Playgrounds are great, but only useful if both children go together to "play" together, or if there are other children around. I do get on the playground with DD2 since she's so young, but I'm not really playing with DS anymore as I feel he's old enough to be safe-ish on a typical playground. This has occurred only recently, within the last 6 months. Before then I was playing on the playground as well and strictly supervising. His awareness of danger is pretty immature still. We do better with indoor playgrounds.

Life is the hardest teacher. It gives the test first and then teaches the lesson.