Under New Zealand law, it’s not possible for the parents to sue. We have a scheme called ACC - Accident Compensation Corporation - that every worker and employer pays into. Anyone who is injured in New Zealand can receive fair compensation from ACC. Think of it as a national, compulsory insurance scheme. The flip side is that no-one can sue for personal injuries here.
I can only assume that you do not live in the grand old USofA (metres, actual sensible community activities etc…).
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The first time my kids went to Berlin, the youngest was just a toddler. The most memorable aspect of that trip for them was the Kinderspielplatzen…the playgrounds (especially those in what had been East Berlin). Every one was different, and they were all too dangerous to ever be built in the U.S.: concrete, metal, sharp edges, no coddling at all. They still talk about how awesome it was to play there. Kids don’t like being treated like delicate flowers.
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I read this article about a current documentary called “The Land” that really has me thinking about my own level of cautious parenting. Adventure playgrounds are an interesting approach to developing independence.
I’m in Germany. There are actually a lot of cool things about the attitude toward children here. When we brought them to school, we were told that our children (including our 18 month old) were going to need rain pants, because it’s Hamburg and the kids are going to be playing outside in the rain quite a bit. You see groups of 2-3 year olds walking to the playground with their teachers all the time, even though they have perfectly good facilities indoors. It’s considered important for the kids to be involved in improving their environment, so recently I came to pick the kids up and they’d been planting stuff all around the playground area. The one time we’ve been criticised was when we sent them a little fruit yogurt along with the rest of their lunch - children should be eating healthy, whole foods, so sweets, chocolate, white bread, flavored yoghurts etc. are not approved of. In the UK, our son could choose from a buffet and had chips every day (I’m sure there were healthy options too, but that’s one area that I’d like to see a little more restricted choice). There is actually one of the Swedish style forest kindergartens nearby that was discussed on BB a while ago, but most schools in the area seem to follow similar principles.
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Industry changers tend not to be wired in to the status quo -
Go Dogtown.
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As a kid (in the US) in the early 70s, our public school playgrounds had big tall swings that we would swing high on and then bail out and come crashing down 12-15’, merry go rounds and stuff that we would hang on to and fly around as someone made it go faster and faster, and lots of ant hills we would collect ants from and make ant farms. And lots of other things I am sure are all forbidden now.
I can applaud these sorts of efforts.
They missed out the surprising bit. That was that bullying decreased, behaviour improved, and serious injuries actually decreased. I can only imagine that the person who posted this only read the headline of the original article.
http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/school-ditches-rules-and-loses-bullies-5807957
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