Disabilities, urban natures and children's outdoor play

Normative, widely circulated discourses about the value of outdoor, natural play for children overwhelmingly marginalize the experiences of families with disabled children, who can often experience outdoor/natural play as a site of hard work, heartache, dread, resignation and inadequacy. This paper presents findings from research with 60 North London families with children aged 5-16 who have a statutory Statement of Special Needs'. Focusing on these families' experiences of visiting designated, newly refurbished accessible natural play-spaces in two local country parks, the paper highlights: (i) the multiple, compound social-material barriers to fun' encountered in these spaces; (ii) the profound emotional-affective impacts of such barriers, most notably in terms of feelings of resignation' and dread'; (iii) parents'/carers' sadness occasioned by perceived failures' to live up to' normative ideals of parenting and family engagement with outdoor play and urban natures; (iv) nevertheless, the possibility of moments of family joy, love and special' time, afforded via families' hard work' and keeping going through hard times'. Through an engagement with recent conceptualizations of everyday geographies of disabilities, the paper suggests that these qualitative experiences complicate some chief, normative ways of knowing outdoor play, urban natures and barriers to accessibility.