The lost playgrounds...

When I was a young child, I remember going to playgrounds with my parents. I recall spending happy times swinging from monkey bars, rushing to the back of the queue to have yet another go on the big slide and jostling for position to be next onto the seesaw.

I also have less happy memories of the occasional bump on the forehead or graze on the knee from the inevitable trips and falls. Those childhood memories came back to me last summer when I travelled by coach through the town of Huntingdon. As I travelled through the town I saw several lovely parks with playgrounds attached. The English always seemed to me to value the importance of such public amenities.

Playgrounds gone

I was reminiscing about the trip recently when a number of thoughts struck me. Where have all the Dublin playgrounds gone? Have we stopped providing playgrounds for our children? I also began to contemplate with regret that the playground has possibly become another casualty to the increasing litigiousness of Irish society.

As the population of Dublin expands there is enormous pressure to build more accommodation for its burgeoning population. Housing densities will have to increase and the amount of green areas will correspondingly have to decrease. So where will the little Dubliners of the future go out to play? If public space is going to be reduced surely playgrounds for children will become more necessary than ever.

Child’s play is a very serious subject. It is an essential element in the normal development of the child. Jean Piaget the Swiss psychologist described a series of milestones in the evolution of the child’s pattern of play. In this influential theory he stated that these stages in play correspond to the successive stages in the intellectual development of the child. He called the first stage the sensorimotor stage, which extends from birth to approximately two years old.

Very young children are focussed on gaining mastery of their own bodies and the objects that surround them. Their play is characterised by repeated patterns of movement or sound such as banging, sucking, shaking and babbling. As the child learns more about the objects in their environment they begin to observe the effects of play on their environment and their relationship with that environment becomes increasingly systematic.

The stages of growth

Piaget described a further stage, which he called the preoperational stage. This stage extends from two to seven years. Toddlers move from the egocentric focus of infancy to an awareness that events are caused by influences outside themselves. Toddlers begin to realise that they are no longer the centre of the universe. They begin to master symbolic functions such as the association between words and objects. Their play is characterised by make-belief and the use of objects for purposes other than their intended function. I have fond recollection of this phase when pacifist friends of mine gave up on excluding toys such as guns and soldiers from their son when they observed him eating his toast in a strange manner. They knew they were fighting a losing battle when the piece of toast that remained in the child’s hand had assumed the shape of a handgun. A clear example of the use of an object outside of its intended function.

'Very young children are focussed on gaining mastery of their own bodies and the objects that surround them. Their play is characterised by repeated patterns of movement or sound such as banging, sucking, shaking and babbling'.

Between the ages of four and seven years, children become interested in games characterised by rules and structure. Social interaction with other children assumes greater importance. Between the ages of seven to eleven years children enter the stage that Piaget described as the concrete operational stage. They become increasingly focussed on the social aspect of play and the concept of group acceptance begins to take root. The final stage, which Piaget called the formal operations stage is characterised by engagement in competitive games and the gradual emergence of the mature ability to reason.

Well-rounded

So what have the theories of Jean Piaget to do with swinging from a set of monkey bars? Piaget clearly establishes that play is crucial to the normal development of the child. If a child were deprived of opportunities to play the development of that child as a well-rounded human being would be seriously stunted. The physical structure of the playground allows the child to engage in make-believe in the fresh air of the great outdoors. Not only do they have the opportunity to stretch their imaginations but they also have the chance to stretch their muscles and establish some sense of their physical limits.

I sometimes worry that Irish children today are exposed to fewer physical challenges than previous generations. If a child is not interested in field sports there are very few safe opportunities for that child to play in the fresh air. Playing on the street has so many inherent dangers that it is hardly necessary for me to list them.

Playgrounds are unisex environments where boys and girls share a common space for play. This characteristic sets playgrounds apart from other outdoor places of recreation. For example, field sports such as soccer, hockey and rugby are generally run along strict gender lines. Women may be developing a keener interest in team sports and many women now play such sports however the opposite sexes do not compete as mixed gender teams. Perhaps we should recognise and value the unique opportunity that the playground provides for asexual physical encounter between the sexes.

Computer games

Today’s child is far more likely to play indoors in comparison with the children of yesteryear. Play is more likely to take the form of interactive videogames with the television providing the role of surrogate parent or childminder. I have a disturbing image in my mind of a generation of unfit, sallow skinned, overweight children with remarkable hand eye co-ordination from all of those hours spent zapping virtual warriors. This hardly fits with the classical ideal of healthy mind in a healthy body.

At the outset I alluded to the possibility that we have fewer playgrounds today because of increased litigation for personal injuries. Perhaps local authorities are not prepared to build playgrounds because of fears of being sued. In making these comments I don’t wish to apportion undue blame to local authorities. I also believe that private developers have responsibilities in that regard. The good of society demands that playgrounds be constructed in accordance with best health and safety guidelines. It is a depressing thought that fear of being sued could be the excuse for not building playgrounds rather than the higher ideal of the public good. I look forward to the day when I see a public figure taking a photo opportunity by cutting the tape at the official launch of a new children’s playground. This would be a very positive initiative in relation to the health of our children.

My heart tells me that playgrounds are very special spaces for parents and their children. I recall the playgrounds of my childhood and I also fondly remember latter-day visits to playgrounds as a parent. Society is the poorer because of their scarcity.

In conclusion, I would like to quote from Oscar Wilde and substitute the word playground for the word school, which he used in his original commentary: "a playground should be the most beautiful place in every town and village - so beautiful that the punishment for undutiful children should be that they should be debarred from going to the playground the following day".