Playground Parenting

National Playground Safety Week is April 18 to 22 — are you checking your phone or watching your child? A playground observation study, conducted by researchers at the University of Washington in Seattle, found that adult supervisors didn’t spend too much time on their phones, but when they did, they became so distracted that more than half failed to respond to the children. For example, when children called out to adults from the playground, 56% of the time the adults did not respond, speak or look away from their phones. Consider putting the phone away when you and your children are at the playground and being present.