When my daughter was a young toddler, I constantly chased after her trying to make sure she was “safe.” I baby-proofed every inch of my house—and grandma’s. I was her shadow when she walked, just in case she stumbled. With my ever-present pack of wipes, I sanitized every eating surface we came in contact with. She wore sun hats and I lathered her with sunscreen. I bought the highest-rated car seat.
While I felt like I had a handle on keeping her safe, I realized I wasn’t prepared for how active she was! Oh man, I thought one exhausted morning, playdough only lasted five minutes! What do I do now? That’s when I decided we needed to have a plan every day. This girl needed to be entertained!
Soon came two-hour playdates, organized sports, and preschool at the wee age of three years old. We got busy, really busy—driving to preschool, gymnastics, soccer, music classes, and a moms’ group. I don’t recall taking my daughter outside to play that much. If I did, it was to the neighborhood playground or a rare trip to the beach. Never did it occur to me to explore the twelve beautiful wooded acres of our backyard with my daughter. In my mind, we were too busy to sacrifice our precious time in nature. It wasn’t until later that I realized I had made a big mistake. When she presented with bouts of anxiety, aggressive tendencies, and sensory issues, I knew we were running away from the one thing that would actually help my daughter: time alone in nature.
There is something about letting children explore the outdoors on their own that intimidates many adults. Fear is often the biggest barrier to giving children some wiggle room away from constant adult supervision. Fear comes in many forms. Adults are afraid of childhood abductions, kids getting lost, and kids getting hurt. There are also smaller fears, such as bug bites, wild animals, and poisonous plants, that make parents generally hesitant about play outdoors.
Many of these fears are a result of society exaggerating dangers and parents’ loss of trust. In this new era of parenting, we are doing everything we can to protect our children. However, sometimes too much protection can cause more harm than good. We are keeping children from attaining the very life skills and sensory awareness they need in order to grow into resilient and able-bodied adults.
In this chapter I will address the most common fears related to letting kids play independently outdoors and take risks. I will also address why independent play and risk taking are actually critical to healthy child development and discuss safety tips for when you let your child head out to play.
There is a huge difference between what most parents fear (abduction by strangers, serious life-changing injuries) and what’s actually happening. Tragedies such as a child being kidnapped or dying from a playground accident are incredibly rare. They were rare thirty to forty years ago and are still just as rare. What has changed is our trust in human nature, causing us to protect what we can—especially our children.
This tightening of the reins has resulted in an era of supervised playdates, an increase in organized activities, and a reduction in the number of children playing outdoors. Does that sound like the routine in your home? At first glance, this may not seem harmful. However, the lack of time to explore and play independently outdoors is affecting social skills, emotional security, independence, and creativity. It is even creating children who are more accident-prone and susceptible to harm.
“In all my years as a parent, I’ve mostly met children who take it for granted that they are always being watched,” writes Hanna Rosin, author of the wildly popular article “The Overprotected Kid” (2014). This sentiment reminds me of the classic book 1984, in which Big Brother is always watching—there is no escape. The characters in the book are under constant surveillance. The same can be said of children today. They are under relentless supervision. If you see a child in public, usually there is a parent only a few feet away. I rejoice when I see a child playing outdoors without a parent in sight, for in this day in age, such a sight is a rarity.
One of the biggest culprits for the incessant management of children’s whereabouts is our fear of strangers. If you ask most parents why they don’t let their kids out to play alone, many will answer, “It is a different world out there. There are too many creeps.” The truth is, the world really isn’t any more unsafe now than it was in the 80s and even the 70s. If anything crime has decreased. David Finkelhor, director of the Crimes Against Children Research Center and one of the most reliable authorities on child abduction, has found that crimes against children have actually decreased since the 1990s. The type of abduction in which a stranger takes a child remains extremely rare and has not increased in frequency (Skenazy 2009).
The only type of abduction that is increasing in number is family abduction. These abductions, usually the result of a custody battle, are when either the mother or father kidnaps the child. Sometimes these types of abductions are lumped together with stranger abductions in FBI crime reports, creating alarming statistics (Rosin 2014). Headlines in the news read, “Child Kidnappings and Abductions Could Be Four Times Higher Than Authorities Admit, Charities Warn” (Fearn 2015) or “Child Kidnappings and Abductions Soar by 13 Percent” (Russia Today 2015). These headlines are meant to grab our attention so we’ll read the paper or listen to the news. And when a stranger does actually abduct a child on one side of the country, the whole country hears about it—often for weeks. This fuels our fear and makes us think that it is likely to happen to our children too, which is one reason why we keep them under constant supervision and busy with organized indoor activities.
