Comments by "Don Taylor" (@dontaylor7315) on "Why safe playgrounds aren't great for kids" video.

@nanopopquiz7460 There are adults on hand at those playgrounds and some parents join in and play with the kids. They're not totally unsupervised.
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@dmoneyswagg64 They are supervised. Adventure Playgrounds have adults on hand. Some parents also participate. What are the figures on Adventure Playground deaths or serious injuries from the 1940s to the present? All I hear about is what "could" happen.
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@Fargosis16 That would be a problem for kids with antivax parents but in that case the problem is the parents not the playground.
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@Indra Otsusuki As a former kid who grew up in the 1950s before helicopter parenting was invented I have good news for you - it's better than it seems. We ALL hated shots. We all got hurt. We didn't stop playing. We learned how to take care of ourselves and those experiences were empowering. What might look like a "death trap" can actually be a fun challenge and an opportunity for creativity. My whole generation was enriched by this kind of play and your generation is just as tough and resourceful as mine was, you just don't know it yet. Please don't be discouraged.
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@khandapwner6805 Adventure Playgrounds have been in multiple countries from the 1940s to now, so if kids have been dying in them there must be plenty of data. Do you know of any?
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@Indra Otsusuki There are adults at Adventure Playgrounds. Stay close to them until you feel more confident. Also find out if there are nurses (I think there are but I'm not positive). You don't have to plunge right in and start taking risks. Give yourself time.
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@mashakalinkina7207 I agree with basically every point you made, except one which I have questions about. First, is economic status really part of the discussion? I don't actually know whether Adventure Playgrounds charge any admission but my impression is that they don't. Does that mean they're being shunned by families with the wherewithal to inundate their kids with manufactured toys? I didn't see evidence of that in the video. In any case, are poor kids the only kids who'll seize an opportunity to learn how to use a real tool? Tools aside, do only poor kids possess the drive to improvise and invent rather than accept what's given them per an adult's predetermination of what they're to play with and/or what they're to build? I'm not asking from an adversarial position here, just exploring and probing for anything I missed.
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Thank God I grew up in the 50s when the rule was "Be home by suppertime." Free-range wasn't even a word - it was just called childhood. Helcoptering would have been considered child abuse. We climbed trees, rode our bikes anywhere we wanted, shinnied up the tv areal and jumped off the roof. We got injured and it was just part of growing up - a cast and a crutch made a kid feel special for awhile and we learned to be careful instead of being taught to be afraid of the world. Childhood was empowering. A child's whole world was an Adventure Playground. And bear in mind, we didn't even have mobile phones to check in with. Mobile phones are potentially a terrific way to compromise between helicoptering and freedom!
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@Indra Otsusuki You could be a help to the smaller kids. One of the things kids learn from free play is to watch out for each other. A responsible-minded older kid like you is valuable.
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@asteri8299 Exactly! These threads are full of commenters who seem to think the Adventure Playground people fill their sites up with lethal traps and then leave the kids unwatched. It's hard to tell where they're getting this fantasy from. Horror movies maybe? As kids in the 50s when free play was the norm we didn't have a lot of trouble distinguishing between the horror movies we loved and the real-life risks we were learning about in the real-world play we loved.
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@kolonarulez5222 How's that? You have stats on deaths or serious injuries in Adventure Playgrounds? There should be plenty of data because they've been operating since the 1940s and they're in multiple countries.
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