Poll of the Day > One thing that kids these days actually are missing out on: playgrounds

(+) Yeah! (+)

I know they still have playgrounds, but they're shit. Teeter-totters, merry-go-rounds and tires are pretty much nonexistent now. Everything is made out of shitty plastic and painted metal; there's no wood anymore. Even the stuff that is metal isn't the same, like monkey bars that are only like seven feet off the ground. Sure, old playgrounds were more dangerous, but that's what made them fun.

I don't think I ever had wooden playgrounds as a kid
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Shoot, my Kindergarten playground (which was fenced off from the rest of the field) was swings, slides, etc. on concrete. They didn't add rubber pads around them until I had completed elementary school. They converted it into just basketball courts when I was in high school.
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Well you're like five or six years younger than me IIRC. We didn't even have wood for my entire childhood, but the years we did were glorious. I think I was in third grade when they took out our playground and it got replaced with SHIT. We got into playing football while it was under construction and then after they finished it, we pretty much just went back to playing football again almost right away when we saw how disappointing it was

Well the fact remains that that hasn't been a widespread thing for something like 15-20 years, so I'm not expecting a lot of people to be able to relate to it
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A lot of people on PotD are in their mid 20s or older but okay

Really? I've taken my kid and my younger cousins to some really fun playgrounds.
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Arv grew up with wooden playgrounds and a lot of kids are on gamefaqs don't speak for everyone
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my elementary school playground was amazing until I hit like 4th grade and they made everything this stupid ass plastic shit.
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I remember wood and metal playgrounds. I also remember my friends that got concussions, broken limbs and fingers, huge splinters, broken teeth... They were fun but that shit really did hurt kids.
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Doctor Foxx posted...

I remember wood and metal playgrounds. I also remember my friends that got concussions, broken limbs and fingers, huge splinters, broken teeth... They were fun but that shit really did hurt kids.

:/

Well, I managed to never get seriously hurt

I disagree. I take my kids to several different playgrounds. Some are better than others, but some of them are downright impressive in the equipment they offer, and they have the added benefit of being designed with children's safety in mind.
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Kana posted...

Well the fact remains that that hasn't been a widespread thing for something like 15-20 years, so I'm not expecting a lot of people to be able to relate to it

1 You're Canadian, play grounds at schools could be different
2 Just because you haven't seen it doesn't make it or not widespread
3 Not really needing a third point just pointing out how the fact remains this was a bad post.

I remember really kick ass wooden play sets that felt like castles and then the shitty plastic slides with shredded tires, I can't think of what it's called right now but the entire play area was covered in the shit.
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Far-Queue posted...

I disagree. I take my kids to several different playgrounds. Some are better than others, but some of them are downright impressive in the equipment they offer, and they have the added benefit of being designed with children's safety in mind.

Examples of cool shit they have now?

those wooden playgrounds were great because, at least the one i went to, was kinda like a maze you could explore. I dont think so on purpose but it had so much shit

JoanOfArcade posted...

1 You're Canadian, play grounds at schools could be different

Unlikely
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Kana posted...

JoanOfArcade posted...

1 You're Canadian, play grounds at schools could be different

Unlikely

My experience living in the US and Canada suggests Canada has way better playgrounds anyway.

The new rebuilt playgrounds with safer equipment are still pretty awesome and much less likely to severely hurt children. My home city is full of great playgrounds and they've largely been modernized.
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It's been a while since I've seen a playground admittedly. Waterloo Park had a wooden one, I think. I wonder if it's still there.
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Kana posted...

Well the fact remains that that hasn't been a widespread thing for something like 15-20 years, so I'm not expecting a lot of people to be able to relate to it

what? If anything OP is right on the money

talk about blissful ignorance... recess was literally everybody's favorite event at school. Your child hood must have been pretty boring :/
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I remember wooden playgrounds. I also remember getting a lot of splinters and being real pissed off and in pain because of them.
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We has 3 wooden playgrounds at my school when i was growing up.

One was a pure wooden, excluding the slide and a few climbing bars (this was the oldest, and taken down when i was in 2nd or 3rd grade)

Another was wood and metal, this one also had a tireswing
(This guy was up my the entire time i was in at that school)

Thr last one was wood and that new plastic look also. It was the newest, and remember it going up when i was in 4th grade.

