In anticipation of our very own Imagination Playground<\/a> coming soon to Walsh, we thought we\u2019d share even more information with you on the benefits of unstructured play. Katherine Martennelli of CityLab discusses how concepts like these and Adventure Playgrounds are truly benefitting both parents and children alike.<\/p>\n Eve Mosher was getting frustrated. Her children, ages 4 and 6, encountered rules everywhere they went to play in New York City. Even at parks and playgrounds, expressly built for the purpose of play, they were chastised for digging in the dirt or climbing trees. Mosher, a native of the Houston suburbs, says that her city kids had \u201cno sense of ownership over a space; there\u2019s no sense of independence and self-confidence that comes from playing on their own.\u201d<\/p>\n She and fellow parent Alexander Khost were talking about this issue one Saturday in August 2014 when the topic of adventure playgrounds came up. By Sunday they had a plan to bring an adventure playground to New York; by December, play:groundNYC hosted its first event.<\/p>\n Adventure playgrounds aren\u2019t a new concept. Also known as waste-material playgrounds, they were popularized in Europe and the U.K. after World War II, when people realized that kids were playing in bombed-out lots. \u201cIt was a very urban, rough play experience,\u201d explains Robin Meyer, a playground design project manager and one of eight board members of play:groundNYC. Hanna Rosin gave a great overview in her 2014 Atlantic article<\/a> on the subject, and Erin Davis\u2019s 2015 film The Land<\/a> documents a modern Welsh adventure playground in all its tree-climbing, fire-starting, free-range glory.<\/p>\n The primary components of an adventure playground are moveable parts (which can include items like boxes, pipes, paint, hammers, and even saws) and trained, paid grown-up \u201cplayworkers,\u201d who oversee and facilitate the play without interfering. Children are free to build their own structures, tear them down, climb, graffiti, create. They are encouraged to take calculated risks in order to learn resilience, grit, and problem-solving skills. The concept of vandalism is moot at an adventure playground\u2014it is child-led play in its freest, most anarchic form. It is organized chaos.<\/p>\n Though adventure playgrounds never reached the popularity in the U.S. that they have in the U.K. and Europe, the environmental psychology Ph.D. student Reilly Wilson notes that there were 20 across America in the 1970s, according to a survey of the American Adventure Play Association (an organization that has recently been revived<\/a>). There were several in New York alone. But without funding to maintain them, the adventure playgrounds fell into disrepair and looked, quite frankly, like the bombed-out remains they were originally based on.<\/p>\n Shifts in parenting trends are reviving interest in waste-material playgrounds. So-called helicopter parenting, in which parents hover and rush in at the first sign of distress, is increasingly being called out by authors and researchers writing books and articles about the importance of letting children fail, working out their own problems, and developing independence. New studies<\/a> show that we should be letting children engage in riskier play.<\/p>\n Adventure parks benefit parents as well as kids. Wilson, who is also on the board of play:ground NYC and became interested in playgrounds after working as a nanny, posits that adventure playgrounds might help assuage hovering moms and dads. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of social pressure among caregivers to intervene when their kid is making another parent nervous,\u201d she says. \u201cOther adults will step in very quickly so people will preemptively step in so as not to deal with the social pressure.\u201d That pressure is off in a monitored, safe space like an adventure playground, where the culture is to let kids do their own thing.<\/p>\n Marisa Karplus took her sons, ages 3 and 6, to the play:groundNYC pop-up on Governors Island last summer, thinking they\u2019d just stop by then continue on their way. They were all having such a great time that they stayed for three hours. \u201cMy husband said that it looked like Burning Man for kids,\u201d she says. \u201cThey were happy on their own\u2026It gives [parents] permission to sit back without feeling neglectful.\u201d<\/p>\n Sometimes, though, it takes a bit of reprogramming before parents can loosen the reins. It\u2019s not uncommon to find the occasional sign that says, \u201cParents! Sit down and relax!\u201d<\/p>\n Using an organization called Pop Up Adventure Play<\/a> as a model and source for playworker training, Mosher, Khost, and their six fellow board members started hosting pop-up adventure playgrounds around the city, including on Governors Island, where they\u2019ve just signed a one-year lease. Their seasonal adventure playground for kids ages 6-13 will open there in May. play:groundNYC also had a residency at the Brooklyn Children\u2019s Museum this past winter, and they\u2019ve exceeded their $25,000 goal on Kickstarter<\/a> to help fund their efforts. \u201cWe\u2019re at a really exciting moment right now, where there\u2019s growing interest\u2026and I think parents are ready,\u201d says Meyer.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s all kinds of powerful research that shows that play is a natural vehicle for children to learn about themselves and the world,\u201d explains Roger Hart, a professor in the Environmental Psychology Ph.D. Program of the CUNY Graduate Center, the co-director of the Children\u2019s Environments Research Group<\/a>, and a member of the play:groundNYC board of advisors.<\/p>\n \u201cOne of the things that\u2019s wonderful about public space, and the reason we have to preserve it for children, is that it is a democratic space,\u201d Hart tells CityLab<\/em>. \u201cIt\u2019s a space that should involve all kids and should be safe and it\u2019s a place where they can be next to one another and inventing culture and transforming it. They\u2019re making a new world.\u201d<\/p>\n Having the first semi-permanent play:groundNYC project on Governors Island\u2014a ferry ride away from Brooklyn and Manhattan\u2014means that it will be a destination. As Meyers explains, that status has its pluses and minuses. \u201cThe plus is that lots of people will come and it will get attention with the sort of cachet of it being Governors Island,\u201d she says. \u201cBut in lots of parts of Europe\u2026adventure playgrounds are more integrated into lower-income neighborhoods, and they become a place where young people can go and have a space that\u2019s safe and has adult supervision. The playworkers become almost like a big brother or big sister or social worker-type role. So we recognize that our playground will be different in that respect.\u201d<\/p>\nWhy now?<\/h5>\n
Kids need free-range play<\/h5>\n