposed benefits of the ACA, as better than what came before. This analysis is simplistic. We had a growing consensus that our healthcare system was in urgent need of improvement. What we got with the ACA is a retrenchment of the basic commitment to using spotty access to healthcare as a threat: lose your job, lose your health. And those who are at the bottom end, approximately 10-20% of the population (depending on who you include), are now even less likely to be helped. How do we define “better?” We have redoubled our commitment to using healthcare as a means to force people into jobs they don’t want, and to maintaining a large population of people in medical poverty, all to benefit a tiny cohort of oligarchs. I would argue that’s not better, it’s just resetting the fundamental evils back on a firm foundation where they won’t be dislodged for a few more generations.
The american healthcare system is performing exactly as it should. It's making obscene profits for hospitals, drug companies and insurance companies, and for all its other associated parasitic ventures. That's primarily what it's intended to do. Whether people actually receive good healthcare or not (they usually don't) is secondary. Making money is what it's all about. (Actually, the only reason america as a nation still exists at all is that it's simply a machine to generate wealth, no more and no less.) One metric of a nation's standard of civility and quality of life is how its government takes care of its populace, and by that metric america is a complete third-world-esque failure. Unlike any other nation-states, it has progressed directly from primitive barbarism to avaricious decadence without any intermediate period of civilization. If you want good and/or affordable healthcare in The Land Of The Free, you'll need a passport.
Hi from Leipzig (Germany). We even have playgrounds where Kids can build their own obstacles. It's called Bauspielplatz and the kids can have lumber, hammer, nails and paint to create their own structures. To be fair, it's supervised by adults.
Where I grew up those are called Abenteuerspielplatz. Most of the play elements were constructed by kids. There was always staff present, but I never had the feeling of being watched and we could basically do whatever we wanted. Kids just had to collect a certain amount of loose nails and other scrap before they were handed tools.
As a retired elementary school teacher, I fully agree with the points made in this video! A few years ago, I was appalled when the principal of our local elementary school required all children to participate only in a few structured activities at recess. Children need some free play time. And while some supervision may be necessary, we overdo it. Accidents and incidents happen rarely, but the media make a big deal when they do occur. The real world has many dangers that we need to learn to avoid, and keeping a child in a (boring) protective bubble doesn't teach them to cope.
How is a child supposed to learn its limits when it never has any opportunity to test them. And yes, that means occassionally getting injured; but getting some minor injuries lets them gauge how far they can go without risking major ones.
As a parent I fully agree, if you have kids you better have a first aid kit and a big box of bandaids. Same goes for an elementary school. I've never stopped my children from doing stuff that might cause some bruises or scratches. I needed to restock bandaids regularly, but I've never had to take them to hospital for anything. Worst thing was needing a few stitches, none of them ever broke a single bone. (Also, those zip lines are just too much fun.)
I think this is a part of the reason we have kids/teens afraid of everything. They are afraid to even get driver’s licenses. I grew up in the 60s-we learned to shrug off bumps and scrapes, test our limits, take risks. Which is all important for adult life.
My Austrian husband said his childhood playgrounds were "construction sites" until they got chased away. My school playground was designed by a German couple, I loved the swings. There were 3 different sizes/heights, and the trapeze. There was a heap of blocks we would build up and try to climb on.
Went to Rome/Italy. They have shockingly boring playgrounds. Went to the "Explora - Il Museo dei Bambini di Roma" which is great for kids. They have an wonderful playground. By chance talked with the vice director, mentioned their outstanding playground. His reply "we hired a danish company to build it". :D
This is somewhat similar to the unintended consequence of mandating gloves in boxing back in the day: head/brain injuries went up because boxers could now punch to the head without (as much!) danger of breaking their hands. Like how the protective gear in American Football, helmets and shoulder armour, became part of the players' offensive techniques, leading to a similar rise in spine and brain injuries.
As a schoolboy at junior prep in Westminster, my roomies' and my playgrounds were WWII bombsites, wandering around big stores during weekends, and travelling the Tube. My sons' playgrounds were the mountains and wildlife reserves and playing with the lambs and horses on the farm. Today, my grandsons spend most weekends surfing, or going on treks, or playing sports, all mostly without any "boring", restrictive parents around. As my gramps told me, "A child hasn't experienced the full joy of childhood if he (she) hasn't broken a bone or two before senior school". He was a paediatrician!! 😅
In US it seems that children are protected very much, much more than in Europe, but when they US kids finish K-12 education, all the protection is gone and as adults they have to face life risks without any safety net. No universal healthcare (if something happens, emergency room and hospital bills can be huge and cause personal bankruptcy), university tuitions are huge, yet no warranty that they will get well paid job soon after graduating in order to be able to pay off huge debt, rent or buy even smallest single family house in least favourable area or flats (if flats even exist in US as everything i see in videos from US is huge suburban sprawl with single family houses), they can lose job at any time, huge crime rate, no warranty of decent retirement, no maternity leave for young mothers, no sick leave if they are sick (or unpaid sick or maternity leave), much less vacation time than anywhere in Europe, driving on dangerous roads (even those who aren't trully talented for driving and would rather walk or use public transit have to drive and even disabled people have to drive in order to come to work, to collect kids at daycare, school, to doctor, etc).
I forgot to mention that i have mixed info regarding healthcare affordability for kids in us as in some US states kids are eglible for medicaid even if their parents wouldn't be and there is also child health insurance program (CHIP ) which can be of some help regarding affordability of healthcare for kids in US too and also lower costs for healthcare procedures for kids than for adults (if it is true what i read and that it isn't in fact disinformation), and so, regarding healthcare i am not so sure whether children are more or equally protected as adults.
The overly safe playgrounds have started appearing here in Germany as well. I (37) was able to play in a 4.5m tall wooden castle with slides and ropes, bridges and fun other stuff on the grounds of my Kindergarten. Never heard of a single accident. During a refurb of the Kindergarten, they ripped the old castle out and replaced it with a 1.5m tall one. With padded ground. The other playground I used to love had what was supposed to be a stranded pirate ship. With sails made out of climbing net. Got old, was replaced by a vanilla near ground playground. Awful.
Worry not. After they make law that you are entitled to 50% of money and all property after just few months of dating (which might include just chatting - because why not make it even worse) there won't be any children because no one will dare to date - issue with children having accidents will resolve itself :D
Unfortunately that is the truth here in Germany. For me it just looks like we are only a short time behind the US in terms of risk-elemiation in all places around. When I was a kid (1960s) the best playground in town was the elephant playground. There was a climbing structure build from steel standing on bare ground/earth that featured an elephant and in the trunk a slide was integrated. This structure was at least about 3 meter/10ft high. You could climp onto the ears and hang free above the ground below.This structure was still existing when my son was born (1998), but today it is replaced by something that also looks a little like an elephant, but is significantly smaller and more padded all around. Nowadays those things on the playground gets more and more risk free.
Jack seems like he's going to become a real Ninja Warrior when he grows up. Anyway, I remember that when our playground was renovated and made less risky, it became boring, and that completely changed our daily routine because we stopped going and had to find something else to do.
Hello Ashton, I think you would really enjoy the concept of so called Bau-Spielplätze or Bauies (construction playgrounds). They can build small huts out of wooden planks using real tools like Saws, Hammers and nails under light adult supervision. These Bauies often also have animals and a petting zoo, workshops where kids can learn to fix their own bikes and firepits where the kids can learn how to safely start and interact with fire. These playgrounds usually have a team of social workers and volunteers that supervise them. Going there is a little bit like growing up on a frame whilst living in a city. Also they are usually free and don't need any kind of registration to go there, and the kids can go and come alone whenever they please. So its not like a kindergarden.
Beside playing on playgrounds unsupervised, my sons class (13 year old) is going to England for 3 days and they will be allowed to explore London unsupervised. They learned about the Tube, the areas and what to say and where to go in case of an emergency. Of course I'm nervous but very happy for them!
My daughter did that last year, and loved it. Talked my ears off about everything for days afterwards, it's a great experience (and all 50 children came back in one piece).
Local playground had to remove one of the playground equipment due to several broken bones in a few months. It become a bit dangerous because it was used in a way never thought of and the kids end up flying. That was the most popular playground equipment. I live in Norway.
Sadly, even our German playgrounds are getting "safety" upgrades. For example many Merry-Go-Rounds in my area have been made to go slower than adult walking speed, making them completely un-fun to most kids. They are honestly so difficult to turn with the resistance being so great at times it takes 2 adult men to even get them to "top" speed... We also saw some ziplines removed practically overnight. No "closed for maintenace" or something, just immediately removed even though a day before kids played on them without issue.
imo these were never that fun and the faster they spun you the less fun it got. I think the issue are the many video of teenagers putting scooters on the merry-go-rounds to drive them. That is seriously dangerous and the ones controlling the speed can't interact with the kids sitting on it
The comment about McD's playgrounds struck home. My mother was an insurance adjuster and the insurance industry made all sorts of rules because a lot of people were suing restaurants and other entities for even small mishaps, things I would have shrugged off as a child. Any more people are looking for an out and someone to blame and then sue even if they are at fault. Things I did as a child are no longer allowed all to make the world safe for children but that takes away the ability of people to learn their limits and how to judge risks into their adulthood.
When I was very little, my favourite "playground" was the forest (read, tiny little bit of woods) around our home. A few hectares of undertended growth of trees, stinging nettles, brambles and suchlike. With a little stream running through it that we used to dam and that was the border we defended, quite aggressively, against the neighbouring gang of kids. With sticks and stones, nothing less. We used to build huts there, and hideouts in the nettle thickets. When time came for dinner, we'd sometimes have to make up stories about where the bruises came from -the mud stains and occasional tears in our clothes were taken for granted. I'm doing what I can to enable my toddler to get to have similar experiences as she grows.
I think there's a really important concept missing from the explanation of risk: you want the child to CHOOSE the risk they're taking, and prevent all foreseeable unintended risks. So a massive safety improvement in recent years has been the requirement to inspect playground equipment (in Europe, at least) for damage that may cause suffocation, constriction and cut risks. Also, you want to design playsets towards an age range. Really small kids should be coddled a bit and play on super-safe playsets with no possible falls further than about 1 body length. Bigger preschoolers still have grab handles and edge guards everywhere and can't fall more than 3 body lengths. Bigger kids? Go absolutely wild. 4, 5, 6 meter tall play structures. Clothes get ripped sometimes. Small groups of 14yo kids congregate in high places to gossip about classmates.
It seems to me that this is a hugely overlooked aspect. Not all playground accidents are equal, and the differences matter. To me there is absolutely no problem with getting bruises every once in a while, they'll, then they'll heal and then they probably do it again. And I honestly don't know why I'd deny them that. But once the risks are on the level of ending up in hospital or dying, yeah, that should be avoided. (Those ziplines are a good example, it'll hurt if you fall of, but they are so low you'd have to be extremely unlucky to even break a bone.)
My favorite "playground" was always nature. The small forests near my home where my playground. Don't believe the forests grew according to safety regulations, but maybe I'm wrong :o).
I grew up in the US. My favorite things to play on were a tree in my garden and a rock that was as tall as my adult shoulders now. We could easily fit 5-6 kids on the rock. The tree had 4 V shaped branches. We would climb higher and higher and jump from the tallest V to enter into our imaginary world. I grew up feeling like I had the best garden of all my friends! 😂
I live in Switzerland but I guess I can agree. When I was in primary school, we had a huge 3 story wooden tower with a slide from the third floor and a rope for the second floor. now they replaced it with a boringly small but "safe" slide-tower.
