Times are changing. Parents spend more and more time trying to get their children involved in activities, pushing for their excellence and success, and regimenting their lives more than ever before. Likewise, more and more schools have become concerned with meeting performance criteria on standardized tests, forcing students to do significantly increased amounts of homework and, in some cases, cutting recess short. Kids, meanwhile, would rather spend too much time in front of TV and computer screens, and spend what little downtime they have doing just that. And in a time of safety concerns and a sue-crazy society, even school and playgroups have cracked down on safety issues, often not even allowing children to run on playgrounds. Yes, times sure are changing, and kids are missing out on something along the way.

That “thing,” namely, is play. Creative play that doesn’t come from a video screen or a classroom activity. This kind of play involves groups of children, huddled around slides that have become castle walls and jungle gyms that are suddenly mountains, creating new games, role playing, and negotiating rules. All of the things that it is more and more uncommon to see today’s youth doing.

But some parents – and teachers, psychologists, and architects – have had enough. A recent article in the Boston Globe highlighted some new playgrounds – such as Teardrop Park and the new Imagination Playground, both in New York City, and The Adventure Playground in Berkeley, California, which are unlike any playgrounds parents have seen before. Teardrop Park features a 28-foot vertical-drop slide, a sandbox that includes a water spigot for sand creations, a marsh, and a 25-foot climbing wall. The Imagination Playground, which is being designed by David Rockwell, who parents might know from his work on Mohegan Sun or the Kodak Theatre, will also includes sand and water, as well as tools, cranes, and other objects for children to play with.  And this is just the beginning. Across the country pro-playground groups have been popping up, from the Boston Schoolyard Initiative, which recreated over 60 schoolyards, KaBOOM!, a group that seeks to provide quality play areas for all children, and the MetLife Foundation Parks & Playground Fund.

With a variety of activities, free structures, and updated classics, these new playgrounds seek not only to develop children’s creativity and imagination while causing them to engage in social behavior, but also to give them places to play that are both safe and, at the same time, a little risky. That is - safe in the sense that they are monitored and controlled, yet “risky” due to the fact that the equipment isn’t necessarily “child-proof,” so to speak. Many experts lament that, in their quest for safety, previous playground architects have created such boring equipment that children are either uninterested in using (admit it, it’s getting harder and harder to convince little Susie that the see-saw is a good time) or, in an attempt to make them fun, children create dangerous ways to play on them. With this in mind, the new architects are creating the type of equipment – like Teardrop Park’s slide and climbing wall – that engender a certain thrill that today’s child may have lost somewhere among the endless hours of homework and stru ctured activities.

We are clearly in the middle of a playground revolution. Which might be just what our kids need. Sometimes it is only when adults step back that children can truly learn and grow, developing both physical and mental skills that set the stage for a genuine lifetime of success.

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