Safety

We are all concerned about keeping our children safe, and rightly so. By its very nature outdoor play has more dangers than most. Children will take risks, almost as soon as he could walk my youngest child climbed up on the window ledge and walked along it like a tightrope till he fell out the window, he was not badly hurt, but from then on I started making things for him to climb on where the falls would not be bad. Playing outside your children will get grazes, eat sand, run over each others feet etc., it's a learning experience, this page is about taking reasonable car to make it a safe one.

I do feel that sometimes we wrap our children up in cotton wool. If we make everything soft for them when they fall 5cm where is the incentive for them to learn to walk, balance, grip, etc? If they never learn that the ground is hard they will continue to take bigger risks until they hurt themselves badly. Safety for me is about making a world for children to explore and grow in that will stimulate them without maiming themselves.

Falling down.

If you have your swing/slide/climbing frame on a patio you need some sort of protection. The plastic covered foam mats are good as you can also use them by themselves for tumbling. If the structure is more permanent a simple box 10-15 cm deep filled with bark chippings makes an attractive crash mat. You will need a lot of chippings to fill it up though, look up tree surgeons in the yellow pages, quite often they an deliver a van load of chippings a lot cheaper they buying in bags from the garden center.

In my play area the grass is fairly long with loads of moss, this provides a good cushion, so stop putting that moss killer down on your lawn, the kids will wreck your grass when they start playing football on it anyway.

Safety markings.

Society at large is now so paranoid of litigation for faulty goods that most stuff you buy will have some sort of approval mark on it