I agree, I lived until recently in Amstelveen, a suburb of Amsterdam with a high number of high skilled migrants and expats. They like to change several things in our country, like opening hours of shops, ours close at 18.00 hrs, easy access to hospitals and specialists, while in our system we first go to a GP and if necessary they write a referral for hospital or specialist, they want to make things safer like parks, playgrounds and schools, or they won’t let their children walk or bike to school or sports club alone. I wonder why they chose to come and live here if they wanna change it into their home country.
I think the biggest difference in europe is that playgrounds are not standardised. In the next village, city block/town you will find a playground that is new and exiting. Yes, they usually have the favourites (swings, wobbly animals, slides) but they have their own character. Who is inspired to play the same thing all the time? My little niece does not know where i live, but she knows where i live is the pirateship playground with lots of water features. I count on that being exiting for a good few years yet. After that i will have to come up with an auntie-program beyond a Picknick and the playground 😂
Yeah and its even funnier when you consider eastern Europe where everything was standardized - you literally had identical classrooms between one part of the country and other part of the country. Everyone remembers the same things. Outsides though - some standardized things but even across the town it was quite varied with more improvisation.
this differse playgounds are allways a good reason to explore the next suburb (here in Hamburg as a large city). Kids love it to discover new playgrounds.
that’s the same in the US. You need to leave the Suburbs. Hell, even small cities like St Louis are full of wildly varied playgrounds from Faust Park to Turtle Playground to arguably the best playground on Earth St Louis City Museum. Small towns usually propose and build their own unique spaces as well. The reason you see so many plastic clones in American suburbia is because of cost, not regulation. The same handful of companies offer wildly discounted rates for package deals and catalogue buys. That’s it.
@@lookatthisguyhere7712 doesn't st luis have something like 280k inhabitants? Perspectives on what constitutes 'small'... that aside, i am glad there are good examples of interesting playgrounds for kids to enjoy.
14:15 Hi Ashton, great video so far. Just had to pitch in on your comment here. There's a critical difference between "not wanting your kids to get hurt" and "accepting that minor scrapes, bruises, and even fractures are part of growing up". There's the difference of mortal fear of debt and poverty through medical debt as well as lawsuits vs belief in common sense/gesunder Menschenverstand. Basically when you start doing a facepalm at any situation is when both liability insurances and German judges wave off ridiculous claims. This goes both ways, ie both in preventing ridiculous lawsuits, as well as ridiculous payments. Granted, some idiots try it here as well, and maybe go up to the level of Oberlandesgericht/upper state court, but those are rare, extremely rare in Germany.
My sister and my friends and I played in the ruins of WWII. It was forbidden and bc of that even more interesting and our parents had bigger problems to deal with. Nothing ever happen to us and I am still alive and kicking after over 70 years. 😁
Same here in the UK! I am almost 80. As a tiny, we used to play on 'the croft' which was an area of terraced houses which had been bombed, then further demolished, then ... just left. We excavated access to cellars, built 'castles' out of bricks and blocks, and older kids gossiping about schoolmates in semi-secret, half-roofed 'rooms' (where they also smoked!) kept an eye on younger ones. Later, I played at an old, derelict, brickworks on the outskirts of a village we moved to. That _was_ actually dangerous, looking back - there was a water-filled quarry, with steep sides - but none of us did much more than cut or graze ourself slightly; one boy broke his collar bone swinging from a tree to the top of a kiln, when his rope broke (IIRC, it was his mum's old washing line!).
I grew up in the 90s and early 2000s in Germany and I vividly remember my school cutting down the tree-thicket we used to climb in, to replace it with a climbing wall that was about 1,50m. As a kid I did not get the point, because I could literally just jump that high. Noone used the thing. We used to just jump from 2,5m tall building into the sand, same with swings, when you land on sand you can get some serious hight. Now that I think about it, we also used to jump from garages straight onto asphalt, I couldn't do this now, my spine would snap. One time we used a zipline on a mountain-playground, and when it was my little brothers turn we gave him extra speed,so he lost grip, made a perfect somersault and landed on his butt. He wanted to cry, but stopped immediatly because we thought it looked so mega-cool and where applauding him for his prowess. :D
My husband built a German style playground in our backyard in Florida. My daughter goes to a German International School in Miami, and the kids and parents absolutely love it. My husband turned his building a German style playground in our backyard into a business. I didn't know there were so many Germans, Austrians, and Swiss in Miami. The sad part of this whole thing is my nieces and nephews can't play on our playground because "it's too dangerous." I totally razz my brother about this because when we were kids, we had a German style playground in our backyard. Yes, we got stitches and broken bones, but it gave us experience on what not to do when playing 😅.
Well, we have to face, that this is a luxury problem - seeing kids around the world playing in the woods, the fields, barns, near the road or on a hill gives me another perspective: Maybe the playgrounds aren't the problem, but the fact, that we actually need them, because our whole surroundings are not play-friendly? When I was a child, I regularly came home bruised and dirty, because I played in nature, fell from trees, gave myself cuts from barbed wires (or more than one time shocks from electric wires ☝🤪), I even played with fire, fell in trenches or in mud instead going on a playground. I don't think, kids nowadays get these experiences often enough.
You make a fair point. However, I think that this is also an argument for making playgrounds a viable substitute for natural play areas, which not all children have access to any more. This includes allowing a well-measured level of risk. Nobody expects barbed wire and electrified cattle fences on playgrounds, but it should be considered absolutely normal for children to come home from playing with bumps and scratches.
I come from a village and now live with my family in a big city. I don't think it's a question of either-or. Children always find a way if you let them. The question I asked myself as a father: are they able to get help when they need it? So it's a question of trusting your children and your fellow human beings. For my Kids I built this trust by educating them (e.g. In the handling of knives or other tools), letting them do and let them learn from mistakes. In the village, where everyone knows each other, it is easier to build this trust in your neighbors In cities, parks and playgrounds play an important role in building trust. Playgrounds are above all social places. Everyone meets there: toddlers and their parents, schoolchildren and teenagers in the evenings. It's a very important place for the whole neighborhood. It gives the whole kind of village feel. Another aspect: especially for smaller children, it is not easy to play on the streets, in nature or in the neighborhood, as it was for me in the village. In the city, this is more of a question for weekend outings. In the playgrounds, the children could keep to themselves and practise social skills with older and younger children - and as I said, parents of small children were also there in an emergency - just like in the village back then.
i was always a huge fan of the "kletterspinne" - essentially those big rope constructs you can climb in we had one that was shaped like a pyramid and probably about 10 meters high over a sandpit - an absolute blast to climb in and it had little leather hanging platforms you could have a rest in... those also made for great places to observe the entire schoolyard and the surrounding area its probably one of the big reasons i still love climbing... even though i have a fear of heights (well probably more a very acute feeling of vertigo when being able to see long distances beneath me... but dunno if thats the same thing)
With 15 playground deaths per year in the USA, a playground may be the safest place for a kid to be. The magic trick of German playgrounds is a sign at the entrance to all playgrounds: "Eltern haften für ihre Kinder!" (Parents are responsible for their Children). The parents are responsible for the children's safety, not the playground owner or facilitator. As long as there is no gross negligence or intent on the side of the playground operators, they do not have to fear any liability claims by parents (children cannot claim such things in Germany).
Hi Ashton I love our playgrounds, always have a smile when I see an interesting one. The most boring and ugliest ones are at McD. Have a great Sunday everyone!
Have better memories (Central Europe) from abandoned ruins of castles or factories, WWII monuments hidden in forest (bunkers, tanks, howitzers, airplanes)...
Did all of the above. As Kids we were building caves in the woods next to the River. In the City I went to school there was the Bunker Wald next to the school. And the construction Side was in my Case the storage area of m fathers bricklayer company. In the early teen years we played there after watching movies Like American nInja 🤣 still have a scar on my eyebrow from that time. But WE went still to the playground two villages over BC there was a ZIP line
As a German: You are actually not supposed to drop off your kid at a playground and play with your smartphone for hours. You as a parent are required to supervise your children at the playground and prevent tell them, if they do risky stuff. Also, just get up that rope structure together with your child, so you can hold their hand until they are climbing that thing safe themselves. You are supposed to engage in these activities together with your child. Its not supposed to be a "drop off, worry not" kind of thing.
This spring, our 10yo daughter broke her arm and her shoulder when she fell from a tree a couple of meters. Right now, while I'm sitting in my office and watching this video, I can see her through the window sitting in the very same tree again with the neighbors kid. I'm so proud of her. Edit: A little side note. After discussing her accident several times she's now obsessed with base jumping, becaus after telling her why squirrels do not hurt themself when falling out of trees she learned about wingsuits.
I once read about toys in general, saying that Lego and other prestructured things are perfect if you want to prepare your child for working on a factory line as a kind of machine appliance (like screwing in the same two screws all day long or what have you) - because these things sort of take over the initiative from the human, reducing them to do what the dead material 'wants' (I am somewhat hampered here in my expression, sorry). I don't want to get Lego fans up in arms and yes, I do know you can do amazing things with the little trinkets, but it still relies on you having those things in the first place - whereas there is a totally different experience in building something out of materials you just gathered yourself - be it in the woods or in the trash bin. The same idea applies to a playground. In one of your pictures there could be seen a little merry go-round where even the seats were preconceived, meaning a child could sit either in this one, or one of the other three. No chance of body contact by squeezing next to all your friends (or - gasp! - even a strange kid!) if there had just been a bench like a circle. Another example was a kind of steps where you only could get up by placing your feet in exactly the preordained way - there even was a little child to be seen who was too small to easily use them and had to pull themselves up - nothing wrong with that, of course, but it just shows how much better it would be if things were less premanufactured and thus more easily adapted by the individual child. Looking at your examples of US playgrounds (and as much as it pains me to say so, there ARE similar ones here in Germany, too) it is clear from the get go, that there are just a limited amount of things you CAN do with those and that's just depressing and really hampers your child's development. Someone once said 'If you have a doll that can say Mama, that's nice. For about five minutes. If, however, you have a piece of cloth tied into knots to suggest a human form, you have a doll as long as your imagination can come up with things the doll wants or does - and if you are done with it - the cloth can serve as the roof of your newly built dwarves' hut...
When I was kid in the 1960s and 1970s we'd get hurt on playground equipment and parents back then never sued anyone. They'd blame us for being daredevils and take us to get patched up. These days most kids in the US don't play outdoors anymore. It's sad really.
Our playground was an abandoned East German coal storage. I nearly died like 3 times playing there. Once I fell down from a wall I wanted to climb on a patch of moss next to a pillar base made out of concrete. Good times.
I can only imagine the combination of fear and joy that my parents must have felt once I got out on my bicycle and started to explore the surrounding area. Now this is in the Netherlands, which makes a big difference, but this still was from about 1980 to 1986, the true cycling improvements had yet to come. Local playing was climbing trees (talk about an unstructured playground), walking around in the neighbourhood, messing with bicycles. And that was the unsupervised playing. Messing with fire was supervised. Oh, the joy of discovering cycling, and exploring how far you could go…
Love this video. There's a sting in "voluntary safety guidelines" and it's that if you don't follow them and something happens, you not-so-voluntarily have to explain why you didn't follow them. And that's just here in the Netherlands. I expect in the US the explaining will have to be done in some high profile court case where you're portrayed in the media as who-knows-what.
I remember the playgrounds from the early 80s. Some of my favorites were the giant spools that were left over from the electric company putting up power lines. I also remember the giant tube on the playground. The monkey bars and giant spools disappeared after I finished kindergarten. The merry go round went after I was in 4th grade. (USA)
One of the "how did we survive our childhood"-emails is running through my head. In my childhood, there were playgrounds but they were of limited interest to me. Much of my time was spent in the woods or even in non-active building sites. That was of course forbidden, which of course added to the attraction.
