Battle and Walden – risky play defined

Melinda: Based on Ellen Sandseter’s research, risky play is defined as an exhilarating or exciting form of play that may possibly result in injury. 

Marc: And it’s also, it’s an exhilarating play in which they’re dealing with a stimuli or something that they were afraid of before and now they’ve dealt with it.  That’s probably my most favourite part about risk. 

Melinda: There are six categories of play.  So the first one is ‘great heights’ which has a risk of falling.  You usually see children jumping off of heights or climbing, swinging, big heights those kinds of things and jumping off of swings, jumping off of high places those kind of things.   

The next one is actually ‘high speed’ which is really fun to watch children going down hills on their toboggans and or even on their bikes. 

Marc:  Can I just add that I love the bravado of a child on the top of a hill on his trike and we’re allowing him to go as fast as he can down the hill and you say ‘just go as fast as you like’ and they have all that machismo and the bravado before they get going – ‘I’m going to go so fast my molecules are going to move’ and they start going down and then they drag their foot and they slow that thing down.  I just absolutely love that about that need for speed.  You know, it’s all in the context of safety. 

Melinda:  And the risk of that is actually a collision or something right?  So those are the risks that goes with it.  The third category is ‘dangerous objects’.  So for that it’s getting cut or hurt with it.  It could be a pointy stick that could be a dangerous object or using knives for the first time. Scissors in the hands of a toddler.  Scissors or anything that a child is just not used to using could be a dangerous object.   

The fourth element is around ‘dangerous elements’ that you could either fall in to or get hurt with.  So that could be a cliff or deep water, playing around deep water or playing near a fire pit so things like that.  And it’s really interesting to watch children around those objects because they do know that they’re around and they are able to play around them without getting hurt but as a caregiver it’s really hard to watch that and you’re nervous about them falling in to it.  

The next one is ‘rough and tumble play’.  So with rough and tumble play that could be wrestling, it could be sword fighting, it could be rough-housing all those different things that come with it.  Well this is very interesting because children get to learn about trust with each other during these times so they get to play with each other and wrestle but they also learn their limits.  They learn self-control, when to stop, when they’re not feeling comfortable.  So there’s so much trust that goes in when they’re playing rough and tumble play or wrestling. 

Marc:  And then the last category is ‘getting lost’.  So getting lost in the woods or feeling like you’ve disappeared or you’re away from people.  Very much like all their favourite stories that they read as a child, so just that feeling.  And that makes sense nowadays because there’s the term ‘helicopter parenting’ or the parents are always, always there.  So I can see this part of risk being one of the big ones that children want to experience.  How do I get that feeling where I’m away from you, I’m lost? – which is really hard to do today. 

Melinda:  Even with infants, when they leave the room for a few seconds and they’re around that corner and they can’t see you, that’s being lost for an infant, so it even starts at a very young age.