2.1.3 Risk
It seemed to be the case that most children’s references to the dangers of their playground were to either the nature of the space (e.g. it was concrete) and objects on it (e.g. like a climbing frame) or to fears of injury. There were numerous stories of injuries resulting from falling on the floor, such as:
And I don’t like it when they hurt me. When someone hurts me … if I trip over somewhere or someone hurts me.
That’s just the concrete where we’re playing it on…. It’s rough … Sometimes we get over and … ow! …That means we get hurt.
The climbing frame, which appeared in many of the children’s pictures of the playground, was seen by some as the source of greatest danger:
And they get injured, they hurt your elbow. I fell off a climbing frame and broke my arm.
I don’t really like the climbing frame because it’s really crowded and they play lots of really weird and unsafe games and I never go on it and some things like when everyone’s on – I’ve seen some people do this a few times – there’s a bar, it’s like here to the roof, which is pretty high and people just jump off it and they could get really hurt.