Creating parks that everyone can play in: how to foster physical literacy, nature connection and community engagement

When our children are little and still need watching over, most us spend a lot of time standing, sleep deprived, in cold play parks, clutching a coffee and wondering what we should do about lunch.

It’s a short period of time, although it feels endless when you’re in it. When you move on to the next stage, past the deep tiredness, the children require less watching yet we still spend time in parks. But now many of us no longer want or need to sit in the corner as a by-stander. We want to move too.

But there are so few options to do so in a meaningful way. And because of that, you rarely see adults joining in so those of us that do definitely look like weirdos. I mind less about that, but it’s definitely “a thing.”

There’s a good blog by Amy Brotherton @poorplaynewham who is campaigning for “less crap play grounds.” It’s a valid gripe, how many times have you to been to park to find that either the slide has been removed or the water areas has been cordoned off and there’s not enough money in the budget to fix it..?

Amy cites a report by ARUP that states “When areas provide for everyone, space can be saved. Management costs also tend to fall because the more a public space is used and shared by a community, the more behaviours in public spaces automatically improve. Consequently, a child-friendly agenda is no longer simply a CSR requirement.”

When we create public spaces that multiple generations can interact with meaningfully in different ways, the more these areas are used and the more individuals and communities care about them.

I don’t have any numbers to support this, just a hunch. But I’d much rather see a selection of odd objects to climb, crawl, hang, jump off that everyone can interact with than more outdoor gym equipment set ups. The latter miss the point of what’s great about learning how to move in nature by taking hyper specialised gym equipment and plonking it in a park setting. They teach us nothing in terms of how to use our bodies.

Normalising adults playing alongside children from the outset would contribute to shaping a lifelong association with outdoor play and movement. This, in turn, could positively influence physical literacy, foster a deeper connection with nature, enhance ties within local communities, and cultivate a shared sense of heritage for a particular place.