Why is risky play important for children?
Part of providing care for children is being able to provide challenging environments that allow for children to learn new things and develop new skills. This includes giving them chances for appropriate risk taking eg: jumping off a high plank onto a mattress or climbing a tree.
Risk is where someone is exposed to danger. Taking a risk is where the person does the thing anyway even though it is dangerous.
Risky play is really important for children to learn how to take care of themselves and be independent. It helps with problem solving, with making good decisions, with resilience.
Even though we must let the children take risks, we still need to make sure they stay safe.
Kate came up with some ideas in pink in this picture on how to ensure risky play stays safe, while still giving the children the chance to explore.
It can also be very tempting for educators to say “be careful” all the time which is meaningless for children as they may not know what being careful is and it could stop them from exploring. Kate came up with the suggestions for what you could say instead of be careful.
And here are some more suggestions for the future that help children become aware of the danger and then problem solve how to still do the activity and take the risk safely.
TASK: Have a look at this photo of these kids. What do you see? What do you think the risks are here? Is this dangerous? How are they managing the risks? Write your answers on your laptop and talk about it with your coach.
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