Let the play begin.

Most U.S. playgrounds have jungle gyms in brightly colored and indestructible frame structures that are safe, unchallenging, and achingly boring.

For 75 years the model for city playgrounds was the "four S’s: swing, sandbox, seesaw, and slide. The parks were designed by and for adults who are interested in orderliness and safety. Their notions have nothing to do with children’s play.

Kids like to be messy and have adventures. A child might open a perfectly wrapped gift toy and start playing with the box it came in withe the Styrofoam peanuts. Play isn’t static.

To date there are more real places for play in Europe, where designers ‘get it.’ In England, Lady Allen of Hurtwood is a prominent architect and president of the World Organization for Early childhood Education. After a recent tour of American showpiece playgrounds, she observed that they were ‘an administer’s heaven and a child’s hell.’

(Playgrounds have traditionally been regarded as places where children, by playing, learn to become non-playing adults.)

In 1945 Lady Allen visited Copenhagen to see a wildly popular playground stocked with building materials. Back home in London she started a movement to take over old bomb sites and equip them in a similar way. They were kid magnets. Now there are 28 adventure playgrounds in England, and dozens more in Sweden, Denmark, and Switzerland.

Insurance conscious Americans argue that boards and bricks are dangerous playthings. Lady Allen counters that accidents are less frequent in her playgrounds than in conventional asphalt lots... ‘probably because immovable playthings frustrate children and breed a sort of mass hysteria.’ She adds ‘better ro risk a broken bone than a broken spirit.’

Architect Simon Nicholson invented the term ‘loose parts’ in an influential essay "How Not to Cheat Children: The Theory of Loose Parts."

He wrote ‘In any environment, both the degree of inventiveness and creativity, and the possibility of discovery, are directly proportioned to the number and kind of variables in it."

New York architect David Rockwell was disheartened-- when he took his offspring to a nearby playground– by such constricted opportunities for play. He was nostalgic about the free play of his youth and wished his children had access to that experience.

He got busy designing an adventure playground– multilevel with water and sand and loose parts ready for deployment. It was built on a former parking lot and has big light-weight blocks made from bright blue molded foam– with all kinds of holes, noodles, and tunnels. Other bits of playable hardware are wooden wheelbarrows, car tires, plastic barrels, brooms, etc. objects that invite building something from scratch.

Kaboom is marketing "Imagination Playground in a Box," pulling strong demand from park departments, child-care centers, elementary schools, and children’s museums.

Darrell Hammond, Kaboom’s CEO, syas that when the boxes are first opened on a playground it’s not unusual for kids to spend the first 20 minutes whacking one another with the noodles.

Time to banish the monkey bars. Frank Gehry is designing a playground for Battery Park that will be big on drama and fantasy. Dozens of novel play spaces are on architect’s drawing boards. Let the fun begin!

The Angry Voter

Drew Westen, author of "The Political Brain," talks about anxiety morphing into anger. "Gut-level feelings of tremendous anxiety quickly turn into rage. Men in particular don’t like feeling anxious, so they very quickly convert anxiety to anger at what made them anxious.

"There is a strong element of nihilism in this–- an attitude of 'I don’t care if the experts say some policy will be a disaster or some candidate is a lunatic. Things are already so bad, can they really get much worse?’"

Psychology professor George Marcus (Williams College) says "Angry voters aren’t interested in objective information, but only in the kind that reinforcers what they believe."

George Lakoff, author of "The Political Mind," says "People tend to adapt their baseline expectations to what they already have."

Ronald Pies wrote in "Psychiatric Times," that there is a ‘magical’ dimension to intense anger. "It transforms the world from one in which the person feels helpless and impotent into one in which the person has the illusion of power and control.

It is as if to say ‘If I get angry enough, the laws of physics won’t apply– I’ll be able to plug that damn oil leak through the power of my righteous indignation."

Political Scientist Hank Jenkins-Smith says "People have a great capacity to engage in what’s called motivated reasoning. If they have strongly held beliefs with an emotional component, their brain defends information that reinforces those ‘priors’ and is skeptical of information that challenges them.

"The more that issues are explained in neutral forums the more people’s beliefs are cemented. People who hold these hard ‘priors’ filter information to support their perceptions.

"If any diehard rationalists still believe that voters are driven by logic more than emotion, elections will set them straight."

The earlier we gain a mindful awareness of our actions the better. The best time is when we are very young.

When children take a few moments before responding to stressful situations, they allow their own healthy inner compasses to click in and guide them to become more thoughtful, resilient, and empathetic. In our fast-paced, competitive, ego-centric times, this skill can nourish emotional intelligence throughout life.

This skill can be taught, as Susan Kaiser Greenland shows in "The Mindful Child," which draws from K-12 education research at UCLA and her "Inner Kids Program." The book’s sub-title is "How to help your kid manage stress and become happier, kinder, and more compassionate."

Greenland’s book is the first to show parents how to teach these transformative practices.

She says that the new ABCs of learning are Attention, Balance, and Compassion. Her work intertwines ancient comtemplative practices with the latest discoveries in the neurosciences.

Keep in mind that mindfulness is not a luxury. It is at the heart of our lives. It’s essence is awareness of our own brain functions, habits, behaviors, and actions– and changing from the inside out.

Relaxed mindful awareness reveals character, moral responsibility, and empathy. It lets the natural curiosity and the timeless nature of childhood shine through.

Most parenting books deal with actions from the outside in– largely teaching kids how to cope with external pressures.

But by learning the skill of personal mental awareness, kids can do more than cope. They can grow into thoughtful, compassionate adults even in the most adverse circumstances.

Mindful awareness works by enabling us to pay closer attention to what is happening within us-- our thoughts, feelings, and emotions-- so we can better understand what is 'going on' with us.

"The Mindful Child" extends these benefits to children from 4 to 18,and includes age-appropriate exercises, songs, games, and fables. These techniques build kid's inner and outer awareness and attention, which positively affects academic perfomance and social and emotional skills-- such as making friends playing sports, and overcoming challenges like insomnia, overating, and attention deficits. 

The skills of mindful awareness have helped millions of adults reduce stress in their lives. Children, who are under more pressure than ever before, can protect themselves with these well-established methods adaped for their ages.