!["I've sat at the top of a slippery dip with my daughter on my knee and we've slid down together. Go ahead and judge me." "I've sat at the top of a slippery dip with my daughter on my knee and we've slid down together. Go ahead and judge me."](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/HcD9H4nNcktxiWcmkEEpQD/34c6a0ee-f621-4098-8ea4-f7faeeefd1e5.jpg/r0_0_1600_900_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
From the day my first child was born (or, as anyone who has ever been pregnant knows, well before that) I remember feeling bombarded with rules and advice.
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Place your baby on their back to sleep. Don't bed share (or is that allowed now?).
Breastfeed at all costs, for as long as you can, until your kid is somehow judged to be too old. Feed on demand, but also follow a schedule. Start solids at six months (or was that four months?).
Tummy time. Put your kids to sleep at 7pm sharp. Have a nap routine. Do sleep training. Never do sleep training. Don't let them cry-it-out, but also, don't tell them not to cry. Spoon feeding. Baby-led weaning.
In the early days, it felt like I was twisting myself in knots just trying to keep my tiny helpless thing alive, and thank goodness, by the time my second daughter came along I'd discarded all but the very crucial parts in favour of what worked for us.
Reading the "rule" about not going on slippery dips with your kids, it does make sense and has made me stop and think. But, faced with a scared child who just wants to go down the slide like everyone else, it also makes sense to sit with your kid and go down together.
You know what was not included in the long list of rules and advice I encountered, at any point, as far as I can remember? Don't go down slippery dips with your kids.
For about five years, I've been heading off with relative confidence to playgrounds around the Illawarra.
From the time my children could clamber about on their hands and knees, I've let them explore at various parks while I spent time puzzling over the other above rules with my mum friends.
I let my kids run and swing and slide and fall over.
I've verbally guided my oldest so she can get up and down rope contraptions on her own. I've bit my tongue when she climbs so high I get vertigo just looking at her.
I've caught my overambitious two-year-old just in time as she's inexplicably hurled herself off the edge of one of those platforms that go nowhere that exist in many parks.
I've sat at the top of a slippery dip with her on my knee and we've slid down together. Shock horror. Go ahead and judge me.
Apparently, according to the parenting police, this is very much not allowed, and parents who do it risk grave injury to their child and should know better.
Must have missed that one in the parenting handbook.
This "rule" has been widely touted as something everyone should already know since Shell Cove four-year-old India Greaves broke both her legs on a slide at Berry's Boongaree playground early last year.
Going down the slide with her dad, India's legs kicked back and got stuck on the slide, giving her a hairline fracture in both her tibias.
The incident was one of many to happen in the first few weeks of the playground's existence, and more than a year on, we've heard that the slide will be replaced with something slower.
As a parent who still has many days of playground going ahead of me (and who loves to stop in at the Boongaree park on our way down the coast), can I just say, thank goodness.
Now knowing the "rule" about not going on slippery dips with your kids, it makes sense and has made me stop and think. Apparently the weight of an adult makes it faster going down the slide, so when kids' little legs get stuck on the slides of a slide, or even caught underneath the adult, there's more chance of injury.
But, faced with a scared child who just wants to go down the slide like everyone else, it also makes sense to sit with them and go down together.
Sometimes, especially as the parent of young kids who are prone to bouts of unreasonable emotion, you're just trying to make things work and you just do what seems right or safe or, god forbid, easy, in that moment.
I agree that we need to have playgrounds that help kids take risks and run wild and explore their physical capabilities. I like these playgrounds.
But when lots of kids are getting the same type of injury in the same place, I don't think it's the individual kids, or parents, who need to change their behaviour.
Without the sleep steel slide that's caused all this trouble, I've no doubt the Boongaree park will remain fantastic, risk-based and fun.
Some kids will probably still get injured (my oldest child recently broke her wrist tripping over her own feet and falling on the ground, so I'm well aware it can happen anywhere).
But, it is hard enough to follow all the impossible and often contradictory rules of modern parenting without feeling like a failure, so I can't help but think that we can do without the bonus of playground equipment that presents an elevated risk of a broken limb at a place that's supposed to be fun for the whole family.