I didn't have a playground in my childhood. We.were climbing in the trees, playing in the woods. Everyone had a knife for carving wood. We were making open fire without starting unwanted fires.
I think it's possible to design risky and challenging playgrounds that have less obvious safety features. If the children don't see the safety feature, it'll allow them to be challenged while keeping them safe. I also think it's possible to design explorable spaces where children can hone their navigation skills and discover hidden areas while keeping them monitored with hidden tracking features. I explored untamed woods and swampy river bottom land as a child which helped me develop navigation and tracking skills while making me feel more free. Structured discovery areas with mock warning signs that would be obvious to adults but less so to children would allow them to push their boundaries in a safe way.
My favourites were trees to climb on. On playgrounds the zip line. But they were loved by many. That was the reason too many kids were on the platform and I fell down and broke my arm. That wasn't something special at that time. Your parents drove you to the hospital and you got a plaster. I don't think anybody would have thought about sueing anybody. Even better playgounds were construction sites. For some years we had some nearby.
I mean as a German when i look at Americas broken Healthcare system i can understand the Helicopter behave in some way. When a broken bone can lead to bankruptcy of the family.
Great that you covered the differences of the legal systems as the differences in tort law are the underlying issue. University also taught us some playground cases in German law [at the University of Freiburg, by the way]. While I agree in principle on the benefits of more risky play, on the other hand, if you see the state of maintenance of some playgrounds or other public infrastructure infrastructure (e.g. public swimming baths in Berlin), you really ask yourself if you should let your kid play there. There are also some social factors in some areas which should be taken into account as it's not everywhere as cozy and friendly as in Freiburg. Beste Grüße in das Badnerland! :)
Even the European playgrounds of today are much safer than they used to be 50 or 60 years ago, I remember the 10m/33ft tall slide made of tubular steel with wood slats and no side protection which I found so much fun as a kid. We also used to go out and construct tree houses at considerable height, or digging out tunnels lining the roof with boards to prevent them from collapsing after exactly that happened at the first attempt. The private property is of course the parent's own responsibility, so my dad always had an eye on the tree houses and tunnels we made and advised when he saw things of real concern, then he learned us how to do them better instead from telling us not to do them at all. This kind of play did learn us to cope with setbacks and negative experiences, being creative in finding solutions and better risk assessment as adults. I always can pick out those of my age who have been pampered and protected as kids, they don't cope as well with the everyday life and it culprits as those who had more freedom to roam, explore and take risk as kids and not carried their a**es behind by their mom as we say it here.
we adjust to the world we grow up in when I was little we had a main road running through our village and I noticed a change in kid's behaviour when the bypass was opened. the kids born before (i.e. "us") were really cautious around the street, even when it was empty we looked 3 times before crossing and knew we were part of traffic when riding our bikes. the kids who grew up with the bypass had a nasty habbit of mindlessly running after their balls like in driving-education videos...
I know exactly what you're talking about. In my childhood (once upon a time) there were no playgrounds at all. We (5-12 years old) played together, unsupervised, on the street or in the forest, building tree houses or bunkers. Yes, you read that correctly. The closest thing to a sandbox was a bomb crater. The older ones looked after the younger ones a little. The worst that happened were bruises, scraped knees and those damn blackberry thorns. Wasn't there a saying. Learning by doing? Greetings from the Black Forest.
When we in Germany tell the kids: „Don’t do it! You will hurt your self!!“, and they do it and get hurt. We have a saying: „If you don’t want to listen, you have to feel !“ ( i was born 1980 , raised that way & only 1 broken Arm 😉. And i wore the cast like a medal !!)
This reminds me, funnily enough, of a scene from Finding Nemo. While they are in the whale, Malin says that he promised Nemo that he wouldn't ever let anything happen to him and Dory wonders why he would promise something like that because "You can't never let anything happen to him, then nothing would ever happen to him", which wouldn't be much fun. This is kind of happening right now where parents in the US wanna protect their kids from anything ever happening to them because they might get hurt, whilst not realizing that a bloody knee, dirty and ripped pants, and some bruises are part of getting to know your body and your surroundings. And while I get it, with the healthcare system being as it is where a broken leg can bankrupt you, but this just takes away so much from kids growing up. That and the fact that they have to be driven everywhere and can't go out by themselves to play with their friends.
To say that my parents' style was hands-off would be putting it mildly. Supervision of my playtime was basically nonexistent. After school (to which I had to either walk or bicycle, and in later years take a public bus) and homework were done, I usually left the house to play in the surrounding woods, to return home at nightfall. Most of the children in my neighbourhood grew up in a similar fashion. I think it's fair to say that, weather permitting, we children raised ourselves, mostly by playing outdoors and in groups. Were there accidents? You bet. The odd fractured limb from falling out of a tree. Campfires resulting in burned fingers. Cuts were pretty frequent, because we all carried penknives. And the baby brother of one of my friends tragically died after crashing his bicycle on a much to steep road (no third party involvement, just excess speed). He suffered a fractured skull. That was of course a terrible thing to happen, but bike helmets were simply unheard of 50 years ago. The point is that although the boy's parents probably blamed themselves, I don't believe that anybody else in the village did. We children were always testing our limits, out of sight of our parents, and 95% of the time that was fine. Life is risky, and children need to develop the awareness and skills to deal with these risks.
I likef to try everything: zipline, climbing paecours, slides, long swings, jumpung off them, the old carussels have changed, coil spring wobblers came too late... Wippen waren eher langweilig. Climbing trees, swedisch rocks, building dams in brooks, all waterfronts, digging, sticks... My kids also like the water playgrounds. It probably is the challenge of trying something.
Hi Ashton, interesting comparison and thoughts around risk and safety in playgrounds. Jack has got so tall. Lovely to see him enjoying that flying fox; looks fun. We have some great play spaces here in Melbourne. All abilities playgrounds and adventure playgrounds, much better than I experienced as a child. Thanks for your video 😀🛝
In the 80s, we kids met at our neighborhood playground. The "pecking order" was determined, among other things, by who dared to jump from the side of the slide into the sandpit (wooden construction with sheet steel track, approx. 2.5m high, roof edge 3.5m, top 4m). There was NEVER anyone injured, not once. (needless to say we never let an adult see this) My niece (now 6 years old) has already broken her arm twice - on the hanging pole in her own garden (1m / 1.5m)... I believe that the "safety regulations" do not protect the children from injuries, but rather the playground owners from lawsuits. Great Video! Thanks!
The most exciting 'playgrounds' are scary derelict houses, wrecks, abandon vehicles and trees - Nothing purposely intended for 'playing' in an adult's sense.
I saw a huge, wrapped cable climbing structure over there, made me want to be a kid again; will never see anything like that in the US. The small, neighborhood park was great, too- they trimmed a fallen tree, painted it, and used it for a climbing structure.
I have never laughed just from seeing you, normally that would be absolutely rude. However at 7:02 i couldn't stop myself. I thought that looked like a real fun playground and didn't really get your concern, then i realized my scale was off by a factor 2. Congratulations you successfully used yourself as comedic relief.
Those German playgrounds look amazing! I’ve been really glad to see playgrounds in the UK finally starting to include more accessible play equipment so that children who use wheelchairs or other mobility aids can join in too - would be interesting to know how that works in Germany? Thanks!
Preventing children from moving beause they might break their wrists so they don't move and get all kinds of more dramatic, chronic issues feels like a cruel joke.
Kid hurts itself on the playground: German parent: "Oh would you shut up it's your own fault and you know it..." US parent: "Officer shut down this playground it is life threatening!"
When I was in kindergarten in the 90s my best friend and I loved climbing everything, I fell and broke my right arm twice :P, nobody ever blamed the kindergarten, I guess the mentality was that boys will be boys...
I think the most dangerous favourite play place I had when I was a child was a heavily excavated building site full of "lakes" of stagnant water, with slippery "cliffs" sometimes, at a time when I couldn't yet swim. It was a fantastic place. If you got tired of the mud lakes (or had one scare too many), there were brick and mortar houses under construction with stuff to play with, there. Often there was leftover cement at the end of the day, for instance, and there was all sorts of scaffolding to climb around on. One night long before that construction site, a friend and I decided to bunk school the next day, and to sleep out in a house under construction, under the stars, up on some scaffolding (I suppose because it was level and not full of bits of gravel to dig into you, and also because we knew there might be scorpions in the area). We thought there might be burglars (in a "house" with no doors yet), and made little concrete balls as weapons to throw at them, and chase them away if they came. We probably got scared eventually. Or bored. Or uncomfortable. So we changed plans, and decided to rather cycle home, and go to school the next day. Looked like Mom and Dad were having a huge party when we got home. Why didn't they tell us? We just walked in, and began heading to the room or something, and "got arrested". Me and Dad had a long talk that night, involving explaining that the police had even started to drag the river (which we would almost certainly have explored - without being able to swim - had we ever gotten hold of a boat, or made one we imagined could float). We were an old fashioned family. If you were really naughty, you got a hiding (with bare hand, not with a "weapon" that might insulate the hand from the pain it, too had, as a "moderator"), but for the very most serious things, there was the long wait, then the long chat, and then the severe warning. It had an impact. If it rained heavily, one thing we'd often do is go off into dirt roads in the area, with lots of puddles, and have mud fights (no aggression beyond trying to make everyone dirtier than you). When you got home from a mud fight, you got hosed down in the garden before you could go in. I think the clothes stayed outside, and visitors would have to borrow clean clothes to go home in. When I was quite little, we lived in a place where the bigger kids had discovered that if you can kill off a beehive, there's honey there. Luckily none of us got stung. Not us little ones, anyway. Oh and there were dumped cars in a "forest" (to us) of bluegums near the Golden Highway (that we were forbidden to go anywhere near - and the once when we did, we found an electrical substation - what Dad called it - that had been sabotaged - blown up with explosives). The dumped cars were enormous old "Yank tanks" (from the days that American cars were made like tanks), with all sorts of crawl spaces to get stuck in.) (Hmm ... reminds me of my Dad. He had an uncle who allowed people to dump their old cars on his farm, and Dad would go and play there, removing things like instruments from the dashboards, and then setting them up at a challenging distance to throw stones at, and eventually break - destroying quite a lot of money value in later terms, since a lot of the cars were really ancient). Dad went through a patch of seeing which of a scorpion and spider would win a fight. We weren't allowed to mess with scorpions or spiders. He also had a friend who would catch snakes to sell to snake collectors. We weren't allowed to mess with snakes. Those were quite easy rules to obey. Staying away from the river was less easy. It was a long cycle, but it was within reach. If you have a bicycle, you're quite mobile. (We weren't allowed to cycle to school, though. Busy road. Reckless drivers.) We were never very much fussed with playgrounds as far as I can recall. Oh my granny lived on a mine, so she had a mine dump we could play on. Grab a sheet of cardboard, and slide down over grassy bits. We dug a cave there, too. (One of the families' little son died in a caved in cave he made, we heard later, so that was dangerous). We were meant to stay away from some of the sands, because of chemicals, but forgot which it was meant to be. I'm remembering too many playgrounds, now, so better shut up. Must have been terrible for the parents of the boy who made the cave. They would never have know he was doing this, and only found out when his body was found when he went missing.
