How Courageous, Creative Play Helps Children Thrive

We want the children in our lives to be confident, resilient, self-aware people who can manage life, with ease.

As adults we must balance our very natural instinct to protect children with an acknowledgement of how beneficial it can be for them to make mistakes, slip up, fail. These offer opportunities for children to learn how to protect themselves. Hard as it is there may be bruises, tears and even breaks along the way.

It’s not just physical. There are social and creative challenges too potentially leading to fallings out or frustrations to manage. We need to stay conscious of not removing all risk and challenge from their lives.

Play is an essential part of development.
Risk, an essential part of play.

We cannot predict the future that children will inhabit as adults, but we can support them, as they develop from birth through to adulthood, to build their resilience and adaptability. To become independently skilled to navigate the world that will be theirs.

In the play community we talk a lot about risky play. We advocate, we champion and we challenge for children’s right to take risks. Risky play is understood to improve mental and physical health, prevent obesity, mitigate anxiety, improve balance and spatial awareness. This is true for all children.

Challenge

Have you ever observed that drive in a child to challenge themselves? Not just as they climb a tree or run really fast but in those little everyday moments. Walking down the street, stepping only on the kerb stones, walking backwards. They are taking the familiar and the mundane and extending it to be more challenging, riskier. More fun.

If children are not allowed the time, space and support to engage in this type of play then there are other risks. In the vacuum children may seek out risky behaviours that are more damaging, they may grow up unable to assess risk for themselves.

So as adults, in our professional and personal lives we can protect the child by allowing them that freedom to make mistakes.

Take their hand as they walk the slimy log but trust that when they want you to let go that they are ready. How proud they will be. You will see their spirit soar!