Megan Banks: Take the kids to the playground and bring out the kid in you

The Hits DJs, Adam Green and Megan Banks. Photo / File

If you've said the words "are you going down the big one or the little one?" recently, chances are you're a parent and were waiting at the exit for your children to emerge out of the two enclosed slides (aka the big one and the little one) at the new Anderson Park Playground.

The playground is fantastic and as I've discovered, the adrenalin and challenging aspects of it are not just for the kids.

Adults experience just as much of the thrill seeking as children do, but not so much in a fun way!

You've got to psyche yourself up for it. You will have a minor heart attack at the approach of the playground, knowing this is the last time the children will be in your sight before they scatter like ants.

I took my co-host Adam's two daughters along with my sons and I lost all of them straight away.

Thankfully, the girls were more onto it than my boys and when they saw hysterical Megan running around the perimeter of the playground yelling like a banshee, they came and found me.

There's also the thrill, or as I like to call it "grey-haired experience", of your children climbing the huge internal staircase for the slides all by themselves and then hurtling down at breakneck speed, yelling and screaming, but emerging with huge smiles, wanting to go again.

And be warned, as parents your persuasive techniques will come in to full force as you explain you are not going up that slide with them because you're scared you will get stuck and you don't want your children's only lingering memory of their childhood being that time Mum got stuck in the slide.

The playground is also very educational. You will soon learn to wear flat shoes as you clamber over the green grippy hills, and high-waisted pants for all of the bending over and lugging of children you will be doing.

Plus you can ditch the gym because you'll have great guns after putting your child and every other child in the queue on the flying fox then running down the grippy hill to pull the blimming thing back again!

But, seriously, if you haven't been to the playground give it a go, your kids will absolutely love it. And if a swing is spare, grab it and go for a swing, it's a darned sight cheaper than therapy.

• Don't miss Adam Green and Megan Banks (filling in for Sarah van der Kley) on The Hits Hawke's Bay from 6am to 9am, Monday to Friday