Good housing is fundamental to a successful society.
Phil Mackay
Have you ever considered, though, the relationship between housing, and opportunities for kids (and adults) to play?
It’s summertime, the perfect time to be playing outside. Whether you’re at the bach, the beach, a holiday camp, or simply spending some time relaxing around town, give some thought to the access your kids have to play, especially the unsupervised kind. I suspect they’ve a lot more freedom at a holiday camp for example, than at home.
Play is an important learning experience for kids. Aside from the obvious health and wellbeing benefits, and the social skills we learn on the playground, play is one of the ways that we learn to understand and manage risk, a vital life skill.
On RNZ’s The Detail recently, Dr Alex Bonham, author of “Play and the City” and with a doctorate on play, discussed the value of play in learning about risk and understanding our instincts. “If you’re climbing a tree, you’re developing your physical skills, but you’re also getting really good at working out how far you should push yourself.”
Auckland Council’s play portfolio lead, Jacquelyn Collins, said “I want my child to learn that when she’s climbing a tree, I don’t want her to learn that when she’s 15 and some guy who’s had six beers at a party is offering to drive her home. I want her to already know how to listen to her instincts and trust her own decision-making.”
Local tamariki testing out the new playground at Kings Garden.
Collins also touched on how kids’ opportunities for play have changed: “our traditional approach to our ‘play network’ … has been based on a walkable catchment model.” In other words, most neighbourhoods have a small playground within a five- or 10-minute walk, yet even this short walk now likely requires a parent following along. As Collins said, “those little local playgrounds, were fantastic when children had the freedom to roam without their parents.”
Playground under construction in a new subdivision. Photo: Mary Anne Gill
Playground under construction in a new subdivision. Photo: Mary Anne Gill
Instead, it’s now more common to visit a larger destination playground, supervised, and transported, by an adult.
The way that we have chosen to develop housing in the last 30 years has seen section sizes get smaller and more dependency on cars – due to the distance of housing from amenities and workplaces. It’s not a stretch to suggest that busier streets designed for cars, and smaller backyards, have led to fewer opportunities for kids to play, and to play unsupervised.
As we move towards denser housing models, we should also consider how we might design communities with more opportunities for safe play.
This may seem like nostalgic wishful thinking, but we do need to prioritise opportunities for our kids to learn and build their own confidence, without anxious parents helicoptering around.
Whatawhata School pupils enjoying their new playground courtesy of a Hamilton company ‘Helping Hands’ initiative.