1987 I went to the US (from The Netherlands) to work in a boy scout camp. Rule 1 was "the kids aren't allowed to run". I kid you not, we where in the woods and the weren't allowed to run. I found that cruel tot he kids (and my night rest as a kid has to burn some energy). So I gave them the rule and told them they where allowed to run if we weren't in sight of other staff. Second rule was they had to continue walking after breaking a bone. The last one was a joke but it made we had a pact. Once or twice a kid fell, stood up and smiled at me, nothing to worry about. We also balanced on a fallen tree, no one fell of. Weirdest thing happening that freaked me out? A kid wanted to crab a stick and it slithered over my shoes, I kept my cool but inside I was screaming lol.
@@charis6311 Three kids one day walked up to me and on said very seriously "you are wicked nifty" and the other 2 nodded to show they all where of same mind. My English study didn't include slang so I asked if the was a positive thing. There was a bit of a Panick as they all wanted to make clear it was cool and wonderful and all good. It was so cute. I once got a kid with the instruction that I shouldn't interfere (do nothing) when the kid got injured or a bleeding or whatever as someone of his religion would be called and only he could try to heal the child. I just came out of the army and had learned everything needed in a war zone to keep someone alive and I wasn't going to do nothing. The kid could/would be expelled from his whatever the cult was called and I told myself I was going to adopt him if that was possible (I was only a 21 year old guy having no interest to become a father). I also let him run and nothing happened but the stuff you get exposed to in the US was often wonderful but sometimes weird.
But besides those big and dense cities in the US such as NYC, where people live in apartments and have the need to go public parks, I don’t see the families going into a park as they do in Germany, as you mentioned, many families have even their playground in the house because their gardens are bigger
Public playgrounds have another aspect, kids can socialise there and not only play on their own, with siblings or neighbors like they would if they did it at home.
THIS!!! I was so glad my kids were little when we lived abroad. Back in the US there’s so much coddling of children. As a parent and especially as a high school teacher, it’s frustrating. I do think it’s interesting that both my kids made best friends when we got back with kids in families that had lived in Europe. I’m friends with the Moms because we have a more European parenting style. It’s really helped me lower the cultural anxiety pressures. Not sure I think the parenting style is swinging back, but we can hope so!
Let's not forget that in some jurisdictions, parents can lose custody of their kids and even be sent to prison for allowing kids to play outside unsupervised. It's something of a gamble.
In the east Poland we had to go to some abandoned places and ignore all the bottles and cigarette butts and at times jar with dry glue left away by evening/night residents of these places. Given all that I don't remember any kid dying because of such safe places. There were accidents but probably less than American kids today have in their airtight bubbles. And of course this is nothing. My gandma when she lived said Germans were the best organizing playtimes. They even bothered to bring real tanks and other live munitions :D
Lawyers being killjoys? Who would have thought. Growing up, I and a lot of my friends and family members got some kind of injury, like bone fractures or less serious, playing. Maybe 10% happened on a playground. Most happened while doing things like climbing trees.
Well, you know, some parents want to confine their children to a rubber cell. Like the ones you know from a psych ward. And then they wonder why these kids cant get anything done, when they've grown up...
Kids, so many in UK at least, are 'Lard arses' over protected to the point of taking no risks outside a computer game. They need some danger and risk to develop.
When looking at the dangers of playgrounds it is paramount to keep in mind the real danger is not in dangerous elements, but in hazardous elements. kids aren't stupid and can definitely recognise dangerous elements of playgrounds and will act accordingly. The real danger lies in hazards, things that unexpectendly cause issues, be it from negligent maintance or poor design, are the real dangers in a playground
My childhood was in the 70s. That's when the first adventure playgrounds appeared. And some of them would be closed today for safety reasons. But hey, we survived, all limbs still intact, nothing broken. Man, what fun we had. No parents sitting on benches and anxiously watching everything.
My favourite playground toy was a large elephant made out of steel tubing whith a small platform on top and a slide for a trunk. It must have been about ten feet high and you could only reach the platform by climbing this large barrel shaped structure from the outside. I don't recall ever falling off while climbing. Maybe I don't recall because I was never injured. I'm 63 now, so it was a long time ago.
I have my own story to tell about the dangerous playgrounds here in Germany. My son (then 4) broke his leg on a playground in our neighbourhood in Feburary. Not by falling down several metres or by heavy machinery or by going down a zipline too fast. He was simply sliding down a regular slide. Sitting, feet first. We weren't there when it happened (he was on a field trip with his kindergarten) but it had rained the night before so the slide may have been wet and he had rainproof clothes on, so maybe he just got too fast. Of course we are now suing our hometown to install roofs on all slides. Just kidding, of course. Stuff happens. The important thing is that everything healed fine and he's now the same whirlwind he was before. Maybe even a bigger one. :-)
In German we say: "Die Kirche im Dorf lassen". Wenn das Kind sich auf dem Spielplatz verletzt, geht man zum Doktor und das wars. Lessons learned for next time. This is how I see it. And in the end of the day: "Leben ist lebensgefährlich"
If you hold everything back, protect everything, then a child does not learn what can or will happen. Like riding a bike at a young age here in Europe on the street or on the sidewalk. We do not say that it is not allowed, but they are taught to pay attention and not to be taken away by bus until they are 16 or to continue playing on the lawn until then. Learning through play
When I was a kid 30-40 yrs ago, during summer vacations, we‘d leave the house in the morning, only returning home for the lunch or dinner times our organizationally strict moms told us beforehand. You came home with the regular scratches and the occasional cuts, etc., from falling of trees snd stuff, but that was part of the adventure of growing up. As a kid you learn very quickly which heights to jump from is fun and which isn’t anymore. Yes, every now and then you knew someone at school, who had an arm in a sling after crashing with their bike. But nobody ever died. Kids learn this stuff by doing. It’s much more important to equip them with the necessary social skills of being respectful and polite and not bully others, etc.
I can understand padded out playgrounds when you're only one bad leg break away from medical bankruptcy. Get your healthcare system together, my American friends.
And private and public owners or construction companies are one lawsuit away from paying outlandish reparations.
I would be way more protective (and restrictive) with my children as well with those bills looming. But at the same time they encourage their children to play american football - thats where i don't understand it anymore...
@@lifth13Well that’s because American Football is practically a religion here in America so of course we’re going to encourage it 🤪
“What, you mean *socialized* medicine?! Americans want nothing to do with that Communism stuff!” 🙄 🤷♂️
@@davidroddini1512 It's a fascinating sport, don't get me wrong. It's just the glaringly obvious inconsistency of padded out playgrounds and this sport coexisting that i can't understand.
My dad was an architect for our local municipality (in Germany) and as such built, designed and renovated many schools and playgrounds. One thing he said that I'll never forget was "when designing a playground I'm building something that would tempt an adult to climb around on, this way a child will have a guaranteed blast playing on it."
And yeah, whenever I see one of those 4 meter tall spiderweb-pyramids I get _the itch_ to climb to the top (I'm almost 40 now), whilst I get bored from simply looking at the american playgrounds. 😂
I (37) actually do climb on these on a regular basis. As a parent you finally have an excuse to do so again. ;)
Falls du mal in der Nähe von Haltern am See bist, geh unbedingt in den Ketteler Hof! (geht auch ohne Alibi-Kind 😅) da gibts sooo tolle Klettergerüste, wo auch Erwachsene reinpassen! War da um die Einschulung meines Patenkindes zu feiern, es war großartig! 😄
I still do climb up )in my mid-40s. „My child might need help“ (as an elementary school) 😉
By far the best thing about viaiting the grandparents (both sides) were the playgrounds. With my maternal grandparents, it was the huge spider web construction with the platforms where you could climb around 4m above ground. Wuth the paternaö grandparents, they had an old farm and a playground next door with a carousel. Awesome!
I'm almost 60 and I still feel that itch. Won't go away.
Also german playgrounds are regularly and relatively thoroughly inspected. With that check list it will be hard to sue because the argument that everything was as it has to be and everything else is in the responsibility of the person with the child...
I once called the Administration of my town. Some screws were loose.
The next day they were fixed.
@@roterfrosch5808 You bet they did - and they did have a quick look around if something else needed fixing whilst they were there.
like the bridge in dresden.
@@jorgjorgsen7528 That bridge in Dresden just was polite and did not want that Bridge in Baltimore feel so embarrassed alone.
@@jorgjorgsen7528 As far as I know nobody was hurt?
overheard a playground chat while watching my niece
"my Mom gets sad when my clothes get dirty"
"my Mom has a washing machine"
yeah kids getting dirty is just the expectation when they are outside right - what have they even been doing when their pants are clean?^^
It makes sense to get a bit upset when your kid goes and jumps in a mud puddle in their 'sunday best' but their day-to-day clothes are going to get dirty and torn. Heck and if they don't, they be outgrown in a short time anyway 🤷
lol good one, I have to remember that!
I've seen lots of commercials for soaps showing kids with dirty clothes that say "let them play, we can help you with the washing".
@@dealbreakerc Imo if your kid is out at the playground in their "sunday bests" you done fucked up as a parent. They needa have at least one set that's just there to become filthy and abused.
Living life means risk, to avoid all risk means to not be living life.
Many german playgrounds look more dangerous than they are. That rope-climing tower for example has no straight line down from the top, if a child were to fall down from all the way up they'd tumble through the ropes and never reach a dangerous falling speed ... sure, scrapes and bruises but those heal and are an important lesson.
Actually, in the 90's many of these playgrounds were implemented to keep children there and lower risks, because children would instead do other things like going on construction yards, industrial areas (which are also close to residential areas), provoke dogs or else. The MC Donalds was probably the most secure and lame one, and you got "free food".
@@urlauburlaub2222 Yeah, growing up in the 80-90's in rural Bavaria without any proper playgrounds around i agree, the times i've been chased off that one half-demolished ruin of the old 'pub' (Wirtshaus + Biergarten) in our village ...
@@urlauburlaub2222 Yeah. Growing up in a 70's/ 80's mixed use area and there constantly being construction and rebuilding going on: The heaps of topsoil stored for later reuse, "finding" discarded transport palettes (creosote, rusty nails poking out and all) and building huts from them.
@@stefanj1610wow wirklich interessant. Finde heute, beschweren sich zu viele, dass andauernd überall Baustellen sind, aber so wie ich deine Erzählungen wahrnehme, war das wohl mal schlimmer.
Aber vllt ging es damals auch deswegen schneller... Man musste die Kinder von Baustellen fern halten 🤭😂😂
@@mrnice81 LOL, growing up in the 60-70's in Munich, we lived close to the Paulaner brewery on Nockerberg, and somehow we played in delapidated old storage caves that were remnants of WW2. My other favorite was the coal storage in some dark corner of our multifamily house labyrinth of cellars. My mom somehow did not appreciate me coming home all black tip to toe.
Playground death compared to school shootings in the US will show the real risks, unfortunately
Not to mention traffic deaths, suicide or drug abuse.
Small children rarely get injured on playgrounds; there are far more dangers in the home. Children's bones are not yet properly developed and have cartilage, which prevents them from breaking. However, there are hot, sharp, poisonous and electrical things in the home. In US households there are even often firearms that are accessible to children. All of this is much more dangerous than a playground, at least statistically.
I also think the statistic that is lost in the conversation is that when you hear of “playground injuries” the significant majority occur on home playgrounds, not public parks or at schools, yet the numbers are collectively reported in the US.
@@TypeAshton In the US, in many places without sidewalks and whatnot, there's more risk getting *to* the playground than playing in it once there... often these stats don't properly capture the riskiest parts of our days.
Nice video!
@@TypeAshton Hi, kennst du das Video: Kids Gone Wild- Denmark's Forest Kindergartens?
