In Praise of Risky Play
The Canadian Paediatric Society's new statement is a breath of fresh air in a culture consumed by safetyism.
“Snow has to stay on the ground.” My littlest son came home from school, looking dejected as he quoted the principal. “My friends and I got in trouble for throwing snowballs at each other. But we were having fun!”
I expressed sympathy and told him he could have a raucous snowball fight in the backyard with his brothers. Soon the neighbour came by with his toddler, and all of them were hurling snowballs with furious delight. Inevitably, the fight ended with snow down someone’s coat and sobs of indignation, but then those emotions faded away into a lovely memory of what kids instinctively do (and always have done) during the first big snowfall of the year.
My kids went to bed happy and satisfied, but I was left to ponder what happens to those children who don’t have parents willing to counteract the safetyism that pervades our schools and general culture. The term “safetyism” was used in Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt’s book The Coddling of the American Mind (2018) and is defined as “a culture or belief system in which safety (which includes ‘emotional safety’) has become a sacred value, which means that people become unwilling to make trade-offs demanded by other practical and moral concerns.”
Too much safety is bad for kids. Restricting their play only to those activities deemed safe by adults limits their opportunities to express autonomy, push physical and mental boundaries, and gain confidence. And play is precisely how kids are meant to engage with the world. Described by Lenore Skenazy as “developmental gold,” play “teaches them how to take action, get along, and solve problems.” It is rehearsal for adulthood.
I have long been a proponent of risky play, writing about it on Treehugger years ago and putting it front-and-centre in my own book, Childhood Unplugged. It has always struck me as counterintuitive to bubble-wrap kids to the extent that they miss out on many of the very things that make childhood important and memorable, just because we adults are afraid of, what? A broken bone? Some bloody knees? A black eye?
‘As Safe as Necessary’
So, you can imagine my delight when I saw that the Canadian Paediatric Society (CPS) issued a new position statement this week in support of risky play. It calls for a shift toward strategies that keep kids “as safe as necessary,” rather than “as safe as possible.” In other words, there is such a thing as too safe!
Risky play is defined by “thrilling and exciting forms of free play that involve uncertainty of outcome and a possibility of physical injury.” A risk is something that a child can recognize and assess, whereas a hazard poses a possibility for harm that a child cannot recognize or manage.
The CPS paper includes eight forms of risky play: playing at heights, playing at speeds, playing with tools (including sharp objects), playing near dangerous elements (like fire or water), rough-and-tumble play, playing with risk of getting lost (e.g., in a forest), playing with repeated impact, and vicarious play (watching older kids take risks).
All of these forms change depending on a child’s age and ability. Playing at heights for a toddler is different than for a teenager, but both experience a thrill and sense of accomplishment from it, whether it’s jumping off a couch or out of a tree.
What About Injury?
Risky play is not as risky as it seems. In fact, it helps kids to develop the gross motor coordination that they need to grow strong and agile. CPS points out that the injury rate from climbing trees (195 per 100,000) is between five and 22 times lower than other activities like soccer (4300 per 100,000), cycling (2800 per 100,000), and skateboarding (881 per 100,000).
Another source says that children would need to spend three hours playing outside every day for 10 years before they’re likely to sustain an injury that requires treatment (and would still likely be minor). Furthermore, CPS says, “Bored children may resort to play indoors or on screens, which also has health consequences.” Don’t even get me started on that topic…
Fascinatingly, some experts attribute playground injuries to unexciting play structures, since these “may lead to inappropriate equipment use and greater risk-taking.” Indeed, I can vouch for that, having seen my own children chasing thrills on dull play structures in ways that cause my heart rate to spike.
Risky Play = Mental Fortitude
Risky play helps kids psychologically, too. It gives kids an opportunity to learn how to manage strong emotions like anxiety and fear in low-stakes situations. And I believe that small opportunities to exercise courage and determination make it easier to draw on those same emotions later in life, when it matters even more.
The city of Toronto has notoriously banned tobogganing at 45 hills this winter to “keep kids safe,” another example of blatant safetyism at work. In response, Dr. Mariana Brussoni, a developmental psychologist and expert in child injury prevention at the University of British Columbia (whom I interviewed in my book), spoke to the Star about how a “dangerous” activity like tobogganing can actually benefit children:
“You learn to shift that cognitive attribution from fear and anger to thrill and excitement. You learn to cope with the flood of those emotions, and they don’t become overwhelming and scary.”