There was a 4th park also, everything was metal, it had one of those huge spiderweb dome monkey bars, and there was the climb across ones and some large swings also.
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When I was a kid, my playground was literally just made out of piles of old truck tires.

Kids today don't even go to playgrounds anyway, they just stay home and play video games and watch YouTube videos.


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Junpeiclover posted...

Kana posted...

Well the fact remains that that hasn't been a widespread thing for something like 15-20 years, so I'm not expecting a lot of people to be able to relate to it

what? If anything OP is right on the money

talk about blissful ignorance... recess was literally everybody's favorite event at school. Your child hood must have been pretty boring :/

She's talking about wooden playgrounds I think.

When my elementary school got rid of the old wood and metal structures and put in new plastic equipment it was a pretty big improvement. The only thing that sucked initially was the 4 level metal jungle gym went. They replaced it with a rope one and it was more fun.
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I guess having wood doesn't really matter. In theory you could probably make a decent playground without using wood, but all the newer playgrounds I've personally seen were lame.

Junpeiclover posted...

Your child hood must have been pretty boring :/

Not the word I would use hahaha
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DorkLink posted...

Far-Queue posted...

I disagree. I take my kids to several different playgrounds. Some are better than others, but some of them are downright impressive in the equipment they offer, and they have the added benefit of being designed with children's safety in mind.

Examples of cool shit they have now?

Splash pads, giant slides, giant net/spiderweb/rope dome things that they can climb all over. One of them I take them to is designed like a big castle with bridges and towers, one is designed like a giant tree house and has tunnels under it. One has a jungle gym shaped like a fire truck that's real popular. The sandbox there has little scooper things that kids can sit on and they behave similar to an excavator or backhoe.
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I remember as a kid there was this old metal slide that felt like it was 2 stories tall (granted, it was probably more like 8 feet, but it was still pretty tall) and we used to go down that thing head first and basically fall into a pile of dirt. It was great!!!

Shortly after I left elementary school, they replaced it with this plastic 4 foot tall thing that you would get zero speed going down.
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Nah, they're missing out on newgrounds. I got my first boner there.
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Metal slides were more fun but they would get fucking hot as hell. That's one I can hardly even complain about since even if you knew how to be safe it was still bad. I suppose they could remedy that by covering them, but it's easier to just have plastic slides and not have to worry about covering. Those can still get hot too, but not as much.

Far-Queue posted...

Splash pads, giant slides, giant net/spiderweb/rope dome things that they can climb all over. One of them I take them to is designed like a big castle with bridges and towers, one is designed like a giant tree house and has tunnels under it. One has a jungle gym shaped like a fire truck that's real popular. The sandbox there has little scooper things that kids can sit on and they behave similar to an excavator or backhoe.

Yeah some of that stuff does sound pretty awesome

DorkLink posted...

I know they still have playgrounds, but they're shit. Teeter-totters, merry-go-rounds and tires are pretty much nonexistent now. Everything is made out of shitty plastic and painted metal; there's no wood anymore. Even the stuff that is metal isn't the same, like monkey bars that are only like seven feet off the ground. Sure, old playgrounds were more dangerous, but that's what made them fun.

Merry-go-rounds usually aren't at playgrounds... Plus many playgrounds still use metal and, because laws forbidding children to be out of parents' sight, playgrounds in general are on the decline.

More importantly, you're probably mixed up on the height of monkey bars and thought they were taller when you were a kid.

Kana posted...

JoanOfArcade posted...

1 You're Canadian, play grounds at schools could be different

Unlikely

Believe it or not, but American playgrounds don't have moose.
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Zeus posted...

Merry-go-rounds usually aren't at playgrounds... Plus many playgrounds still use metal and, because laws forbidding children to be out of parents' sight, playgrounds in general are on the decline.

More importantly, you're probably mixed up on the height of monkey bars and thought they were taller when you were a kid.

I don't mean the kind of merry-go-round where you sit on horses. I'm talking about these:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fb/Tift_Park_merry-go-round.JPG

Of course the monkey bars seemed higher when I was a kid, and maybe the old ones would seem lame now too, but they were definitely higher. In the old playground, you had to climb up on a platform before you could even reach them. On the new one, they were directly accessed from the ground, so they are really low.

Kana posted...

JoanOfArcade posted...

1 You're Canadian, play grounds at schools could be different

Unlikely

I'm sorry you've never left your little suburb and seen anymore of the world.
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