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Risk in Play - Yes Please!

Give children the best playground you can with challenge and risk!

Risk in Play

Play benefits children in many ways and one of those ways is through ‘Risk in Play´. From an early age, children take risks and learn to assess risks when they are playing. To limit risky play, children will feel less challenged and have reduced opportunity to progress or push themselves to the next level. It has been argued, that removing or preventing risk in play can have detrimental effects of risk taking in later life, resulting in the inability to cope in stressful situations and poor social skills.

Pushing Further

We believe that if children don´t feel the excitement or thrill of the playground, then something isn´t quite right with the play space. When playing on the equipment, children need to feel inspired and happiness to get higher, go faster, dig deeper and generally have an ‘I can do it´ attitude. Through this, children will learn to assess risks as they play, learning how high they can climb or swing, how fast or how long they can spin on each visit to the area. It will also aid development and understanding of their bodies and individual capacities of health.

On returning to the playground, a child will feel they can accomplish more, benefiting their fitness, learning, creativity, social interaction and overall boost their self confidence.

Managing Risk

Although ‘Risk in Play´ is a positive attribute to offer a child using a play space, there will often be accidents. Not every child can climb as high as they like or go as fast as they´d want, but they´ll try. Not every child will be able to tackle a piece of equipment and master it in the first play, but they will learn from their mistakes becoming aware of their own personal health and safety. To understand that small bumps and bruises are normal and positive when playing is a huge leap towards encouraging children to take risks when they play, so one day they will get higher and they will go faster.

Encouraging Risk in Play

Here at Timberplay, we understand the need for ‘Risk in Play´. All the equipment we produce for Toddlers to Teens and Disabled Children contains differing stages of challenge, risk and difficulty. Grouped by age ability, we can offer the best pieces of equipment to fill your playground with children. From Extra High Swings to Climbing Structures to Small Seesaws and Play Houses we can accommodate varying levels of challenge and difficulty to complement the changing abilities of children that play in your play space. Bringing once again, the thrill, excitement and wonder back to the playground.

In the words of Julian Richter, Director of Richter Spielgeräte GmbH:

"We must create as much play value as possible and provide as much safety as necessary."

Protection against Litigation

The most common reason play providers are risk averse in their playground decisions is fear of litigation. However, by using good procedures, the chances of a successful claim from an accident can be reduced to almost nil.

Please read our downloads below on how to Protect against Litigation and our example of a Play Policy for new playgrounds.

0.04 MB  Protection against Litigation

0.04 MB  Suggested Play Policy for Customers

0.07 MB  Play & Safety