Top Five Tips for Playing Safely
As the weather gets warmer, children naturally start flocking to the playground, and who can blame them? Those first few days out in the sun after a long winter are blissful! But parents and responsible adults should be aware of how to encourage children playing safely.
Our latest article will be talking all things safety when it comes to outdoor play!
1. Clothing
An important part of safety is appropriate and proper protective clothing. If children’s clothes and shoes are not weather and environment-appropriate,injuries are more likely. For example, overheating or freezing are both very possible with outdoor play. In winter, children should be wrapped up warmly, with hats and gloves to protect against wind chill. Similarly, in summer they should wear cool clothing that won’t put them at risk of overheating. Shoes should be sensible and comfortable. Clothes shouldn’t have drawstrings or ties that dangle or are too long. This is because they can catch on play equipment and present a choking hazard. It also helps to tie back longer hair, to also eliminate any risk of catching on the equipment.
2. Supervision
Children can often be a law unto themselves, so it’s necessary that they are supervised by responsible adults when they’re on the playground. Adults should ensure children are using play equipment as intended and playing with other children in a safe and responsible manner. Ensure that you are teaching children the rules of safe play – there shouldn’t be any pushing, shoving, racing unsafely, and so on. Adults should also ensure that they teach children how to responsibly use the equipment. This includes waiting their turn, going feet first down slides, and not standing up on equipment.
3. Maintenance
Adults responsible for children and the playgrounds they use should make regular maintenance and inspection their priority. This is the best way of identifying minor flaws that could turn into a bigger problem at a later stage, such as minor breaks in equipment, loose screws, faults in the flooring and so on. Children playing on damaged equipment or surfaces are at a higher risk of injury, and responsible adults should be vigilant in inspections to ensure nothing goes amiss.
4. Surfacing
Adequate safety surfacing is crucial when it comes to maintaining an acceptable level of safety on playgrounds. As experts in this field, PlaySmart have some recommendations you should look for when ensuring the safety of your surface.
Firstly, ask yourself: Is the surface impact absorbent? In high-risk areas like playgrounds, there is a good chance children will fall or trip, and potentially injure themselves in the process. One way of attempting to avoid a more serious injury is to avoid harsher surfacing with low absorbency – for example, tarmac, concrete or gravel. Instead, opt for surfaces with proven high absorbency, such as sand, mulch or rubber, for example. It creates a softer landing and therefore should lower the risk for a more serious injury.
Equally as important, check the critical fall height measurement (the maximum distance of a fall from the highest piece of equipment on a playground to the floor). It is vital that safety surfaces are installed at the correct depth. This helps ensure a sufficient amount of protection against falls from high surfaces.
5. Investment
One of the surfacing industry’s unwritten rules is that if the price seems too good to be true, it usually is! The old saying ‘you get what you pay for’ has a lot of truth when it comes to safety surfacing. Cutting costs isn’t something recommended when safety is at stake. Cheaper safety surfacing often uses less reliable and resilient materials. It therefore doesn’t provide adequate levels of protection that more sturdy surfaces do. It’s important to weigh up the costs of investing in new surfacing against how long the surface will last – whilst there is an upfront cost to take into account, there are a few options out there that will stand the test of time with the right maintenance.
There is a lot more that goes into playing safely, but we hope our top five tips have started you off on the right track!
If you’d like to know more, why not get in touch through the contact form on our website? As always, we’d love to hear from you, so don’t hesitate to contact us if there’s anything we can help with!