A swimming pool is by far the most dangerous thing to play around, and lots of homes in the US have those
Nah. 90% my injuries as a kid came from the playground. 38 years ago playgrounds weren't as safe in the US. My first concussion and broken vertebrae came from falling off a 2 story slide at the playground. I played hard and sometimes stupid at playgrounds.
My daughter jumped from a playhouse in Kindergarten and broke her foot. The supervisors had forbidden her to jump.
In Germany we call this: "Learning by pain"
But she learned not much, because she said that she just jumped the wrong way from the playhouse. Next time she will do it the right way.
tbf, that's also some form of learning
Given her interest in jumping, have you taught her how to jump well, or found someone who can? It sounds like she's expressing what she's drawn to, so maybe supporting that could be helpful. Just a thought. Maybe she'll end up in airborne in the military.
@@bearcubdaycare the playhouse is 2m high and she was 5 years old. She had hip dysplasia grade 4 on both sides and she shouldn't jump at all. I hope she will never go to the military.
She is a one girl army and makes no prisoners.
@@KALLER76 Don´t worry she will learn. As Child I also tendet to do a "Double blind test". So I burnt both hands because I put them on the hot stove. FIrst the left one and then a short time later the right one... I broke both arms because I couldn´t belive that my slide couldn´t get between two trees. So on year the left one and next Winter the right one... And all I got to hear from my mother and grandparents was: "Well, you didn´t believe us when we told you that it doesn´t work, now yo have to live with it :D"
It's interesting how the US healthcare system distorts a lot of aspects of life.
Except of course the food industry.
@@thomasalbrecht5914
Especially the food industry. If being poisoned is your personal issues and doesn't effect literally everyone like in a single-payer-system politicians have far less motivation to slap sense into the people making the poison.
I was a personal injury lawyer in the US. Based on what my clients told me, I think we could eliminate 90% of injury cases if people had good health insurance. Practically everyone came in because they needed a way to pay the doctor.
ETA: The ACA was designed to leave around 20 million people without insurance, and it overperformed, fluctuating from 30 to 40 million. Then there’s another tranche, similarly sized, that are only nominally insured, meaning that they have insurance that’s mostly loopholes and exceptions. So unfortunately we don’t have an insurance system that would eliminate these lawsuits.
ACA was a compromise, plenty of room for improvement but still an improvement in itself looking at the overall picture.
@@Hans-gb4mv An ACA with a public option would have allowed a smooth transition to a public health system. And given the the private insurance companies a lower bound that they would have to beat.
@@Hans-gb4mv There’s a tendency to be glib about the supposed benefits of the ACA, as better than what came before. This analysis is simplistic. We had a growing consensus that our healthcare system was in urgent need of improvement. What we got with the ACA is a retrenchment of the basic commitment to using spotty access to healthcare as a threat: lose your job, lose your health. And those who are at the bottom end, approximately 10-20% of the population (depending on who you include), are now even less likely to be helped.
How do we define “better?” We have redoubled our commitment to using healthcare as a means to force people into jobs they don’t want, and to maintaining a large population of people in medical poverty, all to benefit a tiny cohort of oligarchs. I would argue that’s not better, it’s just resetting the fundamental evils back on a firm foundation where they won’t be dislodged for a few more generations.
@@Hans-gb4mv There’s a tendency to be glib about the supposed benefits of the ACA, as better than what came before. This analysis is simplistic. We had a growing consensus that our healthcare system was in urgent need of improvement. What we got with the ACA is a retrenchment of the basic commitment to using spotty access to healthcare as a threat: lose your job, lose your health. And those who are at the bottom end, approximately 10-20% of the population (depending on who you include), are now even less likely to be helped.
How do we define “better?” We have redoubled our commitment to using healthcare as a means to force people into jobs they don’t want, and to maintaining a large population of people in medical poverty, all to benefit a tiny cohort of oligarchs. I would argue that’s not better, it’s just resetting the fundamental evils back on a firm foundation where they won’t be dislodged for a few more generations.
The american healthcare system is performing exactly as it should. It's making obscene profits for hospitals, drug companies and insurance companies, and for all its other associated parasitic ventures. That's primarily what it's intended to do. Whether people actually receive good healthcare or not (they usually don't) is secondary. Making money is what it's all about. (Actually, the only reason america as a nation still exists at all is that it's simply a machine to generate wealth, no more and no less.) One metric of a nation's standard of civility and quality of life is how its government takes care of its populace, and by that metric america is a complete third-world-esque failure. Unlike any other nation-states, it has progressed directly from primitive barbarism to avaricious decadence without any intermediate period of civilization. If you want good and/or affordable healthcare in The Land Of The Free, you'll need a passport.
Hi from Leipzig (Germany). We even have playgrounds where Kids can build their own obstacles. It's called Bauspielplatz and the kids can have lumber, hammer, nails and paint to create their own structures.
To be fair, it's supervised by adults.
Where I grew up those are called Abenteuerspielplatz. Most of the play elements were constructed by kids. There was always staff present, but I never had the feeling of being watched and we could basically do whatever we wanted. Kids just had to collect a certain amount of loose nails and other scrap before they were handed tools.
Which one exactly? Sounds interesting. Looked for something like this a few days back with not much success. Leipzig would be great. And within reach
As a retired elementary school teacher, I fully agree with the points made in this video! A few years ago, I was appalled when the principal of our local elementary school required all children to participate only in a few structured activities at recess. Children need some free play time. And while some supervision may be necessary, we overdo it. Accidents and incidents happen rarely, but the media make a big deal when they do occur. The real world has many dangers that we need to learn to avoid, and keeping a child in a (boring) protective bubble doesn't teach them to cope.
How is a child supposed to learn its limits when it never has any opportunity to test them. And yes, that means occassionally getting injured; but getting some minor injuries lets them gauge how far they can go without risking major ones.
As a parent I fully agree, if you have kids you better have a first aid kit and a big box of bandaids. Same goes for an elementary school. I've never stopped my children from doing stuff that might cause some bruises or scratches. I needed to restock bandaids regularly, but I've never had to take them to hospital for anything. Worst thing was needing a few stitches, none of them ever broke a single bone.
(Also, those zip lines are just too much fun.)
I think this is a part of the reason we have kids/teens afraid of everything. They are afraid to even get driver’s licenses. I grew up in the 60s-we learned to shrug off bumps and scrapes, test our limits, take risks. Which is all important for adult life.
@@Llortnerof
If you never fell on your face, how are you supposed to learn?
My Austrian husband said his childhood playgrounds were "construction sites" until they got chased away.
My school playground was designed by a German couple, I loved the swings. There were 3 different sizes/heights, and the trapeze. There was a heap of blocks we would build up and try to climb on.
Went to Rome/Italy. They have shockingly boring playgrounds. Went to the "Explora - Il Museo dei Bambini di Roma" which is great for kids. They have an wonderful playground. By chance talked with the vice director, mentioned their outstanding playground. His reply "we hired a danish company to build it". :D
This is somewhat similar to the unintended consequence of mandating gloves in boxing back in the day: head/brain injuries went up because boxers could now punch to the head without (as much!) danger of breaking their hands.
Like how the protective gear in American Football, helmets and shoulder armour, became part of the players' offensive techniques, leading to a similar rise in spine and brain injuries.
I always loved the climbing castles. They gave you the opportunity to make whole stories around them.
As a schoolboy at junior prep in Westminster, my roomies' and my playgrounds were WWII bombsites, wandering around big stores during weekends, and travelling the Tube. My sons' playgrounds were the mountains and wildlife reserves and playing with the lambs and horses on the farm. Today, my grandsons spend most weekends surfing, or going on treks, or playing sports, all mostly without any "boring", restrictive parents around. As my gramps told me, "A child hasn't experienced the full joy of childhood if he (she) hasn't broken a bone or two before senior school". He was a paediatrician!! 😅
In US it seems that children are protected very much, much more than in Europe, but when they US kids finish K-12 education, all the protection is gone and as adults they have to face life risks without any safety net. No universal healthcare (if something happens, emergency room and hospital bills can be huge and cause personal bankruptcy), university tuitions are huge, yet no warranty that they will get well paid job soon after graduating in order to be able to pay off huge debt, rent or buy even smallest single family house in least favourable area or flats (if flats even exist in US as everything i see in videos from US is huge suburban sprawl with single family houses), they can lose job at any time, huge crime rate, no warranty of decent retirement, no maternity leave for young mothers, no sick leave if they are sick (or unpaid sick or maternity leave), much less vacation time than anywhere in Europe, driving on dangerous roads (even those who aren't trully talented for driving and would rather walk or use public transit have to drive and even disabled people have to drive in order to come to work, to collect kids at daycare, school, to doctor, etc).
Hit the nail on the head here! Sad but so true!
I forgot to mention that i have mixed info regarding healthcare affordability for kids in us as in some US states kids are eglible for medicaid even if their parents wouldn't be and there is also child health insurance program (CHIP ) which can be of some help regarding affordability of healthcare for kids in US too and also lower costs for healthcare procedures for kids than for adults (if it is true what i read and that it isn't in fact disinformation), and so, regarding healthcare i am not so sure whether children are more or equally protected as adults.
The overly safe playgrounds have started appearing here in Germany as well. I (37) was able to play in a 4.5m tall wooden castle with slides and ropes, bridges and fun other stuff on the grounds of my Kindergarten. Never heard of a single accident. During a refurb of the Kindergarten, they ripped the old castle out and replaced it with a 1.5m tall one. With padded ground.
The other playground I used to love had what was supposed to be a stranded pirate ship. With sails made out of climbing net.
Got old, was replaced by a vanilla near ground playground.
Awful.
thats so sad... especially that pirate ship sounds like an absolute blast - a real sense of adventure!
Worry not. After they make law that you are entitled to 50% of money and all property after just few months of dating (which might include just chatting - because why not make it even worse) there won't be any children because no one will dare to date - issue with children having accidents will resolve itself :D
Unfortunately that is the truth here in Germany. For me it just looks like we are only a short time behind the US in terms of risk-elemiation in all places around. When I was a kid (1960s) the best playground in town was the elephant playground. There was a climbing structure build from steel standing on bare ground/earth that featured an elephant and in the trunk a slide was integrated. This structure was at least about 3 meter/10ft high. You could climp onto the ears and hang free above the ground below.This structure was still existing when my son was born (1998), but today it is replaced by something that also looks a little like an elephant, but is significantly smaller and more padded all around. Nowadays those things on the playground gets more and more risk free.
@@e8root Missed the point - where is the connection with the video?
Troll.
Jack seems like he's going to become a real Ninja Warrior when he grows up. Anyway, I remember that when our playground was renovated and made less risky, it became boring, and that completely changed our daily routine because we stopped going and had to find something else to do.
Hello Ashton, I think you would really enjoy the concept of so called Bau-Spielplätze or Bauies (construction playgrounds). They can build small huts out of wooden planks using real tools like Saws, Hammers and nails under light adult supervision. These Bauies often also have animals and a petting zoo, workshops where kids can learn to fix their own bikes and firepits where the kids can learn how to safely start and interact with fire. These playgrounds usually have a team of social workers and volunteers that supervise them. Going there is a little bit like growing up on a frame whilst living in a city. Also they are usually free and don't need any kind of registration to go there, and the kids can go and come alone whenever they please. So its not like a kindergarden.
Beside playing on playgrounds unsupervised, my sons class (13 year old) is going to England for 3 days and they will be allowed to explore London unsupervised. They learned about the Tube, the areas and what to say and where to go in case of an emergency. Of course I'm nervous but very happy for them!
My daughter did that last year, and loved it. Talked my ears off about everything for days afterwards, it's a great experience (and all 50 children came back in one piece).
