Losing our Balance

Puunui Park: the steel bars I used to climb on have been
replaced by this pretty and non-hazardous play structure.

Proprioception: the unconscious perception of movement and spatial orientation arising from stimuli within the body itself.

Proprioceptive activities like tree climbing or balancing on a beam can "dramatically improve cognitive skill."

According to a press release from the [University of North Florida], the results demonstrated remarkable cognitive gains: “After two hours, participants were tested again, and researchers found that their working memory capacity had increased by 50 percent, a dramatic improvement.”

As a kid I used to climb jungle gyms nearly every day, and my memory stayed pretty sound during my full-time working years. (Now, not so much.)

Today one rarely sees traditional jungle gyms at playgrounds, even with mandatory thick padding. Children today are much safer, but in general they take much longer to learn how to be adults, n'est-ce pas?