Who doesn't remember hurting themselves in a playground when they were a child?

Getting hurt occasionally when playing games is part of the normal learning process for children. Falling off a swing or being kicked by the next person down the slide, or even simply tripping over can be a very painful experience, but also a learning one. Next time, children are liable to be a bit more careful.

While they're climbing trees or swinging on monkey-bars, children are sub-consciously acquiring knowledge about their own physical limitations, as well as physics, maths, hand/eye coordination and a host of other unsuspected subjects which will help them through their lives.

While this is so, we all want to minimise the risk of serious or painful injuries to children.

Playground equipment should be regularly checked and maintained, and in public play areas, this is generally taken care of by the local council. Any potentially dangerous equipment should be reported.

As responsible adults, we should ensure that any equipment provided for children is safe to use, and teach our children some basic playground safety rules.

Some of these rules are:

• Don't play in bare feet

• Protect your hands and fingers from sharp objects, pinching or crushing

• Don't stand up on a swing. Use the seat

• Don't use the slide until the person in front of you has moved clear of the bottom, and ask the person behind you to wait until you've moved clear.

• Don't put yourself within striking distance of a moving swing.

• Don't get off a sea-saw with someone else on the other end - you could injure their back.

Children should try to remain aware of their surroundings while playing. It's easy to become absorbed in the game and forget to watch out for passing vehicles. Playing on the street is dangerous and should be strongly discouraged. Safe play areas, which are fenced, are generally close by in most communities.

Young children should never be left unsupervised in a playground. They are especially vulnerable to the rough antics of older children, and in their excitement they are apt to become careless. Nothing else exists except that slide, and they'll be falling all over themselves, and everything else, to get to it!