Kids outside move more, sit less, and play longer, according to Outdoor Play Canada. They jump, run, and yell. And this pays off enormously down the road. Other research by Brussoni and colleagues has shown that kids allowed to engage in risky play develop better motor skills, social behaviour, independence, and conflict resolution” and even improve their ability to “negotiate decisions about substance abuse, relationships, and sexual behaviour during adolescence.”
Not to be overlooked, real play makes kids happy. As Jonathan Haidt wrote in After Babel, his Substack newsletter, “When children are asked to depict or describe activities that make them happy, they depict or describe scenes of play.”
What Does CPS’ Statement Mean for Kids?
Much of this is not new information to those of us who have been researching, reading, and writing about risky play for years, but it’s the first time that a major health organization like the Canadian Paediatric Society has issued such a statement in support of risky play.
It bodes well for schools and other institutions to (hopefully) adjust their standpoints on how kids are allowed to play. It might mean that, eventually, children like mine will be allowed to throw snowballs at recess without getting in trouble with the principal. But institutional change is notoriously slow, so until then it is up to us parents to ensure that our children engage in as much risky play as possible.
What Can Parents Do?
Go outside.
Nature is best suited to risky play because its risks are built in and accessible and easy for kids of all ages and abilities to manage. When I had babies and toddlers, I spent many hours sitting outside on the perimeter of the play zone, letting my kids play freely while keeping a distant eye on them. Eventually, I moved further away or inside, until we both became used to the idea of being apart. They always knew where I was, if a problem arose.
Adjust language surrounding play.
Don’t say things like “Slow down” or “Not too high” when supervising kids. As CPS writes, “While caring adults usually mean ‘I love you’, ‘I care about you’, or ‘I worry about you’, children who are cautioned repeatedly may learn to hear: ‘You don’t trust me’ or ‘You don’t think I can do it’.” Let them be. Kids are remarkably adept at self-monitoring. They’ll stop if they’re scared.
Delay intervention.
Wise advice from an online tool developed in 2017 by Brussoni’s team to help give parents the confidence to let their kids play freely, you should wait 15, 20, 30 seconds, maybe even a minute, before intervening if your kid looks like they’re in a sticky situation. Most times, they’ll get themselves out. Encourage from afar if you must, but often I just pretend to ignore them and watch silently. This is why you shouldn’t boost a kid up into a tree; if they managed to get up without assistance, they are usually able to get down.
Create alternatives.
Not everyone has access to safe, clean outdoor spaces. That’s when it is important to develop after-school Play Clubs, where kids are vaguely supervised by an adult (similar to a lifeguard) while allowed to engage in free, risky play, or to advocate for Play Streets in urban areas. As a parent, you do have a responsibility to get your kids out into nature, so make a point of taking hikes on weekends, planning camping trips, renting a canoe, or going for a bike ride.
Remember your childhood.
If you’re struggling with the idea of relinquishing supervision, I encourage you to think about your own childhood. What stands out in your memory as being special? Consider whether your own kid has similar opportunities for freedom, exploration, and risky play. Realize that kids have not changed fundamentally in one or two generations; they still need the same kinds of experiences.
Plus, it has never been a safer time to be a child. In Canada, the likelihood of being kidnapped by a stranger is one in 14 million, same as the lottery; but not letting them play freely has much higher odds of stunted physical and emotional development. Now, that is not worth the risk.
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We moved to Silicon Valley from the rural North 3 years ago. Our child was 3 at the time. It was WILD to me, to see at the playgrounds, parents and grandparents serving as their children's playmates in lieu of the children playing with peers outside of their own household. Parallel play at 6 years old?! And now that our kiddo is in school, we notice the neglected socialization everywhere. And the teachers are burning out at fantastically high rates as well (and then, they have the kids watch YouTube videos and call it "lessons" more and more as the school year passes.) Layer on top of that the terror SV parents and caregivers have of children playing in both rain and sunny places that are wet from rain, so instead they require kids to "play" - aka still-craft inside - through the winter, and it's a disaster that builds year over year with only school breaks (maybe, most kids are sent to more still-play day camps) and summer break (more still-play, or, even worse, iPad babysitter all summer to save on nanny costs to afford those ski weeks in Tahoe) as a reprieve for these little minds and bodies.
A friend and I took our older toddlers to a wildlife refuge today and it was a blast. The weather was dreary but not too cold, light drizzle that you could only see on the lake, and no one else was there. Each kid found a stick about twice their size and dragged them around for almost an hour. There was also an amazing indoor playroom and a fun playground with a half buried canoe and lots of things that would be deemed "too dangerous". It was a really great afternoon.