Safe feel

My childhood was just before the advent of the safety revolution, at a time when the squared, metal jungle gym was a standard site on any American playground. Remember this thing? Your kids probably don't. I vividly recall the zip line at Lake Independence, which hurtled you through the middle of the playground and sent you flying -- "splat" -- into a cargo net. (Of course, I also recall a friend doing a pull-up while on the ride and needing stitches after he lifted his head into the metal line.) And while not a public park, I fondly remember the fun house at Arnolds Park at Lake Okoboji in Iowa. If you didn't leave there bleeding, you weren't trying. God help you if you fell while walking through the rotating barrel at the fun house. I swear the thing was made of concrete! So I read with interest Monday's New York Times piece on whether playground safety has gone too far. Some experts believe children are being harmed by the absence of danger. A recent … [Read more...] about Do safe playgrounds turn risk-free kids into nervous adults?

An in-home child care provider and an advocate for the child care center industry joined a Minnesota lawmaker Wednesday in supporting changes in infant safe sleep standards for children in care. Specifically, they told the House Health and Human Services Policy committee that they support a change requiring a doctor's note from a parent before a child care provider deviates from the required practice of putting infants to sleep on their backs and in cribs. Currently, providers only need written authorization from parents to do that, despite the wealth of research showing that sleep-related deaths are more common when infants are placed on their stomachs. "This takes the responsibility off of the provider when the parent asks the provider to have their infant sleep in an alternate position," said Lynn Barten, a family child care provider in Alexandria, Minn. "It forces the conversation back to the parent and the doctor." While she feels putting … [Read more...] about Tougher child care, safe sleep requirements reach House committee

A new Gallup survey shows people feel safer in the Twin Cities than any other major metropolitan area in the country. Eighty percent of Minneapolis-St. Paul residents polled said they feel safe walking around at night. That is two percentage points higher than Denver and Raleigh, N.C., which both clocked in at 78 percent. The results are part of the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index, which is derived from interviews with 500 people every day in 2012. The average level of perceived safety in major cities was 72 percent. "Minneapolis-St. Paul area residents have the highest sense of personal security among Americans living in the nation's top metro areas, at least in terms of feeling safe walking alone at night in their local area," Gallup said in a statement. "While the rank order of the top 50 on this measure may differ somewhat from other rankings of city safety, it nevertheless offers an important perspective on one aspect of how crime affects people's lives." Gallup said that 2010 … [Read more...] about Survey: Twin Cities residents feel safer