The city’s free travelling playgrounds are coming.

Known as “Stay and Play” and “Park and Play,” they provide summer activities for kids.

We love them and have gone for years.

But now my eldest is old enough to volunteer. Time to give back.

This is what it takes for a 13-year-old to volunteer for one week at the  City of Calgary:
• A volunteer release form.
• A police reference-check form.
• Two pieces of government issued ID.
• A photo release form.
• An emergency-contact form.
• A waiver form.
• A location-request form.

Overkill? As so many of these “waivers” are. And legal experts know they barely matter.

For parents everywhere, summer is “waiver time.” Not just for volunteering but for all the summer camps needed for child care, and just about any sporting activities.

You think your kid is going to have a tremendous time, then you read about all the horrible things that can happen: Asphyxiation, broken bones, bus accidents – or my favourite: Drowning under a swimming pool bulkhead.

It’s no wonder lawyers who draft these documents suffer depression four times the rate of non-lawyers. And as a parent, I find reading the risks fuels parental guilt.

Then there’s the issue of rights. The City of Calgary demands kids and parents give up their right to sue (that’s in a big yellow box). I checked in with Iwan Saunders, law professor at U of C, to see if people can give up their right to sue.

Yes, is the answer. But it might not matter anyway.

“The legal standard has changed over the years, and it’s changed more favourably for the victim,” he says.

This holds even if the victims were aware of the risks, and waived the right to sue.

Still, Saunders notes, “presumbably lawyers are telling their organizations that having (a) waiver is better than having none.”

Would Saunders sign a waiver? Sure. “The waivers aren’t written in a sufficiently conclusive way to make me concerned about my legal rights.”

Maybe it’s time to lay off these waivers. No one volunteers, plays sports or goes to an outing hellbent on suing. It takes really, really bad stuff to propel someone to court, and a waiver is unlikely to make difference.

Let’s not scare the hell out of parents – and try to engage volunteers rather than ensnarl them in paper.