Can A Playground Be Too Safe Analysis

The practitioner in an early years setting supporting children’s play learning and development is extremely important, as play helps stimulate the child’s brain, supports their needs on an educational level, as well as helping them with social difficulties such as building relationships, developing them and helping them gain confidence. Many people believe that a child learns best when they are motivated, such as Fredrich Froebel. He believed that children benefitted from all types of play. The McMillan sisters believed that outdoor play was extra important as they studied children who played and slept outside and discovered that they were the happier and healthier children in comparison to those who only played inside.

Also it is important that children have the opportunities to experience risk and challenge play as this is important for children's and young people's play and learning. It is important that children and young people are given the opportunities for risk and challenge play as it will help give children a better understanding of what is safe and unsafe such as if they was to touch something hot they will know not to do it again because they will know they will burn them self. Some parents do not let their children take risk and challenges as they think its to dangerous for the children. When practitioners provide opportunities for risk and challenge play it is important that it is taken place in a safe environment. Also when risk and challenge

A Playworker should respect the right of children to decide and control the content and intent of their play. It can often occur that the child’s play will step outside a playworkers comfort zone, for example climbing high into a tree. In this case the playworker should recognise that it would be more appropriate for another playworker to oversee this situation to allow the play to continue without unwanted intervention. Children’s play is extended when they are given the opportunity to challenge themselves and take risks. A setting that allows this will provide a far better play experience than one that does not.

Children and young people should feel happy, safe, respected and included in the school or early years setting environment and all staff should be proactive in promoting positive behavior in the classroom, playground and the wider community. Policies and practice which make sure the safety and wellbeing of children should already be in place and it is this legislation develop through many years and experiences, and mistakes, that underpin the working practices that are used today.

As a playworker it is important to have a good knowledge and understanding of children’s rights and the legal framework relating to them. We need to be able to evaluate existing policies to ensure that the rights of children and young people are being met, this includes consulting the children and young people on how the setting can best meet their rights and making them aware of how to assert them. Children should be given the opportunity to freely express their thoughts and ideas and it is important that these are acted on where possible as this will show the children and young people that you respect and value their opinions and allow us as playworkers to provide a play space and play equipment that they will be happy with. For example allowing children to choose what equipment they would like to play with and

When working with children it is very important to take a balanced approach to risk management. We should encourage children to take some risks within the controlled and safe environment of school, so that they can explore and develop themselves. By overprotecting and over risk assessing we potentially are supressing a child’s own awareness and ability to make sound risk assessments when they grow up and enter the adult world. By giving a child more independence their confidence will grow.

8. Evaluate different approaches to managing risk during children and young peoples play. An approach to managing risk could be to talk to those children involved with e.g. play fighting and if they got too carried away I would stop them from playing together. Another approach would be to provide crash mats if children are playing on an indoor climbing frame, I would place them underneath to steady their fall so they don’t injure themselves too badly.

As a level 3 practitioner it is important to take a balanced approach to risk management so that children are able to learn and develop. Practitioners need to be aware of the risks, however “if the activity is well planned and organised, with thought given to possible risks, the likelihood of an accident or injury should be minimal” (Tassoni et al, 2010, p144). Practitioners working with children have a duty of care towards the children and must make sure that they are safe at all times. They should plan the play environment and activity which is safe for the child, but there also needs to be a balance between the risks a child is able take. Children should be allowed to take risk they think they are able to achieve with adult support but not too much intervention, If they are not allowed to take risk they will not be able to develop the skills required to deal with risks and make judgement about their own strengths and skills which may affect their development, self-esteem and confidence. Avoiding risks and challenges may result in a very timid adult lacking in every day skills and abilities. Children can take risks in all different areas by following the seven areas of development which was introduced by the foundation phase, these areas are as follow:-

“The developed world deprives children of a basic and inalienable right: unstructured outdoor play. Children today have substantially less access to nature, less free range, and less time for independent play than previous generations had.” This quote is from the research based paper titled, “Where the Wild Things Should Be: Healing Nature Deficit Disorder through the Schoolyard." This article touches many aspects of how children now a days need more exposure to nature like it was on the older days. Currently, there are many playgrounds around the United States and even more the world. This article is trying to bring awareness to the problem of if playgrounds do not have enough nature or is too safe then it is

It is very important to let children asses’ danger for themselves in a secure environment. It is not good for them to be cooped up and have somebody tell them that one thing is bad and will hurt them and another will keep them safe they need to identify these things for themselves to enable them to live a positive life as an adult and to gain confidence in themselves and their own abilities. At the same time the children need to be given this chance in a safe and secure place whereby I as the carer know they will not come into any danger.

Children love to play and explore. For example while in a park a child will want to climb a ladder to go on a slide. Natural reaction may be to hold or even pick up a child and put them up. Children learn best when trying and experiencing things themselves. There is a risk of a child slipping and falling of the steps but a child also has a right to experience facilities to aid their development. Children need to learn how to predict and avoid dangerous situations.Another potential dilemma may be confidentiality. I must ensure that all personal information is kept confidential and is not shared with anyone else unless permission form is signed. But if there is a case of concern that a child’s welfare may be at risk social services have to be informed.There is also a possibility of conflict with parent’s wishes due to their culture and religion.

For the past few decades, the development of technology and the expansion of the knowledge has enriched our life, especially for our childhood life. However, relatively speaking, kids now are getting less freedom than the past due to the world has more potential dangerous such as the increased rate of abduction. Dealing a complicated problem with a very simple violent way may result in a worse impact in the near future. Because of parents excessively protect their own children and outside world is too horrible to play alone, more and more kids lost the opportunity of touching the nature, instead they indulge in the virtual world created by electronic products. In the story “The Shortening Leash”, Jessica and Hanna give us a relatively accurate and unbiased information about the situation that kids now lost freedom a lot according to the board surveys and three statistic graphs. While they mentioned that we are not supposed to latch our kids due to over-protection. Otherwise, let children pursue free exploration is not equal to stop your ear to them.

It is important to take a balanced approach to risk management so not to over protect the children we care for but providing them with the safety to explore and make some decisions about risks confidently themselves with guidance. Children need to learn to manage some risks themselves and recognize their own boundaries and limitations by practitioners helping children and young people recognize the risks and dangers around them in the appropriate way.

Children are not always able to make safe choices as they may not be aware of dangers or they may purposefully take a risk in order to push themselves or their friends. This could flag a risk in health and safety or go against regulations. However it is important to allow a little risk to enable the child to learn from it.

In addition, Statsky picks a great tactic to make a strong emotional appeal to the reader through a wide use of examples and anecdotes. To make the anecdote believable and appropriate it has to be familiar and representative to the reader. For anecdotes to be believable, they should be specific and true to life. Statsky fully fulfills these requirements in examples and anecdotes she uses to support her argument. For example, in paragraph 4 she successfully brings the anecdote from Tosche’s investigative report on Peewee Football, strategically blending the quotation by the mother of an eight-year-old player who says that the children become frightened and pretend to be injured in order to stay out of the game. In the anecdote, a