Playgrounds, playpark, or play area is a place specifically designed to enable children to play there. It is typically outdoors. While a playground is usually designed for children, some target other age groups or people with disabilities. A playground might exclude children below a certain age.
Modern Playgrounds
Modern playgrounds often have recreational equipment such as the seesaw, merry-go-round, swingset, slide, jungle gym, chin-up bars, sandbox, spring rider, trapeze rings, playhouses, and mazes, many of which help children develop physical coordination, strength, and flexibility, as well as providing recreation and enjoyment and supporting social and emotional development. Common in modern playgrounds are play structures that link many different pieces of equipment.
Playgrounds often also have facilities for playing informal games of adult sports, such as a baseball diamond, a skating arena, a basketball court, or a tether ball/
Public Playgrounds
Public playground equipment installed in the play areas of parks, schools, childcare facilities, institutions, multiple family dwellings, restaurants, resorts, and recreational developments, and other areas of public use.
A type of playground called a playscape is designed to provide a safe environment for play in a natural setting.
Playground design is influenced by the intended purpose and audience. Separate play areas might be offered to accommodate very young children. Single, large, open parks tend to not to be used by older schoolgirls or less aggressive children, because there is little opportunity for them to escape more aggressive children. By contrast, a park that offers multiple play areas is used equally by boys and girls.
Benefits of Playgrounds
Evidence suggests that children who participate in physical activity improve their self-esteem. Exercise programs had a significant positive effect on children’s self-esteem.
Commentators argue that the quality of a child’s exercise experience can affect their self-esteem. Children’s self-esteem is enhanced through the encouragement of physical mastery and self-development. It can be seen that playgrounds provide an ideal opportunity for children to master physical skills, such as learning to swing, balance and climb.
Personal development may be gained through the enhancement of skills, such as playing, communicating and cooperating with other children and adults in the playground.
It can also be seen that public and private playgrounds act as a preventative health measure amongst young people because they promote physical activity at a stage in children’s lives when they are active and not yet at risk from opting out of physical activity
