6 Dangers At The Playground

1. 10 Foot Ladder to the Sky

The rungs on the ladder are just far enough apart to make it impossible for anyone under the age of five to climb without help. [Did I mention the suggested age for the playground equipment is ages 2 to 6?] Helping your kid up the ladder to the sky isn’t really a viable option either because it’s 10 feet tall! Here are your options: try to reach as far as you can on your tip toes while keeping your child safe or attempt to climb the tiny little rungs with your child.  It’s a pretty sticky situation. Why in the world does your kid want to climb the totally scary ladder to the sky? Because it’s attached to the…

2. Practically Vertical Slide

After you make it up the 10 foot ladder, you’re faced with the next obstacle of the playground.  Another great reason I hate taking my kid to the local park is this slide.  It’s practically vertical! They have it decorated with space ship decals and if you ask me they have carried the whole space ship thing a little too far. But I guess it makes sense that the natural course of action for returning from the ladder to the sky would be to take a spaceship ride down on the vertical slide. The slide doesn’t really have sides to hold your kid in place. It’s not one of those nifty tunnel slides like at McDonalds either. It’s an old school metal slide dropping almost vertically from the sky.  Luckily for me, my kid has only wanted to do that once. Really, what were they thinking?

3.  Steps of Death

These are metal steps suspended in the air about three feet above the ground from metal bars that resemble the letter U.  They are all placed about a foot apart like inverted monkey bars with places to put your feet.  They do not bend or have any give, totally metal. I call them the steps of death.  Helping your kid navigate the steps requires you to have octopus arms.  Also, if your kid falls, there is no way they are going to hit the ground without smacking something (God please don’t let it be his head!) on those metal bars as they go down.

4.  Ankle Breaker Bridge

Apparently the steps of death weren’t enough to torture parents with in one playground, so it was necessary to include another equally dangerous bridge.  This bridge is a lot like the wobbly board bridges we remember from our childhood playgrounds.  There are just a few key differences between Ankle Breaker Bridge and the bridges we remember.  First, Ankle Breaker Bridge isn’t made of forgiving wooden planks; it’s made of thin blue metal sheets.  Also, those beautiful blue metal sheets are positioned just far enough apart for a child to get their foot wedged as they run across.  Lots of shoes get gobbled up by Ankle Breaker Bridge and need to be retrieved by climbing on your hands and knees under the bridge.

5.  Skinny Dark Tunnel

Skinny Dark tunnel is near the top of the playground. It has small windows so your kids can peek out and tease you from the top of the playground.  It’s large enough for a toddler to climb through, but small enough for a mommy to get stuck in when she has to go retrieve her toddler child from the top.  It never fails, if I give my kid a 5 minute warning, he climbs into the skinny dark tunnel and forces me to retrieve him.

6.  Potty Training Nightmare

This last one isn’t really the fault of the playground equipment creators; it’s the park designers that are more to blame.  There are no bathrooms at the park. Our lovely little park is located centrally in our quiet neighborhood so I guess they just assumed we’d walk home. However, walking to our house a block away is just not feasible with a young child, especially one who’s potty training like my son. I always end up putting him in a diaper to go to the park. I’ve had to sprint down the block with a wet toddler screaming “I GO POTTY NOW!” a few too many times.

Written by: Sara Parise