Due to “stranger danger” fear, we are keeping closer tabs on our children than ever before. This surveillance includes how far we allow children to walk alone or whether or not they play by themselves. My daughters are seven and ten, and we are just now letting them bike down our dirt road to play with children in a connecting neighborhood. All in all, it’s about a half-mile trek. This allowance has earned us the title “free-range parents” by many of the families we know. “Free-range kids” is a term coined by Lenore Skenazy—a journalist turned author—in her book of the same name. She is doing her best to advocate for children’s rights to play and roam neighborhoods and streets on their own.
My husband recently told me that we are much stricter with our girls than his parents were with him in the 80s. When he was twelve, he and his younger brother (10 years old) and a few other friends biked twenty-five miles to the nearest big town on their own. They spent the day in town roaming the streets, window-shopping, and buying candy. They did this once a year, for four years in a row. On the way they’d stop and play with friends who lived ten miles away before heading back out on their adventure. He smiles at the memory and takes pride in the fact that he did this at such a young age. “If we let our girls do this at ten and twelve years old, we’d probably be put in jail,” he says, clearly frustrated.
It is true. It is coming to a point where we may no longer have the ability to let kids have as much freedom as parents did in the past. Even though the world is no more dangerous than when we were growing up, some people now overreact upon seeing children outdoors on their own. Two Maryland parents were under investigation twice for child neglect just for letting their ten-year-old and six-year-old walk together to the park a mile away. The children were picked up by the police and the parents were questioned. What child protective services felt was neglect, the highly educated parents (one is a fiction writer and the other a physicist) felt was “absolutely critical for their development—to learn responsibility, to experience the world, and to gain confidence and competency” (St. George 2015). Unfortunately, allowing children the freedom to roam is seen by some as poor parenting.
A recent study in the United Kingdom found that children’s “independent mobility” is decreasing. In 1971, 86 percent of English primary schoolchildren were allowed to travel home from school alone. By 1990, this number had dropped markedly to 35 percent. By 2010, only 25 percent of children walked home without an adult. When compared to their German peers, English primary schoolchildren had less independent mobility in 1990, and this remained the case in 2010. Children in Germany were granted all the licenses of independent mobility in greater proportions and at earlier ages than their English counterparts (Shaw et al. 2013). This demonstrates that depending on societal norms, children’s ability to be independent and take risks varies widely. Tim Gill, childhood researcher and author of Rethinking Childhood, states, “I’ve been told that in Switzerland, parents are judged badly if they DON’T let their children walk to kindergarten (yes, kindergarten) on their own” (Greenfield 2015).
By keeping children under constant supervision, we are keeping them from attaining the very freedom they need in order to move their bodies fully and frequently throughout the day. The more children play outdoors, the more opportunities and space they have to challenge their bodies. From having to bike back and forth between friends’ houses to playing a game of pickup baseball for hours to enjoying flashlight tag at night, outdoor activities get children moving and playing.
When given the opportunity to play on their own, children demonstrate greater levels of confidence and improved social skills. There are also wider community benefits of independent play, such as closer neighborhood relations, a stronger sense of community, and less fear of crime (Shaw et al. 2013). Children also get to have rest away from the adult world, a sense of privacy, and an opportunity to keep secrets. They get to create their own worlds and top-secret hideaways and forts, take shortcuts that adults might not necessarily take, and even invent their own languages. All of these benefits of independent play foster a sense of responsibility, camaraderie among peers, independence, and imagination, and they enhance children’s play skills. Children simply need the space to roam and the chance to play on their own.
“Be careful,” says a mother walking closely behind her three-year-old on a bumpy nature path at TimberNook. “Don’t fall,” the mother says. Moments later she warns again, “Don’t fall.” How many times have I done this to my own children? I think to myself. They get too close to the edge of a rock and my own protective instincts come out. “Be careful,” I say with dire caution in my voice. Then they walk on something wet and slippery and I automatically advise again, “Be careful.” But honestly, what’s there really to be careful of? What are we so afraid of?
Most of us are worried that our child will fall and get hurt in a serious way. In our minds a fall can become a devastating or even fatal mistake. However, children are often more capable of assessing risk than we give them credit for. And in reality, a fatal accident is extremely rare. And if they do fall? Many times a bruise or a scrape serves as a far better learning experience than a parent repeating “Be careful!” every few minutes.
“The problem is that the public assumes that any risk to any individual is 100 percent risk to them,” states Dr. F. Sessions Cole, chief medical officer at St. Louis Children’s Hospital (Skenazy 2009, 7). For instance, if a child falls off a jungle gym and gets a serious head injury, we automatically think that our child is at risk for the same thing. We may even have our children avoid jungle gyms altogether, sacrificing the physical benefits of the equipment in the name of “safety.”
During the past thirty years, playgrounds have changed drastically for this very reason. In the late 1970s, the parents of a few children who were seriously hurt on playground equipment brought forth lawsuits. The lawsuits led to changes in playground policies and a new era of ultrasafe but unchallenging playground equipment. (Playground changes will be explained in further detail in chapter six.) However, the changes to playground equipment and the addition of softer padding under the equipment have not made a difference in the number of injuries. In fact, the number is actually on the rise.