Local playground had to remove one of the playground equipment due to several broken bones in a few months.
It become a bit dangerous because it was used in a way never thought of and the kids end up flying.
That was the most popular playground equipment.
I live in Norway.
Sadly, even our German playgrounds are getting "safety" upgrades.
For example many Merry-Go-Rounds in my area have been made to go slower than adult walking speed, making them completely un-fun to most kids. They are honestly so difficult to turn with the resistance being so great at times it takes 2 adult men to even get them to "top" speed...
We also saw some ziplines removed practically overnight. No "closed for maintenace" or something, just immediately removed even though a day before kids played on them without issue.
imo these were never that fun and the faster they spun you the less fun it got.
I think the issue are the many video of teenagers putting scooters on the merry-go-rounds to drive them. That is seriously dangerous and the ones controlling the speed can't interact with the kids sitting on it
@@5ch4cht3l7 For you it might've not been fun but for most children it certainely is more fun the higher the speed is.
The comment about McD's playgrounds struck home. My mother was an insurance adjuster and the insurance industry made all sorts of rules because a lot of people were suing restaurants and other entities for even small mishaps, things I would have shrugged off as a child. Any more people are looking for an out and someone to blame and then sue even if they are at fault.
Things I did as a child are no longer allowed all to make the world safe for children but that takes away the ability of people to learn their limits and how to judge risks into their adulthood.
Understandable too - medical bills even for a small problem can be crippling
When I was very little, my favourite "playground" was the forest (read, tiny little bit of woods) around our home. A few hectares of undertended growth of trees, stinging nettles, brambles and suchlike. With a little stream running through it that we used to dam and that was the border we defended, quite aggressively, against the neighbouring gang of kids. With sticks and stones, nothing less.
We used to build huts there, and hideouts in the nettle thickets. When time came for dinner, we'd sometimes have to make up stories about where the bruises came from -the mud stains and occasional tears in our clothes were taken for granted.
I'm doing what I can to enable my toddler to get to have similar experiences as she grows.
I think kids need those old playgrounds back
I think there's a really important concept missing from the explanation of risk: you want the child to CHOOSE the risk they're taking, and prevent all foreseeable unintended risks. So a massive safety improvement in recent years has been the requirement to inspect playground equipment (in Europe, at least) for damage that may cause suffocation, constriction and cut risks. Also, you want to design playsets towards an age range. Really small kids should be coddled a bit and play on super-safe playsets with no possible falls further than about 1 body length. Bigger preschoolers still have grab handles and edge guards everywhere and can't fall more than 3 body lengths. Bigger kids? Go absolutely wild. 4, 5, 6 meter tall play structures. Clothes get ripped sometimes. Small groups of 14yo kids congregate in high places to gossip about classmates.
It seems to me that this is a hugely overlooked aspect. Not all playground accidents are equal, and the differences matter. To me there is absolutely no problem with getting bruises every once in a while, they'll, then they'll heal and then they probably do it again. And I honestly don't know why I'd deny them that.
But once the risks are on the level of ending up in hospital or dying, yeah, that should be avoided. (Those ziplines are a good example, it'll hurt if you fall of, but they are so low you'd have to be extremely unlucky to even break a bone.)
Understanding risk (as muchas humans are able to do that...) has to be calculated in, yeah. Although teenagers believe they're immortal, so...
My favorite "playground" was always nature. The small forests near my home where my playground. Don't believe the forests grew according to safety regulations, but maybe I'm wrong :o).
I grew up in the US. My favorite things to play on were a tree in my garden and a rock that was as tall as my adult shoulders now. We could easily fit 5-6 kids on the rock. The tree had 4 V shaped branches. We would climb higher and higher and jump from the tallest V to enter into our imaginary world.
I grew up feeling like I had the best garden of all my friends! 😂
Another playground video?
Count me in! Ready to watch it and probably enjoy it as your videos are so often peek content.
Dono, but i think we are going slowly the American way. When i think of the playgrounds 20 years ago and now.
I live in Switzerland but I guess I can agree. When I was in primary school, we had a huge 3 story wooden tower with a slide from the third floor and a rope for the second floor. now they replaced it with a boringly small but "safe" slide-tower.
@@moover123 Exactly, the new build playgrounds here look a lot like the american ones, only in wood.
I agree, I lived until recently in Amstelveen, a suburb of Amsterdam with a high number of high skilled migrants and expats. They like to change several things in our country, like opening hours of shops, ours close at 18.00 hrs, easy access to hospitals and specialists, while in our system we first go to a GP and if necessary they write a referral for hospital or specialist, they want to make things safer like parks, playgrounds and schools, or they won’t let their children walk or bike to school or sports club alone. I wonder why they chose to come and live here if they wanna change it into their home country.
I think the biggest difference in europe is that playgrounds are not standardised. In the next village, city block/town you will find a playground that is new and exiting. Yes, they usually have the favourites (swings, wobbly animals, slides) but they have their own character. Who is inspired to play the same thing all the time?
My little niece does not know where i live, but she knows where i live is the pirateship playground with lots of water features. I count on that being exiting for a good few years yet. After that i will have to come up with an auntie-program beyond a Picknick and the playground 😂
Yeah and its even funnier when you consider eastern Europe where everything was standardized - you literally had identical classrooms between one part of the country and other part of the country. Everyone remembers the same things. Outsides though - some standardized things but even across the town it was quite varied with more improvisation.
this differse playgounds are allways a good reason to explore the next suburb (here in Hamburg as a large city). Kids love it to discover new playgrounds.
that’s the same in the US. You need to leave the Suburbs.
Hell, even small cities like St Louis are full of wildly varied playgrounds from Faust Park to Turtle Playground to arguably the best playground on Earth St Louis City Museum.
Small towns usually propose and build their own unique spaces as well.
The reason you see so many plastic clones in American suburbia is because of cost, not regulation. The same handful of companies offer wildly discounted rates for package deals and catalogue buys. That’s it.
@@lookatthisguyhere7712 doesn't st luis have something like 280k inhabitants? Perspectives on what constitutes 'small'... that aside, i am glad there are good examples of interesting playgrounds for kids to enjoy.
14:15 Hi Ashton, great video so far. Just had to pitch in on your comment here.
There's a critical difference between "not wanting your kids to get hurt" and "accepting that minor scrapes, bruises, and even fractures are part of growing up". There's the difference of mortal fear of debt and poverty through medical debt as well as lawsuits vs belief in common sense/gesunder Menschenverstand. Basically when you start doing a facepalm at any situation is when both liability insurances and German judges wave off ridiculous claims. This goes both ways, ie both in preventing ridiculous lawsuits, as well as ridiculous payments. Granted, some idiots try it here as well, and maybe go up to the level of Oberlandesgericht/upper state court, but those are rare, extremely rare in Germany.
You know you are germanized when you prefer our "risky" playgrounds over the (over-)safe US-version of playgrounds
My sister and my friends and I played in the ruins of WWII. It was forbidden and bc of that even more interesting and our parents had bigger problems to deal with. Nothing ever happen to us and I am still alive and kicking after over 70 years.
😁
Same here in the UK! I am almost 80. As a tiny, we used to play on 'the croft' which was an area of terraced houses which had been bombed, then further demolished, then ... just left. We excavated access to cellars, built 'castles' out of bricks and blocks, and older kids gossiping about schoolmates in semi-secret, half-roofed 'rooms' (where they also smoked!) kept an eye on younger ones.
Later, I played at an old, derelict, brickworks on the outskirts of a village we moved to. That _was_ actually dangerous, looking back - there was a water-filled quarry, with steep sides - but none of us did much more than cut or graze ourself slightly; one boy broke his collar bone swinging from a tree to the top of a kiln, when his rope broke (IIRC, it was his mum's old washing line!).
I grew up in the 90s and early 2000s in Germany and I vividly remember my school cutting down the tree-thicket we used to climb in, to replace it with a climbing wall that was about 1,50m.
As a kid I did not get the point, because I could literally just jump that high. Noone used the thing.
We used to just jump from 2,5m tall building into the sand, same with swings, when you land on sand you can get some serious hight. Now that I think about it, we also used to jump from garages straight onto asphalt, I couldn't do this now, my spine would snap.
One time we used a zipline on a mountain-playground, and when it was my little brothers turn we gave him extra speed,so he lost grip, made a perfect somersault and landed on his butt. He wanted to cry, but stopped immediatly because we thought it looked so mega-cool and where applauding him for his prowess. :D
My husband built a German style playground in our backyard in Florida. My daughter goes to a German International School in Miami, and the kids and parents absolutely love it. My husband turned his building a German style playground in our backyard into a business. I didn't know there were so many Germans, Austrians, and Swiss in Miami.
The sad part of this whole thing is my nieces and nephews can't play on our playground because "it's too dangerous." I totally razz my brother about this because when we were kids, we had a German style playground in our backyard. Yes, we got stitches and broken bones, but it gave us experience on what not to do when playing 😅.
Well, we have to face, that this is a luxury problem - seeing kids around the world playing in the woods, the fields, barns, near the road or on a hill gives me another perspective: Maybe the playgrounds aren't the problem, but the fact, that we actually need them, because our whole surroundings are not play-friendly?
When I was a child, I regularly came home bruised and dirty, because I played in nature, fell from trees, gave myself cuts from barbed wires (or more than one time shocks from electric wires ☝🤪), I even played with fire, fell in trenches or in mud instead going on a playground. I don't think, kids nowadays get these experiences often enough.
You make a fair point. However, I think that this is also an argument for making playgrounds a viable substitute for natural play areas, which not all children have access to any more. This includes allowing a well-measured level of risk. Nobody expects barbed wire and electrified cattle fences on playgrounds, but it should be considered absolutely normal for children to come home from playing with bumps and scratches.
I come from a village and now live with my family in a big city. I don't think it's a question of either-or. Children always find a way if you let them. The question I asked myself as a father: are they able to get help when they need it? So it's a question of trusting your children and your fellow human beings. For my Kids I built this trust by educating them (e.g. In the handling of knives or other tools), letting them do and let them learn from mistakes.
In the village, where everyone knows each other, it is easier to build this trust in your neighbors In cities, parks and playgrounds play an important role in building trust. Playgrounds are above all social places. Everyone meets there: toddlers and their parents, schoolchildren and teenagers in the evenings. It's a very important place for the whole neighborhood. It gives the whole kind of village feel.
Another aspect: especially for smaller children, it is not easy to play on the streets, in nature or in the neighborhood, as it was for me in the village. In the city, this is more of a question for weekend outings. In the playgrounds, the children could keep to themselves and practise social skills with older and younger children - and as I said, parents of small children were also there in an emergency - just like in the village back then.
i was always a huge fan of the "kletterspinne" - essentially those big rope constructs you can climb in
we had one that was shaped like a pyramid and probably about 10 meters high over a sandpit - an absolute blast to climb in and it had little leather hanging platforms you could have a rest in... those also made for great places to observe the entire schoolyard and the surrounding area
its probably one of the big reasons i still love climbing... even though i have a fear of heights (well probably more a very acute feeling of vertigo when being able to see long distances beneath me... but dunno if thats the same thing)
It is probably more dangerous to drive to the playground in the US than playing on it
With 15 playground deaths per year in the USA, a playground may be the safest place for a kid to be.
The magic trick of German playgrounds is a sign at the entrance to all playgrounds: "Eltern haften für ihre Kinder!" (Parents are responsible for their Children). The parents are responsible for the children's safety, not the playground owner or facilitator. As long as there is no gross negligence or intent on the side of the playground operators, they do not have to fear any liability claims by parents (children cannot claim such things in Germany).
