Are playgrounds too safe? Why anthropologists say kids need to monkey around

Raise your hand if you've ever fallen off the monkey bars and hurt more than your pride.

It's practically a childhood rite of passage. You climb, you swing, you push the limit, you miss, you cry. Maybe you dusted yourself off and limped back onto the playground. Or maybe you needed a trip to the emergency room to have a bone reset. (But if you were lucky, the cast came off in time to still enjoy some late-summer swimming).

Monkey bars, jungle gyms and playgrounds are synonymous with childhood play. They are also often the target of campaigns to reduce risk, sometimes get torn down due to safety concerns, and are often redesigned to be as injury-proof as possible.

Yet a new report from a team of anthropologists from Dartmouth College in Hanover, N.H., argues that these iconic play structures exercise a biological need passed down from apes that may be critical to childhood development. And the authors say well-intentioned efforts to mitigate their risk may, in fact, be harming kids.

In August, the authors wrote in the journal Evolution, Medicine, and Public Health that primates learn to climb at a young age to find food, stay safe from predators and to sleep in the branches of trees. So it's little wonder that children have a natural proclivity to climb and explore.

In other words, there's a reason they're called monkey bars.

"Climbing is a part of us. We have been climbing for millions of years," lead author Luke Fannin, a PhD candidate in the ecology, evolution, environment and society program at Dartmouth College, told CBC News.

Playgrounds provide a necessary challenge for children to build confidence, take calculated risks and test boundaries, Fannin said. And while children do sometimes get hurt on them, we need to strike a delicate balance between statistical risk and biological reward.

"We're not saying that playgrounds shouldn't be regulated," Fannin said.

"But we need to make playgrounds as safe as necessary, not as safe as possible."

Childhood injuries remain a major public health issue according to a 2023 report from the Public Health Agency of Canada. The report, using self-reported data from the 2019 Canadian Health Survey on Children and Youth, said unintentional injuries are the leading cause of death among Canadian children and youth.

Head injuries were the most commonly reported injuries in children, according to the report, but it also noted that children were more likely to require medical treatment for injuries related to sports and physical activity than for injuries related to playing.

Children do get injured using playground equipment — most typically, bone fractures — but kids can usually recover fully from these injuries, and overall, the risk is low, says Pamela Fuselli, the president and CEO of safety advocacy group Parachute Canada, who was not involved with the anthropological research.

It's about balance, she said — softer play surfaces and lower play structures have helped reduce injuries over the years, but "we also don't want to take the fun out of play for all ages."