Are Soft Play Areas For Toddlers Really Needed?

Posted by adortalukdar on January 14th, 2014

As new traditions are started, and new methods of creating things that were always around begin, people often ask if the new thing is really necessary. Children have been playing for centuries so why do they suddenly need soft play areas for toddlers? Are these areas really needed, or are they the result of an overprotective society?

Soft play areas for toddlers are found in indoor playgrounds. The soft play areas for toddlers have activities for the children to participate in like ball slides. The ball slides are slides that have a pool of soft balls at the end of the slide. The child climbs up and slides down, landing in a soft pool of balls.

The soft pool of balls reduces the chances that the child will be injured when they come off of the slide. Older children can slide down a regular slide and stop themselves before they hit the ground, but toddlers have not yet learned to stop themselves. The indoor slide allows the child to play, and to learn to control their slide.

Were the ideas for soft play areas for toddlers the result of an overprotective society? More than likely this statement is true. No business wants a child to be injured while playing on their equipment. Protecting our children is the number one priority of a society, but no business wants to be sued because a child is injured.

The increase in lawsuits for injuries sustained when people are doing activities away from their homes has more than doubled in the past 25 years. Business owners have to implement ways to reduce the possibility that they will be sued because someone was injured on their property.

As the world ages the people in it grow smarter about how to protect our children. The entire adult population of the world is responsible for the nurturing and protection of the children. As we grow smarter about how to protect the children we develop activities they can participate in that are less likely to cause them any harm than the earlier versions of the same activity.

Children who were born in the sixties were likely to have a slide on an outdoor playground that had hardened earth at the end of the slide. When they slid and fell they were scraped, they broke arms, they broke legs, and they had bruises, and contusions on their bodies. The pool of balls stops all of these injuries from happening.

Parents and manufacturers have started to communicate and develop ideas for safer play areas for children. We want our children to run, jump, climb, and explore, but we want them to be as safe as possible while they are engaged in these activities.

When we were young our play areas were more dangerous, and yes we did survive them, but our parents were providing us with the safest alternatives they had available to them. When society learned that lead paint was dangerous it was removed from the shelves, and the same thing is happening to play areas that are hazardous.

Many people ask if soft play areas for toddlers are really necessary given the fact that they once did not exist and the children of that era survived. Soft play areas for toddlers are needed to prevent injuries that were once thought of as something to be expected from play. You can click here for more information.