Risky Play
An excellent article from Nature magazine explores the research showing that children benefit from risky play. Mental health professionals are discovering that children allowed to stretch their limits in uncertain and adventurous play benefit both physically and emotionally. Those opportunities allow them to develop coordination and spatial awareness, but also confidence and resilience. A study from Norway that spearheaded the field found that adolescents who spent less time in positive thrill-seeking — such as outdoor adventure — were more likely to take negative risks such as shoplifting. A more recent study from Britain found that during the COVID-19 lockdown, children who spent more time in risky play had fewer mental health problems.
“Risky” is different from “dangerous.” As the article explains, “Danger is something a child isn’t equipped to notice or deal with,” such as allowing a child to cross a busy street without understanding traffic signals. Risk, by contrast, is “thrilling and exciting play that involves uncertainty and a risk — whether real or perceived — of physical injury to getting lost.”
We adults, of course, don’t like the risk of injury or a child’s getting lost. We focus on all the things that could happen, no matter how unlikely those events actually are. Certainly, in our current litigious society, we don’t want to risk any injury to kids, no matter how small.
Yet, even safety advocates understand that risky play has profound benefits. The head of a Canadian injury-prevention group said in the article, “The benefits [of risky play] are so broad in terms of social, physical, mental development and mental health, I don’t think we can underestimate the value.”
The challenge for youth-serving organizations is to move the standard of care to include the benefits of risky play and not just focus on physical safety. We need to use waivers and releases to get parental permission to allow kids to take non-dangerous risks. We need to explain to regulators and our legal system the research showing that, in the words of the article, “kids with more opportunities for risk seemed happier.”
