Playgrounds seem to be a lot safer today than they used to be. You remember sliding down rusty slides into piles of fiberglass and asbestos. Now they're all plastic, and there's no rusty metal or splintering wood. 

Here's an interesting theory from an early childhood specialist in Melbourne from News.com.au, Australia named Prue Walsh.  She thinks that by making playground equipment SO safe . . . it's actually MORE dangerous for kids in the long run.

According to Walsh, more kids ages two through seven are getting hurt in modern playgrounds than older ones.

And it's because the equipment is so safe, kids aren't learning how to calculate risks.  In the long run, that's leading them to do dumber things . . . because they haven't learned their lessons from the smaller accidents.

Quote, "Children need to actively explore and discover the world around them, and to do that they need to learn to take calculated risks.  I worry about children who don't run up slippery slides."

But, she says today's climate is probably going to make that impossible.  Quote, "Parents are scared of their precious children getting injured and teachers are scared of getting sued."

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