Parents and grandparents will be familiar with the plea ‘Can we go to the playground? If you’re like me, most likely you’ve spent time pushing swings and holding a hand or offering support as your child explores the climbing frame and slide. You’ll also have sat on a bench and watched your children play without your input. This is not an argument against any of this. Playgrounds are great and children love them. However I’d like to share with you something that happened in the recent school holidays while I was at a playground with my children.

The playground in question is in a quiet corner of an extensive grassy open area of a city. It has monkey bars, slides, a wobbly wood walk, a rope bridge, assorted swings, a mini-climbing wall and a seesaw. It’s a step above the average playground. There are picnic tables and benches dotted about. The setting is somewhat secluded with one side open to a wider grassy area, while two other sides are rocky outcrops left by eighteenth century quarrying. The remaining side is natural sloping rock. Amongst the rocks there are young and semi mature trees. When we were there it was clear some of the other people were having an extended visit, having brought along picnics. Children aged from one year to maybe nine or ten were happily engaged with what had been provided.

My children worked their way through all of the play equipment; swinging, climbing, sliding and hanging upside down. For some forty minutes they dashed about from swing to slide and from monkey bars to climbing wall. By this time I was sunning myself on a bench and watching them. First one then the other child abandoned the manufactured play equipment in favour of climbing up one of the rocky faces left by the quarrymen. This wasn’t particularly high; I could stand against it and stick my head over the top. The climb was about the same height as the top of the provided climbing wall. The thick bark found under the play equipment extended to the base of this rock wall. Slowly a few other children left the play equipment and started to climb the rock too. In all but one case, a parent or carer made the child/ children in question stop. Mine continued for a while, playing happily with the one girl who had not been made to stop. I stayed at a distance where I could quickly reach the rock but I wasn’t impeding the playing. The other mother stood much closer but didn’t interfere. Three happy children were making up a wonderful game of mountains and explorers; all was good. I noted some of the other adults were decidedly unhappy about any child being on the rock. They turned at me with expressions which read ‘That’s not safe- it’s worrying me’ or plain anger at the situation- after all they’d had to manage the ‘But those kids are allowed to’ responses when they called their children away. After a bit the other rock climbing child had to go so farewells were said.

My two returned to the swings with a distinct lack of interest. They had a few turns on the slide then one of them noted aloud that the sloping rock face would make an ace slide and he was off, scrambling up to the top. The sloping rock has highly polished streaks running right down it, the result of many generations of bums whizzing down this superb natural slide. I imagine it’s been used as a slide for over a hundred years. My son whizzed down one of these runnels, letting out yells of delight and laughing as he went. Unsurprisingly his sister was right behind him. This time no other child from the playground joined them. I did though, I’d slid down this very rock in my youth and I just couldn’t resist doing so again. We all laughed at the fun of it and at the dirty seats of our trousers. This time one of the parents, a dad, called out to me that I wasn’t setting a good example for my kids or his. I asked him why he thought that. His response was that we should be using the play equipment as the council had bothered to provide it. I pointed out that this was an excellent natural side which evidently had been used from decades. He replied that the natural environment was ‘an unsafe place to play’, adding that a responsible parent would keep their child away from playing on rocks and trees. When asked he claimed he’d never climbed trees as a boy much less used ‘dangerous’ rocks. He wouldn’t take his children ‘into the wilds because they might get hurt or eat something dangerous.’

Perhaps it is because I spent a large part of my childhood in a rural area, playing in woods and fields that I have a tendency to presume other adults have had the same freedoms, albeit not always in such a bucolic setting. This father has made me reappraise this view; he was genuinely fearful of nature, so much so that he saw a lovely piece of rock and a few trees in an urban park as dangerous. Maybe it’s not just the children who need a bit more Vitamin N.