It’s Worth the Risk: Risky Play

Play is important. That’s a given. Kids engage in play daily to make sense of their environment, while indirectly developing new skills and feeding their sensory needs. Although we are perfectly fine with our children playing with toys or with their friends, there’s one type of play that sets a lot of parents on edge: risky play.

What makes this particular form of play “risky”? If you find yourself saying, “Be careful!” or “Watch out!” or you get the gut reaction to rush to your kiddo to prevent an injury, that’s risky play.

Studies concluded that for play to be risky, it must have the following criteria:

Novel activity (never been done before)
Feeling of not having control (heights or speed)
Overcoming fear or hesitation
Potential of physical injury

For kids, it’s attempting something they have never done before on their own terms. They may feel confident enough to traverse the monkey bars because they’ve watched other people do it. They might want to go headfirst down a slide just to know what it feels like (because sliding on your bum is boring). They don’t know if they’ll succeed or if they’ll ever do it again, but it’s worth a try.

Risky play is also another expression of free or unstructured play where our kids have determined that the experience is worth the chances of physical injury and they go for it. Thrilling for them, scary for us.

Method to the Madness

Is risky play worth it? In some cases, yes. You know the amazing feeling of conquering a fear like skydiving. Or in the The Office when Pam walks over a bed of hot coals. Engaging in risky play encourages:

Resilience
Self-confidence
Emotional regulation
Taking initiative
Independence
Gross motor development
Executive functioning
Risk assessment
Less physical injuries

Research has classified risky play into six different categories. Although their evolutionary purpose to evade predators and obtain food/water may have ceased, risk still promotes our children’s growth and development.

Play at great heights (risk of falling). Not only does this give them a fresh new perspective of their environment (talk about an aerial view), but it also helps train their visual perceptual skills, like visual attention, visual discrimination, and spatial orientation.
Play with high speed (risk of collision). Because this form of play stimulates multiple sensory systems (vestibular, proprioception, touch, and visual), it promotes body and spatial awareness as well as encourage visual motor and perceptual skills, like depth perception and visual discrimination.
Rough-and-tumble play (risk of injuring others). Involves gross motor skills like strength and agility, as well as cognitive and emotional skills such as problem solving, social skills, and emotional regulation.
“Disappear” or getting lost play (risk of getting lost). Helps develop a sense of independence away from parents to explore and interact with their surroundings and beyond. This also utilizes visual perceptual skills, like visual attention and memory, to recall various landmarks to return home (or back to their parents).
Play with dangerous tools (risk of injuring self). Seen as a form of object play when utilizing the tool for its intended purpose, it enhances fine motor skills, motor planning, hand-eye coordination, problem solving, and safety awareness.
Play with dangerous elements (risk of injury). Although such elements as cliffs, deep water, or fire may not be part of a child’s play, their presence during play may encourage kids to be more aware of their surroundings and aid them in determining what actions are safe and what aren’t.

As you read this, I’m sure you’re wondering WHY you would even let your kids put themselves in harm’s way in the first place. It’s because children are naturally curious. As they gain more confidence with their ever-growing skill set, they will want to test out their abilities, whether we like it or not.

Children are like mini superheroes gaining their powers. Skills that were once hard for them, they have now mastered. It makes perfect sense for them to see what they are truly capable of with each new “power” they’ve acquired (cue Peter Parker figuring out his web slinging spidey powers and jumping off a building for the first time). Risky play allows for these trial-and-error moments to occur. For example, little ones who’ve achieved jumping with both feet will then practice jumping forward, then backward, and then perhaps off a step, then off the couch, then off a piece of outdoor playground equipment (you get the idea). They will continue to experiment and challenge themselves until they determine what is safe (because they’ve mastered it) or too dangerous.

Bubble Wrap Backfire

Risky play is nothing new. It’s a rite of passage for any kid to experience. So, why is there a need to tell parents all about risky play? Why now?

“As you grow stronger, the world grows more dangerous.” – Kubo and the Two Strings

We want to ensure the safety of our kids and figure out ways to make sure that they stay safe all the time. Most risky play occurs outdoors, and so do many dangers we want to shield our kids from, including:

Stranger danger (fear children getting kidnapped)
Traffic conditions in neighborhoods (fear of kids getting hit by cars)
Weather
Fear of bullying by older children
Poor playground conditions or lack of playground environments

Because of these scenarios, parents may prefer to have their kids play indoors or enroll them in many after-school activities to compensate.

Another reason for the lack of risky play is that parents are genuinely anxious that their child will try something they’re not ready for, resulting in a serious injury. But here’s the thing: children have a decent understanding of what they are capable of and will generally avoid physical or emotional risks they aren’t ready to take. In fact, it may be worse if adults pressure kids to take risks they’re not prepared for. It’s worth noting that injury is more prevalent in adult-directed youth sports than in child self-directed risky play. The experience is not thrilling, it’s traumatic.

Without unpredictable, child-driven, unstructured risky play, kids don’t get opportunities to challenge their physical and mental capabilities and build their emotional resilience they’ll need in the future. This can result in:

Low self-confidence to try new things
Limited coordination and balance, resulting in clumsiness
Fear of getting hurt when engaging in risky activities (climbing, swinging, rough housing, etc.)
Difficulties assessing risk and managing emotions

Doing Dangerous Things Carefully

Despite all the studies and research that discuss the importance of risky play, it can still be incredibly difficult for parents to allow their kids to engage in it. Even though our kids may be confident and courageous enough to try something new, they don’t see all the potential dangers we see due to their limited life experience (We’ve been there, done that, learned some lessons. They haven’t). We do want to give them the opportunities to make calculated risks, but we want to make sure they’re safe. So how do we do that in a realistic way? Here are some suggestions:

Situational awareness. This is the ability to assess and understand the environment, taking notice of any potential threats or opportunities in the area. For kids, help them identify any hazards that could hurt them while playing and discuss ways to stay safe. You could also expand this exercise in other parts of the day, from walking home from the bus stop to cooking in the kitchen. By recognizing possible dangers in daily activities, your child will have enough safety knowledge to make appropriate choices independently.

Take a chill pill. Our fears can get the better of us (kidnappings, injury, perceptions of being a bad parent) and in turn, affect our ability to let our kids play freely. For the record:

Stats show that less than 1% of missing children are abducted by strangers in the US.
Recent estimates show that children would have to spend about three hours a day playing, every day, for 10 years before they were likely to get an injury that required treatment.
Oh, and WHO CARES WHAT PEOPLE THINK? You’re a good parent, remember that.

17 seconds. Instead of cautioning your child how to play or jumping to their rescue, developmental child psychologist Dr. Mariana Brussoni suggests waiting 17 seconds to observe how your kid is reacting to the situation and allowing them to figure out what they can do on their own.

Time, space, and freedom. Allow your kids about an hour of unstructured free play a day in a safe environment. Supervision may be necessary, but not to direct their play. Just be the support your child needs when they’re about to do something out of their comfort zone.