Getting your kids to play outside is always a win. Fresh air, sunshine, and physical exercise – a backyard playground has just about everything your kids need to entertain themselves in a healthy way for hours on end.
But without prioritizing safety, you can end up with more problems than paradise on your hands.
Creating a safe play paradise for your kids to enjoy is one of the best investments in your home you can make as a parent or guardian.
But unless you have experience with building secure playgrounds, knowing how to make one from scratch in your backyard can be a challenge.
Here, we’ll look at a few key tips for creating an incredible play environment that is equal parts fun and safe for them to enjoy.
6 Ways To Make Your Backyard Playground Both Safe And Entertaining
Watching kids play is not for the weak. Their appetite for exploration often doesn’t match their physical capabilities, and that can lead to cuts, bruises, and no short supply of tears.
But while it’s true that the occasional tumble is part of learning important life and motor skills, doing what you can to prevent injuries and mitigate their impact is essential for any parent.
Whether you have a playground already and are looking to injury-proof it or are building one from scratch, here are some important things to bear in mind when designing a safe play paradise for kids:
1. Create a Soft Ground Landing
You might not always be able to stop your kids from falling over, but you can take some measures to make their landing as soft and non-damaging as possible.
Avoid setting up your kid’s playground in an area that is tiled, bricked, or tarred; falls are inevitable, and these grounds are hard.
Instead, opt for grass, astroturf, or soft sandy areas. These soft flooring options offer a gentler place for kids to land while playing, adding to the safety and enjoyment of the playground.
2. Round off Any Sharp Edges
It sounds obvious, but sometimes these things escape our attention until it’s too late. Nails, sharp corners, and other structural edges that stick out are simply accidents waiting to happen.
Any wooden bits can be sanded down for smoother edges. Metallic parts can be cushioned with soft foam or rubber, thus keeping your kid’s play paradise as cut and scrape-free as possible!
3. Teach (and regulate) Safe Play Rules
Try as you might; you won’t always be there when your kids get hurt. In fact, it can often feel like the one moment you look away is exactly when something happens!
But you can help prevent injuries from happening by teaching your kids how to play safely and independently as they grow older.
This is especially important if you have recently set up a new play space or built a new addition. Teach your kids how to use a new swingset or slide in a way that is fair and safety-oriented at all times.
4. Merge Nature with Your Play Structures
This tip isn’t as much about safety as it is about creating a more dynamic play paradise for your kids. Incorporating trees, flowers, and other natural aspects of your garden into your kid’s play area will not only give them a more diverse environment to explore but also make your garden look less like a playground and more like a beautiful playground-friendly garden—the best of both worlds!
5. Set up Your Playground Securely
Another really important aspect of transforming your backyard into a safe play paradise is to make sure it is solid from the ground up.
That means investing in quality playground materials, getting them installed by people you trust, and testing them before allowing your kids to play on them.
If you build permanent structures or make permanent changes or additions to your property, you should also ensure you have homeowners insurance that covers these installations.
Additionally, it’s a good idea to do a maintenance check every few months to a year to ensure that all the joinery and structural quality are intact, avoiding injuries in the future.
6. Keep Play Areas Separate From Pools and Grills
This can be a challenge if your outdoor space is limited, but it is still important to do what you can to separate the play zones from the pool and grill zones.
While these parts of your backyard are already important to monitor around kids, when they’re too close to play areas, the risk of getting hurt increases further.
Even creating a simple barrier between these different areas can make a big difference. If you like, you can make the barriers more fun by using colorful ribbons or rope and letting the kids join in while setting them up.
The Benefits Of Encouraging Kids To Play Outside
Safe outdoor play is about more than just having fun. Set up in the right way, it can play a key role in your kid’s development – cognitively, emotionally, and physically. Let’s explore that:
- Cognitive: While romping about outside, kids are met with a variety of decision-making opportunities. This can help them develop their prefrontal cortex and learn more about their personal strengths, limitations, and play preferences.
- Emotional: Emotions such as excitement, confusion, anxiety, confidence, contemplation, and happiness are all to be expected in a child’s play environment. Experiencing this wide range of feelings can help kids become better at understanding and regulating their emotions.
- Physical: Having a safe but adventurous outdoor environment to explore means kids get to grips with the practical laws of physics, such as gravity, momentum, balance, and more. This can help them become stronger and more agile and improve their fine motor skills.
All in all, creating a safe space for your kids and their friends to play in is a fantastic way to familiarize them with both themselves and the greater world in general.
Final Thoughts
Creating a play paradise for your kids and any other youngsters in your community is a rewarding experience that will benefit them in many different ways.
With this guide, you can create an outdoor play area that is as safe as it is enjoyable, ensuring a secure environment for them to grow.
