Play matters, there is no doubting this fact. For children of all ages and of all different backgrounds living all throughout the United States, play should play a crucial role in their lives (no pun intended). However, far too few children are getting up and playing as much as they really should be.
In many ways, this can be tied to the rampant use of electronics in our society, to which children – even the youngest – are not immune. After all, more than half of all parents in this country (around two thirds of them, to be more exact) feel some level of worry and anxiety over how often and how frequently their child is using electronic devices. And this worry is not totally misplaced, as the average child will spend up to seven and a half hours out of the typical day engaged with screens and up to four and half of those hours just watching TV, an amount that is far higher than it was for any other generation out there.
This means, unfortunately, that children are not getting up and moving as they should be. In fact, only one third of all children here in the United States are getting the recommended amount of exercise on a daily basis, which is a mere hour of physical activity out of the day. For many of these children, the implications of this lack of exercise are far too likely to be long lasting – in a number of ways. Of course, obesity is a real risk, and one that has been growing quite rapidly over the course of recent years. After all, children who are inactive during their childhood years are also quite likely to remain inactive once they grow into adulthood.
But in addition to this, physical play also stimulates certain areas of brain development, especially those of fine and gross motor skills. Fine and gross motor skills must be developed by the time that a child reaches the age of six. If this does not happen, then it is very unlikely that the child in question will ever fully develop these skills. The implications of this can be quite severe, and can leave the child in question dealing with limited brain power for the rest of their life, well into their adult years.
Fortunately, encouraging children to play outdoors can help to ensure that these skills will be developed. And safe and well maintained playgrounds are more common now than ever before. The pour in place rubber DIY, for instance, has made many a playground safer, providing a safe landing space for any child that might happen to fall – as children are often prone to doing. This pour in place rubber DIY is something that can be done at just about any playground, and a pour in place rubber DIY is likely to be quite cost effective, all things considered, as well. And the pour in place rubber DIY is far from the only way that a playground can be made fun and enjoyable – while still being made safe – for children of all ages.
For instance, the outdoor basketball hoops and outdoor basketball systems are just as ideal as pour in place rubber DIY projects in many a playground location. The implementation of such things can encourage some level of healthy competition among children of all ages – and this healthy competition can certainly be ideal to learn. In addition to this, residential playset parts also often include playground climbers. These climbers are likely to help encourage the growth of motor skills, which can make them ideal for playgrounds that are geared towards children of younger ages. However, the benefits of physical, active, and outdoor play can be reaped by children of all ages – and even by their caregivers as well. And the use of pour in place rubber DIY projects very much encourages this play, allowing children of all ages to test the limits of their bodies without risking serious injury at the end of the day.
For many children here in the United States, play has unfortunately fallen by the wayside. We need to fix this, and the implementation of playgrounds can help.
