Every day is a day at the park when you create a back-yard play space for your children. Many parents are turning over a large portion of their yard to child’s play.
A far cry from the lone swing set, today parents can create a pint-size paradise for kids, complete with forts, towers and climbing walls.
“Before they used to just connect swings to a structure, now it’s a big piece of art,” says Charles Jackson, manager of design services for Little Tykes Commercial at Parkreation, a playground equipment dealer in Prospect Heights.
“We have castles, clubhouses and penthouse forts for the older kids,” says Joanie Barrus, co-owner of Rainbow Play Systems, which has factory showrooms in Vernon Hills, Lake in the Hills, Naperville and Willowbrook. “The rock climb is a hot item.”
Experts say today’s systems are designed to encourage cooperative and imaginative play. For example, children can slide together on a double slide rather than one at a time on a traditional slide. And small features like steering wheels and telescopes go a long way when it comes to child’s play.
“You can be a pirate one day, a fireman another,” Jackson says. “It makes their play more imaginative and interactive. Today we’re competing with video games. We want to put something out there that opens their eyes.”
Parents say back-yard play benefits the whole family.
“We wanted a fun form of home entertainment for outside, versus inside,” says Sue Rutherford, a Wilmette mom who had a play set built for her three children. “It has been a great investment. Just as we hoped, our kids use it a lot. A really nice benefit for us is when we have other families with young children over for dinner. The play set can keep a sizable group of kids busy for hours, and the adults actually get to sit down and talk.”
And back-yard fun can save parents a trip to the park.
“It’s more convenient than driving to the park,” says Jasna Djurin, a Lake Forest mom who recently designed a large play area for her 3-year-old, with two towers, a connecting bridge, four swings, three slides and a climbing wall. “She loves it. She can play there for hours. It’s become the area where all the neighborhood kids play. They sit inside and talk and sing; it’s a lot of fun for them.”
By setting the bar a little higher and including many types of equipment, Djurin hopes to get years of play out of her set.
“Emily was only 2 at the time we designed the set so we wanted an area for smaller children, but we knew she’d want something more challenging as she gets older,” she says.
“Parents are looking for things their kids can grow with, things that continue to be physically challenging,” Barrus says.
“Our sets are modular so you pick and choose what works for you,” says Susan Peterman of Fenceworks in Highland Park. “And you add to it as the kids get older. You can add another tower, a rock wall or a slide. The options are endless.”
Homeowners also have many landscaping options when it comes to blending a play area into the back yard.
“Having just a monster jungle gym can become an eyesore,” says Glenn Cardelli, owner of Twin Landscaping in Norridge. “A lot of people provide a screening with pine trees or a park atmosphere with berry trees or even benches for their play area. It creates a softer effect in your back yard.”
Cardelli says many subdivisions require residents to submit plans before installing a play set in their yard.
“You’ve got some people who bought a pretty home, and they don’t want to look out of their back yard at their neighbor’s huge jungle gym,” he says. “Subdivisions are stricter today. You can’t just slap it up in any old place and block your neighbor’s view. It happened to me once. One day I looked out my kitchen window, and there was a huge yellow tube slide coming right at me. I had to plant a row of Austrian pines to block it out.”
Besides the risk of creating an eyesore for your neighbors, there are other practical matters to consider.
“When it comes to putting a play set in their yard people are asking more questions,” Cardelli says. “They ask me, `where do you think I should put it?’ To decide where to put it, we look at drainage, and we look for a flat area or create a flat area by sectioning the space off with timber and adding fill.”
Cardelli says fill can increase the smile mileage of your play area.
“If you don’t mulch, the play area becomes muddy and slippery when it’s wet so you can only use it when it’s dry outside,” Cardelli says. “Most homeowners will at least do a wood trim border with mulch.”
Experts say adding mulch also prevents injury.
“The biggest thing parents should pay attention to is safety surfacing,” says Kim Berley, of KaBoom, a national nonprofit organization that builds playgrounds for children. “The No. 1 reason for injury is falls to an inappropriate surface.”
Berley says that means using loose-fill safety surfacing such as mulch, fine sand, wood chips or rubber surfacing. The recommended depth is 12 inches.
“It’s difficult for a parent to see that they need as much surfacing as they need–that there’s a reason for it–to absorb falls,” Berley says. “Unintentionally, this is a place they’ll scrimp on and not put down as much as they need to. And that’s fine until someone falls. Or until children do what they do naturally–and kick it out and leave bald spots.”
Berley also suggests parents watch out for entrapment areas, places where children may get their heads caught or their fingers pinched. Another common mistake is not allowing for traffic patterns by putting structures too close to each other, or near a garage or a cement pad.
“They’ll think they have enough space to fit the equipment, but there’s not enough space to jump from the swing and land on a safe surface,” she says. “You need to think like an adventurous kid and think about what they might do when they stop playing with the equipment normally, and allow enough space for them to fall safely.”
“You should have a perimeter at least six feet, free and clear space around the play equipment,” says John Simonaitis, president of Parkreation. “What we often see in back-yard playgrounds is that parents landscape it out really pretty, but they don’t leave enough space. Then the children can fall and hit their head on a railroad timber. People are more worried about aesthetics than safety.”
The National Program for Playground Safety recommends a 6-foot zone around stationary climbing equipment and slides. For swings, it recommends at least 6 feet from the outer edge of the support structure and a minimum distance of twice as high from the ground to the swing hanger from both the front and back of the swing.
Parental supervision is essential to preventing accidents.
“Children need to be supervised and directed on how to use the equipment,” Simonaitis says. “Don’t let them climb up on the roof. A lot of parents say, `well they’re just having fun,’ but I always say, `would you tell them to go play on the top of the garage roof?’ Some of these play pieces are that tall. And, you don’t have to fall far to do serious injury to your head.”
Experts say you can avoid injuries head on by deciding whether your yard is big enough for playground equipment or better suited for a play zone.
“Unless you have a sizable yard and enough space to allow children to run around it without running into the fence or the grill, we tend to tell people to think about creating a play zone instead of a playground for their children,” Berley says. “Purchase a playhouse and other things that aren’t meant to be climbed on or swung from. With my kids, we have balls, two sand tables–one with a garden in it. They do plenty of playing, plenty of digging in our yard, and when it comes time to the swing, we go to the park. If I wanted to fit play equipment in my yard, I could, but I wouldn’t have enough space to do it safely and I don’t want the maintenance.”
Berley suggests a twice-a-year safety check on equipment. And she suggests you keep up to date on consumer warnings.
For example the Consumer Product Safety Commission is considering a proposed ban on an arsenic-based preservative in wood playground equipment because it may pose a cancer risk.
“Stay away from chemical pressure-treated wood,” says Neal DePersia, executive vice president of Wood Play, based in Raleigh, N.C.
Wood Play uses untreated redwood in all of its play products.
“Most treated wood is treated with arsenic, which is expected to be banned by the EPA by the end of this year. The industry is trying to come up with other solutions,” says DePersia.
Experts agree back-yard play areas are a great solution for families–if they are safe. Keeping up to date on safety issues is an important part of creating and maintaining safe play areas for children, whether you frequent the park around the corner or decide to park your kids out back.
Play set sources
For more information, call or visit the Web sites of these organizations:
– Consumer Product Safety Commission (www.cpsc.gov; 800-638-2772)
– KaBoom (www.kaboom.org; 202-659-0215)
– International Play Equipment Manufacturers Association (www.ipema.org; 800-395-5550)
– National Program for Playground Safety (www.uni.edu/playground/home.html)
