“I can go higher than you,” yells a girl–maybe seven years old–wearing a knit beanie striped with blue and purple. She strains against the Boston winter wind, urging her swing higher, determined to get the edge on her playground companion. Her competitor, a considerably smaller girl in a vivid pink coat, has belly-flopped onto the neighboring swing. She slowly rocks back and forth, oblivious to the fierce competition.
By participating in this swing-set showdown these girls are engaging in a form of risky play, unstructured play with risks for minor injury. Risk-taking in play is essential for childhood development. It helps children test their physical limits, develop their perceptual-motor capacity, and learn to avoid and adjust to dangerous environments and activities.[1] However, researchers have been concerned about diminishing opportunities for risky play for years. A 2012 study reported that 70% of U.S. mothers reported daily outdoor free play when they were children, while only 31% reported that their own children did the same.[2] COVID-19 lockdowns restricted opportunities for risky play even further. With schools and parks closed, many children, especially those in urban areas, were confined indoors.
“During Covid, all of our parks were closed. One of my kid’s parents got a police caution for taking him to build a snowman in the park,” said Clare Routledge, a former London primary school teacher.
These restrictions had real effects on children. A study of Taiwanese school students between the ages of two and six found that their fitness, overall physical movement ability, stability movement skills, locomotor movement skills, and manipulative movement skills were worse after the pandemic. Studies conducted in Japan, Chile, Portugal, and Austria revealed similar results.[3]
Pediatric health practitioners in the United States have seen the same pattern. “I’ve talked to a lot of other caregivers, and we all see a lot more kids in occupational and physical therapy since the pandemic,” said Niki Plaus*, a Pediatric Occupational Therapist working in a New York City special needs school. “There’s a lot of general full body weakness. They’re not running around on a playground with their parent in the distance. They’re at home with their parent right there protecting every move.”
Schools must balance the safety of their students with the benefits of providing opportunities for children to take risks and develop. However, schools are often overly-restrictive with the type of play they provide to students.
A 2022 study of physical activity in 140 schools across11 countries found that students want to engage in play that involves more risk-taking and excitement, and less supervision.[4] Observations and interviews with 4-year-olds found kids have a clear idea of what they wanted out of play. “Trying something they had never done before, feeling on the verge of not having control (often due to height or speed), and overcoming fear were important criteria for experiences of excitement and risk in play,”[5] according to “Risky Play, Then and Now”, a cultural study featured in the 2023 book Risky Play: An Ethical Challenge.
In the course of a normal school day it’s difficult to provide students with the opportunity to engage in risky play. Teachers face a wide range of demands on their time and often have little space for activities. “I worked in an inner city school. Our playground was on the roof. There was a limit to how much the kids could move,” said Routledge, the former London primary school teacher.
However, Routledge saw immediate benefits when she was able to provide students with opportunities for risky play. She coordinated a week-long trip for her fifth-grade students through a program called School Journey. Students who previously struggled to skip rope and stand on one leg were suddenly running in the woods and learning to safely build catapults and throw axes. “Taking my class axe throwing was terrifying,” she said. “They were lovely kids, but they had some challenging behaviors. I couldn’t give them rulers because they were hitting each other and stabbing each other. Suddenly you’re giving them axes. But when they feel you trust them to do that… It’s so powerful. It’s confidence building.”
Experts stress the importance of trust and autonomy in childhood development. “Kids need to have the opportunity to learn from their mistakes. They also need to feel successful when they get better. If your parent is there to catch you every time you fall off the monkey bars, it’s going to take you a lot longer to improve,” said Plaus.
Still, schools are reluctant to provide opportunities for risky play. Limited time and space in the classroom are not the only reasons. According to National Electronic Injury Surveillance System (NEISS) data, nearly 2.4 million people were taken from U.S. schools to the hospital from January 2017 through December 2021.[6] Schools seek to minimize the number of injuries that occur on their premises.
“As a mainstream school you’re so fearful to provide these opportunities. If something goes wrong it’s really hard to know where to draw blame or who to blame. Many parents aren’t on board with putting their students at quote, unquote risk,” said Routledge. Social norms oriented towards protecting children from all possible harms have led to declining opportunities for play outdoors, and increasing monitoring and surveillance.[7]
For many students without access to outdoor spaces, school may be the only place for them to participate in regular outdoor play.[8] Though by its nature, risky play comes with the potential for injury, parents and schools must balance the downsides against the benefits. Sheltering children from harm comes with its own drawbacks that can be harder to see. Risk-deprived children are more prone to obesity, mental health concerns, a lack of independence, and a decrease in learning, perception and judgment skills.[9]
“It comes down to fear,” said Routledge. “This is a really challenging time to be an adult, to be a parent, to be a teacher. We are really fearful about what the current state of our world means to be a child. I think it’s made a lot of adults risk averse as a way to cope… When it feels like the world is falling apart, it can feel good to keep your kids close. But we are stifling what it means to be a child and not giving them the space to explore.”
*Niki Plaus is the sister of the author of this article
[1] Brussoni, Mariana, Lise L. Olsen, Ian Pike, and David A. Sleet,. “Risky Play and Children’s Safety: Balancing Priorities for Optimal Child Development,.” International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 9, no. 9 (September 2012): 3134–48,. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph9093134.
[2] Mariana Brussoni et al., “Risky Play and Children’s Safety: Balancing Priorities for Optimal Child Development,” International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 9, no. 9 (September 2012): 3134–48, https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph9093134.
[3] Shu-Yu Cheng, Hsia-Ling Tai, and Tsung-Teng Wang, “Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on Children’s Fundamental Motor Skills: A Study for the Taiwanese Preschoolers Teachers,” International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 20, no. 18 (September 15, 2023): 6764, https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph20186764.
[4] Alethea Jerebine et al., “‘All the Fun Stuff, the Teachers Say, “That’s Dangerous!”’ Hearing from Children on Safety and Risk in Active Play in Schools: A Systematic Review,” International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity 19, no. 1 (June 25, 2022): 72, https://doi.org/10.1186/s12966-022-01305-0.
[5] Øyvind Kvalnes and Ellen Beate Hansen Sandseter, “Risky Play, Then and Now,” in Risky Play: An Ethical Challenge, ed. Øyvind Kvalnes and Ellen Beate Hansen Sandseter, Critical Cultural Studies of Childhood (Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2023), 13–29, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-25552-6_2.
[6] 1p21.admin, “How Are Children Hurt At School? An Analysis of Emergency Room Admission Data,” Fine Law Firm (blog), August 22, 2023, https://www.thefinelawfirm.com/school-injury-statistics/.
[7] Jerebine et al., “‘All the Fun Stuff, the Teachers Say, “That’s Dangerous!”’ Hearing from Children on Safety and Risk in Active Play in Schools.”
[8] Jerebine et al.
[9] Brussoni et al., “Risky Play and Children’s Safety.”