Hi Ashton I love our playgrounds, always have a smile when I see an interesting one. The most boring and ugliest ones are at McD.
Have a great Sunday everyone!
The best playgrounds AFAIR are open construction sites.....
Have better memories (Central Europe) from abandoned ruins of castles or factories, WWII monuments hidden in forest (bunkers, tanks, howitzers, airplanes)...
Hi Peter, we used to build huts in the forest or in the nature reserve (Schilfland) and make campfires and eat hot potatoes or apples.
Did all of the above. As Kids we were building caves in the woods next to the River. In the City I went to school there was the Bunker Wald next to the school. And the construction Side was in my Case the storage area of m fathers bricklayer company. In the early teen years we played there after watching movies Like American nInja 🤣 still have a scar on my eyebrow from that time.
But WE went still to the playground two villages over BC there was a ZIP line
Love that Jackie Chan scene, nice illustration of your point.
As a German: You are actually not supposed to drop off your kid at a playground and play with your smartphone for hours. You as a parent are required to supervise your children at the playground and prevent tell them, if they do risky stuff. Also, just get up that rope structure together with your child, so you can hold their hand until they are climbing that thing safe themselves. You are supposed to engage in these activities together with your child. Its not supposed to be a "drop off, worry not" kind of thing.
This spring, our 10yo daughter broke her arm and her shoulder when she fell from a tree a couple of meters.
Right now, while I'm sitting in my office and watching this video, I can see her through the window sitting in the very same tree again with the neighbors kid. I'm so proud of her.
Edit:
A little side note. After discussing her accident several times she's now obsessed with base jumping, becaus after telling her why squirrels do not hurt themself when falling out of trees
she learned about wingsuits.
I once read about toys in general, saying that Lego and other prestructured things are perfect if you want to prepare your child for working on a factory line as a kind of machine appliance (like screwing in the same two screws all day long or what have you) - because these things sort of take over the initiative from the human, reducing them to do what the dead material 'wants' (I am somewhat hampered here in my expression, sorry). I don't want to get Lego fans up in arms and yes, I do know you can do amazing things with the little trinkets, but it still relies on you having those things in the first place - whereas there is a totally different experience in building something out of materials you just gathered yourself - be it in the woods or in the trash bin. The same idea applies to a playground. In one of your pictures there could be seen a little merry go-round where even the seats were preconceived, meaning a child could sit either in this one, or one of the other three. No chance of body contact by squeezing next to all your friends (or - gasp! - even a strange kid!) if there had just been a bench like a circle. Another example was a kind of steps where you only could get up by placing your feet in exactly the preordained way - there even was a little child to be seen who was too small to easily use them and had to pull themselves up - nothing wrong with that, of course, but it just shows how much better it would be if things were less premanufactured and thus more easily adapted by the individual child.
Looking at your examples of US playgrounds (and as much as it pains me to say so, there ARE similar ones here in Germany, too) it is clear from the get go, that there are just a limited amount of things you CAN do with those and that's just depressing and really hampers your child's development. Someone once said 'If you have a doll that can say Mama, that's nice. For about five minutes. If, however, you have a piece of cloth tied into knots to suggest a human form, you have a doll as long as your imagination can come up with things the doll wants or does - and if you are done with it - the cloth can serve as the roof of your newly built dwarves' hut...
When I was kid in the 1960s and 1970s we'd get hurt on playground equipment and parents back then never sued anyone. They'd blame us for being daredevils and take us to get patched up. These days most kids in the US don't play outdoors anymore. It's sad really.
The most dangerous thing on EVEY german playground is the metal slide in summer.
You know what im walking about when your from germany xD
I don't have kids, but my encounter with this was bursting out laughing when seeing that the carousel in Central Park in NYC has safety belts. 😂
Our playground was an abandoned East German coal storage.
I nearly died like 3 times playing there.
Once I fell down from a wall I wanted to climb on a patch of moss next to a pillar base made out of concrete.
Good times.
I can only imagine the combination of fear and joy that my parents must have felt once I got out on my bicycle and started to explore the surrounding area. Now this is in the Netherlands, which makes a big difference, but this still was from about 1980 to 1986, the true cycling improvements had yet to come. Local playing was climbing trees (talk about an unstructured playground), walking around in the neighbourhood, messing with bicycles. And that was the unsupervised playing. Messing with fire was supervised. Oh, the joy of discovering cycling, and exploring how far you could go…
Love this video.
There's a sting in "voluntary safety guidelines" and it's that if you don't follow them and something happens, you not-so-voluntarily have to explain why you didn't follow them.
And that's just here in the Netherlands. I expect in the US the explaining will have to be done in some high profile court case where you're portrayed in the media as who-knows-what.
I remember the playgrounds from the early 80s. Some of my favorites were the giant spools that were left over from the electric company putting up power lines. I also remember the giant tube on the playground. The monkey bars and giant spools disappeared after I finished kindergarten. The merry go round went after I was in 4th grade. (USA)
One of the "how did we survive our childhood"-emails is running through my head. In my childhood, there were playgrounds but they were of limited interest to me. Much of my time was spent in the woods or even in non-active building sites. That was of course forbidden, which of course added to the attraction.
I didn't have a playground in my childhood. We.were climbing in the trees, playing in the woods. Everyone had a knife for carving wood. We were making open fire without starting unwanted fires.
I think it's possible to design risky and challenging playgrounds that have less obvious safety features. If the children don't see the safety feature, it'll allow them to be challenged while keeping them safe. I also think it's possible to design explorable spaces where children can hone their navigation skills and discover hidden areas while keeping them monitored with hidden tracking features. I explored untamed woods and swampy river bottom land as a child which helped me develop navigation and tracking skills while making me feel more free. Structured discovery areas with mock warning signs that would be obvious to adults but less so to children would allow them to push their boundaries in a safe way.
My favourites were trees to climb on. On playgrounds the zip line. But they were loved by many. That was the reason too many kids were on the platform and I fell down and broke my arm. That wasn't something special at that time. Your parents drove you to the hospital and you got a plaster. I don't think anybody would have thought about sueing anybody.
Even better playgounds were construction sites. For some years we had some nearby.
oh yeah ziplines are so much fun - thats a feeling of speed that you genuinely dont really get from most other things =)
I mean as a German when i look at Americas broken Healthcare system i can understand the Helicopter behave in some way.
When a broken bone can lead to bankruptcy of the family.
Great that you covered the differences of the legal systems as the differences in tort law are the underlying issue. University also taught us some playground cases in German law [at the University of Freiburg, by the way]. While I agree in principle on the benefits of more risky play, on the other hand, if you see the state of maintenance of some playgrounds or other public infrastructure infrastructure (e.g. public swimming baths in Berlin), you really ask yourself if you should let your kid play there. There are also some social factors in some areas which should be taken into account as it's not everywhere as cozy and friendly as in Freiburg. Beste Grüße in das Badnerland! :)
Even the European playgrounds of today are much safer than they used to be 50 or 60 years ago, I remember the 10m/33ft tall slide made of tubular steel with wood slats and no side protection which I found so much fun as a kid. We also used to go out and construct tree houses at considerable height, or digging out tunnels lining the roof with boards to prevent them from collapsing after exactly that happened at the first attempt.
The private property is of course the parent's own responsibility, so my dad always had an eye on the tree houses and tunnels we made and advised when he saw things of real concern, then he learned us how to do them better instead from telling us not to do them at all.
This kind of play did learn us to cope with setbacks and negative experiences, being creative in finding solutions and better risk assessment as adults. I always can pick out those of my age who have been pampered and protected as kids, they don't cope as well with the everyday life and it culprits as those who had more freedom to roam, explore and take risk as kids and not carried their a**es behind by their mom as we say it here.
we adjust to the world we grow up in
when I was little we had a main road running through our village and I noticed a change in kid's behaviour when the bypass was opened.
the kids born before (i.e. "us") were really cautious around the street, even when it was empty we looked 3 times before crossing and knew we were part of traffic when riding our bikes. the kids who grew up with the bypass had a nasty habbit of mindlessly running after their balls like in driving-education videos...
I know exactly what you're talking about.
In my childhood (once upon a time) there were no playgrounds at all. We (5-12 years old) played together, unsupervised, on the street or in the forest, building tree houses or bunkers. Yes, you read that correctly. The closest thing to a sandbox was a bomb crater.
The older ones looked after the younger ones a little. The worst that happened were bruises, scraped knees and those damn blackberry thorns.
Wasn't there a saying. Learning by doing?
Greetings from the Black Forest.
When we in Germany tell the kids: „Don’t do it! You will hurt your self!!“, and they do it and get hurt. We have a saying: „If you don’t want to listen, you have to feel !“
( i was born 1980 , raised that way & only 1 broken Arm 😉. And i wore the cast like a medal !!)
This reminds me, funnily enough, of a scene from Finding Nemo. While they are in the whale, Malin says that he promised Nemo that he wouldn't ever let anything happen to him and Dory wonders why he would promise something like that because "You can't never let anything happen to him, then nothing would ever happen to him", which wouldn't be much fun.
This is kind of happening right now where parents in the US wanna protect their kids from anything ever happening to them because they might get hurt, whilst not realizing that a bloody knee, dirty and ripped pants, and some bruises are part of getting to know your body and your surroundings.
And while I get it, with the healthcare system being as it is where a broken leg can bankrupt you, but this just takes away so much from kids growing up. That and the fact that they have to be driven everywhere and can't go out by themselves to play with their friends.
"Warning: Live ends always with death !"
To say that my parents' style was hands-off would be putting it mildly. Supervision of my playtime was basically nonexistent. After school (to which I had to either walk or bicycle, and in later years take a public bus) and homework were done, I usually left the house to play in the surrounding woods, to return home at nightfall. Most of the children in my neighbourhood grew up in a similar fashion. I think it's fair to say that, weather permitting, we children raised ourselves, mostly by playing outdoors and in groups.
Were there accidents? You bet. The odd fractured limb from falling out of a tree. Campfires resulting in burned fingers. Cuts were pretty frequent, because we all carried penknives. And the baby brother of one of my friends tragically died after crashing his bicycle on a much to steep road (no third party involvement, just excess speed). He suffered a fractured skull. That was of course a terrible thing to happen, but bike helmets were simply unheard of 50 years ago.
The point is that although the boy's parents probably blamed themselves, I don't believe that anybody else in the village did. We children were always testing our limits, out of sight of our parents, and 95% of the time that was fine. Life is risky, and children need to develop the awareness and skills to deal with these risks.
I likef to try everything: zipline, climbing paecours, slides, long swings, jumpung off them, the old carussels have changed, coil spring wobblers came too late... Wippen waren eher langweilig.
Climbing trees, swedisch rocks, building dams in brooks, all waterfronts, digging, sticks...
My kids also like the water playgrounds.
It probably is the challenge of trying something.
In Germany we say "You're to dumb to slide!", if you break your hand and arm. As if a 5° reduced slope could prevent such an injury. 🙄
Hi Ashton, interesting comparison and thoughts around risk and safety in playgrounds. Jack has got so tall. Lovely to see him enjoying that flying fox; looks fun. We have some great play spaces here in Melbourne. All abilities playgrounds and adventure playgrounds, much better than I experienced as a child. Thanks for your video 😀🛝
In the 80s, we kids met at our neighborhood playground. The "pecking order" was determined, among other things, by who dared to jump from the side of the slide into the sandpit (wooden construction with sheet steel track, approx. 2.5m high, roof edge 3.5m, top 4m). There was NEVER anyone injured, not once.
