All play; no pain

Lumbini Park, Hyderabad

Does running and jumping at the playground make your kids’ knees ache? Yes, you have to buy them a new pair of good shoes that let their feet rest. That, however is only half the problem solved. The shoes should also land on a floor that cares for their feet.

Here are a few advantages that safe playground flooring can offer.

Reduces fatigue

It’s the age of marathons, where everybody runs. And that includes children as well. When at the playground, their play covers a fair share of non-competitive sprinting, sometimes as part of sport, or just for fun like hide-and-go-seek. Toddlers and pre-teens are the most enthusiastic lot when it comes to jumping and sprinting without any apparent reason. While it is a natural behaviour for kids, parents or guardians have to be a little careful while the kids are at the playground.

Due to lack of experience and guidance, energetic activities like jumping and sprinting at the playground may end up hurting the children, causing knee-aches, pain in leg-calves and ball-and-socket joints. A safe playground surface can save the experimental sportsmen from the unfortunate fallouts like exhaustion.

Lodha Casa Bella, Dombivili, Mumbai

Prevents scrapes and injuries

An injury hurts and the pain is acute when a floor is not well-covered—harder the floor, deeper the cut. A safe floor even helps in reducing the slips and falls, especially when children are running and frolicking.

Cuts costs

Apart from the pain, there is a lot of cost associated with falls and scrapes due to an unsafe floor. The medical bills, loss of study-time (and play-time), and bad playground environment are all covered by a good and safe floor.

A survey conducted by Christopher Zackera and Dennis Sheaa, and The Pennsylvania State University and Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation studied the advantages of a floor that absorbs energy. “An economic evaluation of energy-absorbing flooring designed to prevent hip fractures revealed a payback period of ten-and-a-half years,” the study said.

Motivates children to play

In a technology dominated world, it is indeed a task to get a child leave his computer, tablet, TV or mobile to go play outside. Playgrounds have tough competition from ever-increasing forms of internal entertainment. Moreover, video games create a glamorous, virtual world that catches the eye. A normal dusty playground might not be able to divert a child away from these. However, a multi-coloured floor with bright patterns and shapes will not just engage a child to choose it over virtual games, but will also be a hop-and-jump game in itself for younger children.

As a happy change, many good schools can be seen installing safe flooring at their playgrounds that are specifically designed to draw children away from computer games to real playgrounds.