LNAT Practice Passage 8: The Safest Playground

The Safest Playground

A playground can be made so safe that it no longer teaches children what safety requires.

In a 2015 systematic review of 21 studies, Mariana Brussoni of the University of British Columbia and her colleagues examined play involving height, speed, rough-and-tumble activity and exploration beyond direct adult supervision. They reported that environments permitting such risks were associated with longer play, greater physical activity, social interaction, creativity and resilience. Brussoni does not argue that injuries are desirable, or that adults should ignore broken equipment, concealed hazards or dangers children cannot recognise. Her distinction is between a hazard, which may surprise a child without offering useful learning, and a risk the child can see, assess and choose. Advising parents to keep children "as safe as necessary, not as safe as possible", she asks them to pause before intervening rather than treating every uncertain movement as an emergency.

Brussoni's concerns echo Tim Gill's 2007 book No Fear, which argues that adult risk aversion restricts children's movement and exploration, and may weaken the resilience it intends to protect. According to Brussoni, the difficult cases are not reckless extremes but ordinary acts whose acceptability changes with the child: balancing on a log may challenge one two-year-old and bore another. Fixed age rules can therefore mistake uniform treatment for equal protection, while close supervision may alter the activity itself, turning a child's judgement into obedience to an adult's instructions. The point of risky play is not exposure to danger for its own sake, but practice in deciding where confidence ends and caution should begin.

At the Outside Play Lab, Brussoni's team has developed free resources for parents and educators, recommending time, varied space and freedom, rather than expensive equipment alone. Loose materials such as tyres, crates, sand and branches can be moved, combined and abandoned, allowing children to change both the challenge and their response to it. Critics worry that this language gives negligent adults a convenient excuse after preventable injury, particularly where providers face pressure to reduce supervision or maintenance costs. Brussoni's answer is not that every risk has developmental value: rotten timber, unseen traffic and faulty fastenings are dangers to control. What she resists is the assumption that a responsible adult must remove every possibility of falling, failing or becoming frightened.

Britain's Health and Safety Executive similarly says that play providers should weigh risks against benefits, control serious dangers and avoid "sterile" environments created by exaggerated fears of litigation.

Equipment standards can specify matters such as surfacing, spacing and foreseeable entrapment, but they cannot determine how a playground is used. A compliant climbing frame may remain empty because staff forbid climbing above shoulder height; an untidy patch of ground may support careful experimentation because children can alter their route and retreat. Technical compliance may therefore certify the object without revealing whether the surrounding rules permit children to develop judgement. The safest-looking playground may thus provide the least practice in self-protection.