(needless to say we never let an adult see this)
My niece (now 6 years old) has already broken her arm twice - on the hanging pole in her own garden (1m / 1.5m)...
I believe that the "safety regulations" do not protect the children from injuries, but rather the playground owners from lawsuits.
Great Video! Thanks!
The most exciting 'playgrounds' are scary derelict houses, wrecks, abandon vehicles and trees - Nothing purposely intended for 'playing' in an adult's sense.
I saw a huge, wrapped cable climbing structure over there, made me want to be a kid again; will never see anything like that in the US. The small, neighborhood park was great, too- they trimmed a fallen tree, painted it, and used it for a climbing structure.
I have never laughed just from seeing you, normally that would be absolutely rude. However at 7:02 i couldn't stop myself. I thought that looked like a real fun playground and didn't really get your concern, then i realized my scale was off by a factor 2. Congratulations you successfully used yourself as comedic relief.
Those German playgrounds look amazing! I’ve been really glad to see playgrounds in the UK finally starting to include more accessible play equipment so that children who use wheelchairs or other mobility aids can join in too - would be interesting to know how that works in Germany? Thanks!
Preventing children from moving beause they might break their wrists so they don't move and get all kinds of more dramatic, chronic issues feels like a cruel joke.
Kid hurts itself on the playground:
German parent: "Oh would you shut up it's your own fault and you know it..."
US parent: "Officer shut down this playground it is life threatening!"
When I was in kindergarten in the 90s my best friend and I loved climbing everything, I fell and broke my right arm twice :P, nobody ever blamed the kindergarten, I guess the mentality was that boys will be boys...
I think the most dangerous favourite play place I had when I was a child was a heavily excavated building site full of "lakes" of stagnant water, with slippery "cliffs" sometimes, at a time when I couldn't yet swim.
It was a fantastic place. If you got tired of the mud lakes (or had one scare too many), there were brick and mortar houses under construction with stuff to play with, there. Often there was leftover cement at the end of the day, for instance, and there was all sorts of scaffolding to climb around on.
One night long before that construction site, a friend and I decided to bunk school the next day, and to sleep out in a house under construction, under the stars, up on some scaffolding (I suppose because it was level and not full of bits of gravel to dig into you, and also because we knew there might be scorpions in the area). We thought there might be burglars (in a "house" with no doors yet), and made little concrete balls as weapons to throw at them, and chase them away if they came.
We probably got scared eventually. Or bored. Or uncomfortable. So we changed plans, and decided to rather cycle home, and go to school the next day. Looked like Mom and Dad were having a huge party when we got home. Why didn't they tell us? We just walked in, and began heading to the room or something, and "got arrested". Me and Dad had a long talk that night, involving explaining that the police had even started to drag the river (which we would almost certainly have explored - without being able to swim - had we ever gotten hold of a boat, or made one we imagined could float). We were an old fashioned family. If you were really naughty, you got a hiding (with bare hand, not with a "weapon" that might insulate the hand from the pain it, too had, as a "moderator"), but for the very most serious things, there was the long wait, then the long chat, and then the severe warning. It had an impact.
If it rained heavily, one thing we'd often do is go off into dirt roads in the area, with lots of puddles, and have mud fights (no aggression beyond trying to make everyone dirtier than you). When you got home from a mud fight, you got hosed down in the garden before you could go in. I think the clothes stayed outside, and visitors would have to borrow clean clothes to go home in.
When I was quite little, we lived in a place where the bigger kids had discovered that if you can kill off a beehive, there's honey there. Luckily none of us got stung. Not us little ones, anyway.
Oh and there were dumped cars in a "forest" (to us) of bluegums near the Golden Highway (that we were forbidden to go anywhere near - and the once when we did, we found an electrical substation - what Dad called it - that had been sabotaged - blown up with explosives). The dumped cars were enormous old "Yank tanks" (from the days that American cars were made like tanks), with all sorts of crawl spaces to get stuck in.)
(Hmm ... reminds me of my Dad. He had an uncle who allowed people to dump their old cars on his farm, and Dad would go and play there, removing things like instruments from the dashboards, and then setting them up at a challenging distance to throw stones at, and eventually break - destroying quite a lot of money value in later terms, since a lot of the cars were really ancient).
Dad went through a patch of seeing which of a scorpion and spider would win a fight. We weren't allowed to mess with scorpions or spiders. He also had a friend who would catch snakes to sell to snake collectors. We weren't allowed to mess with snakes. Those were quite easy rules to obey.
Staying away from the river was less easy. It was a long cycle, but it was within reach. If you have a bicycle, you're quite mobile. (We weren't allowed to cycle to school, though. Busy road. Reckless drivers.)
We were never very much fussed with playgrounds as far as I can recall.
Oh my granny lived on a mine, so she had a mine dump we could play on. Grab a sheet of cardboard, and slide down over grassy bits. We dug a cave there, too. (One of the families' little son died in a caved in cave he made, we heard later, so that was dangerous). We were meant to stay away from some of the sands, because of chemicals, but forgot which it was meant to be.
I'm remembering too many playgrounds, now, so better shut up.
Must have been terrible for the parents of the boy who made the cave. They would never have know he was doing this, and only found out when his body was found when he went missing.
1987 I went to the US (from The Netherlands) to work in a boy scout camp. Rule 1 was "the kids aren't allowed to run". I kid you not, we where in the woods and the weren't allowed to run. I found that cruel tot he kids (and my night rest as a kid has to burn some energy). So I gave them the rule and told them they where allowed to run if we weren't in sight of other staff. Second rule was they had to continue walking after breaking a bone. The last one was a joke but it made we had a pact. Once or twice a kid fell, stood up and smiled at me, nothing to worry about. We also balanced on a fallen tree, no one fell of.
Weirdest thing happening that freaked me out? A kid wanted to crab a stick and it slithered over my shoes, I kept my cool but inside I was screaming lol.
🤗 I bet the kids loved you for that - and rightly so. What kind of an insane person comes up with a no-running-policy for kids?
@@charis6311 Three kids one day walked up to me and on said very seriously "you are wicked nifty" and the other 2 nodded to show they all where of same mind. My English study didn't include slang so I asked if the was a positive thing. There was a bit of a Panick as they all wanted to make clear it was cool and wonderful and all good. It was so cute.
I once got a kid with the instruction that I shouldn't interfere (do nothing) when the kid got injured or a bleeding or whatever as someone of his religion would be called and only he could try to heal the child. I just came out of the army and had learned everything needed in a war zone to keep someone alive and I wasn't going to do nothing. The kid could/would be expelled from his whatever the cult was called and I told myself I was going to adopt him if that was possible (I was only a 21 year old guy having no interest to become a father). I also let him run and nothing happened but the stuff you get exposed to in the US was often wonderful but sometimes weird.
But besides those big and dense cities in the US such as NYC, where people live in apartments and have the need to go public parks, I don’t see the families going into a park as they do in Germany, as you mentioned, many families have even their playground in the house because their gardens are bigger
Public playgrounds have another aspect, kids can socialise there and not only play on their own, with siblings or neighbors like they would if they did it at home.
THIS!!! I was so glad my kids were little when we lived abroad. Back in the US there’s so much coddling of children. As a parent and especially as a high school teacher, it’s frustrating. I do think it’s interesting that both my kids made best friends when we got back with kids in families that had lived in Europe. I’m friends with the Moms because we have a more European parenting style. It’s really helped me lower the cultural anxiety pressures. Not sure I think the parenting style is swinging back, but we can hope so!
Let's not forget that in some jurisdictions, parents can lose custody of their kids and even be sent to prison for allowing kids to play outside unsupervised. It's something of a gamble.
In the east Poland we had to go to some abandoned places and ignore all the bottles and cigarette butts and at times jar with dry glue left away by evening/night residents of these places. Given all that I don't remember any kid dying because of such safe places. There were accidents but probably less than American kids today have in their airtight bubbles. And of course this is nothing. My gandma when she lived said Germans were the best organizing playtimes. They even bothered to bring real tanks and other live munitions :D
Lawyers being killjoys? Who would have thought. Growing up, I and a lot of my friends and family members got some kind of injury, like bone fractures or less serious, playing. Maybe 10% happened on a playground. Most happened while doing things like climbing trees.
Well, you know, some parents want to confine their children to a rubber cell. Like the ones you know from a psych ward.
And then they wonder why these kids cant get anything done, when they've grown up...
Kids, so many in UK at least, are 'Lard arses' over protected to the point of taking no risks outside a computer game. They need some danger and risk to develop.
When looking at the dangers of playgrounds it is paramount to keep in mind the real danger is not in dangerous elements, but in hazardous elements. kids aren't stupid and can definitely recognise dangerous elements of playgrounds and will act accordingly. The real danger lies in hazards, things that unexpectendly cause issues, be it from negligent maintance or poor design, are the real dangers in a playground
Makes sense when everyone can get sued for everything these Days in the states no one wants to take risks anymore.
My childhood was in the 70s.
That's when the first adventure playgrounds appeared. And some of them would be closed today for safety reasons. But hey, we survived, all limbs still intact, nothing broken.
Man, what fun we had. No parents sitting on benches and anxiously watching everything.
My favourite playground toy was a large elephant made out of steel tubing whith a small platform on top and a slide for a trunk. It must have been about ten feet high and you could only reach the platform by climbing this large barrel shaped structure from the outside. I don't recall ever falling off while climbing. Maybe I don't recall because I was never injured. I'm 63 now, so it was a long time ago.
Imagine if we Americans were as serious about traffic safety as we are about playground safety.
McDonald's with playgrounds, the reason many American kids grew up to have type 2 Diabetes or Poly Cystic Ovarian Syndrome 😢
I remember in my childhood when the playground changed from the old school 90s playground to an ADA accessible safety first mentality playground.
I have my own story to tell about the dangerous playgrounds here in Germany. My son (then 4) broke his leg on a playground in our neighbourhood in Feburary. Not by falling down several metres or by heavy machinery or by going down a zipline too fast. He was simply sliding down a regular slide. Sitting, feet first. We weren't there when it happened (he was on a field trip with his kindergarten) but it had rained the night before so the slide may have been wet and he had rainproof clothes on, so maybe he just got too fast. Of course we are now suing our hometown to install roofs on all slides.
Just kidding, of course. Stuff happens. The important thing is that everything healed fine and he's now the same whirlwind he was before. Maybe even a bigger one. :-)
In German we say: "Die Kirche im Dorf lassen". Wenn das Kind sich auf dem Spielplatz verletzt, geht man zum Doktor und das wars. Lessons learned for next time. This is how I see it. And in the end of the day: "Leben ist lebensgefährlich"
As if kids read and understand all these warning labels 😂
Or those immigrant parents that don't speak English yet
as a child i loved our dangerous playgrounds in germany. kids can handle it. more! bigger!
If you hold everything back, protect everything, then a child does not learn what can or will happen. Like riding a bike at a young age here in Europe on the street or on the sidewalk. We do not say that it is not allowed, but they are taught to pay attention and not to be taken away by bus until they are 16 or to continue playing on the lawn until then. Learning through play
When I was a kid 30-40 yrs ago, during summer vacations, we‘d leave the house in the morning, only returning home for the lunch or dinner times our organizationally strict moms told us beforehand.
You came home with the regular scratches and the occasional cuts, etc., from falling of trees snd stuff, but that was part of the adventure of growing up. As a kid you learn very quickly which heights to jump from is fun and which isn’t anymore.
Yes, every now and then you knew someone at school, who had an arm in a sling after crashing with their bike. But nobody ever died.
Kids learn this stuff by doing.
It’s much more important to equip them with the necessary social skills of being respectful and polite and not bully others, etc.