Parents may think that being extra cautious and protective of their children is worth fewer injuries. The irony is that our close attention to safety has not made a difference in the number of children getting hurt. In fact, according to the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System, which monitors hospital visits and the frequency of emergency room visits due to playground injuries, there has been a steady increase in the number of playground injuries since the early 1980s—when most of the equipment renovation started. In 1980, the number of visits resulting from playground accidents was 156,000. By 2013, the number had jumped to 271,475 (Rosin 2014).
Severe head injuries, falls, and deaths at playgrounds remain extremely rare—regardless of how much safety proofing is implemented. The Consumer Product Safety Commission recently reported that there were one hundred deaths due to playground injuries between 2001 and 2008. Out of the millions of children in the United States, this equals about thirteen children a year—only ten fewer children than reported in 1980 (Rosin 2014).
Falling from time to time and experiencing reasonable risks (climbing up rocks, riding a bike to a friend’s house, playing in the dark) actually benefit healthy physical development. When children are given the opportunity to take risks and even experience the sensation of falling, they learn how to make necessary motor adaptations over time, such as shifting body weight on a bicycle to keep from falling or reaching out with a hand to protect the face during a fall. Adults can’t teach a child how to make these necessary adaptations; children have to learn these skills through real-life experiences (Ayres 2000). They need to fall every now and again, make mistakes, and even get bumps and bruises in order to develop good balance, become more reliant, and develop effective motor skills.
Limiting children’s exposure to risk and constantly trying to keep them from falling can impede their physical development. They can actually become unsafe. Without the freedom to make adaptations to the motor and balance system, children may be clumsier and more likely to fall and be seriously hurt. A child may trip and forget to put out his hand to protect his head from injury. A child may look over her shoulder for a second while on top of a rock, which causes her to fall since she hasn’t yet developed the motor skills that allow her to do two things at once. Instead of running away from all risks, we need to let children experience gradual risk to develop the essential physical skills they need to stay safe.
American society has become litigious over the years, and it is really starting to take a toll on child development. Schools and even towns are implementing more rules and banning classic childhood pastimes like playing tag, sledding, playing on monkey bars, and jumping off swings. The reason? Some child somewhere got hurt, and now the school or town is fearful of being sued. The easy solution is to get rid of the equipment and forbid the activity. This may be a good short-term solution; however, we have forgotten the importance of allowing children to participate in these activities.
A friend of mine who is an elementary school teacher tells me that she had to give up being a recess monitor. “I just couldn’t take it anymore,” she says. “I had to tell the kids no to things that I knew were good for their development.” For example, the kids were highly restricted in how they could use the swings. “I remember jumping off swings when I was a kid to see how far I could get. Now they are not only forbidden from jumping, but they aren’t allowed to do anything but sit in the swing. I even had to tell them they couldn’t swing on their bellies,” she states. I’ve had children tell me they are not allowed to spin in circles on the swings and other teachers tell me that kids are not allowed to go on top of the monkey bars.
As you learned in chapter three, spinning in circles and even going upside down is important for establishing a strong balance system. Climbing on top of monkey bars is a great physical challenge, and activities such as sledding strengthen the core and give necessary vestibular input for good body awareness. If we don’t allow our children the freedom to move their bodies in different ways with these simple challenges, how do we expect them to become capable of navigating their environment without getting hurt? Risks and challenges are important for healthy sensory and motor development.
When I was helping to start a TimberNook in New Zealand, I took time to meet Bruce McLachlan, the principal of Swanson Elementary School in Auckland. Bruce did the unthinkable. As part of a local university study, he got rid of rules during recess time. Kids were allowed to scale fences, climb trees, build with construction materials, and ride scooters. A funny thing happened. There was a decrease in the amount of bullying, a drop in the number of serious injuries, and an improvement in concentration in the classroom.
Bruce told me that part of the reason why getting rid of the rules worked in New Zealand is that he doesn’t have to worry about litigation. New Zealanders benefit from a state-run universal insurance plan administered by the Accident Compensation Commission, which covers medical costs if people injure themselves. Because of this, it is rare for parents in New Zealand to sue a school. In fact, one little boy broke his arm during recess on a scooter. Bruce recalled this experience to me. “The father called me asking if he could come and talk with me. I was thinking the worst. But you know what he said? The father came and stated, ‘Thank you. Please don’t change the rules for recess because my son got hurt. It is an important life lesson.’ I was truly shocked.”
The story about Bruce eliminating the rules during recess has gone viral. Adults everywhere are now thinking back to their childhood, when they were allowed more freedom. To them, this story represents a fight against the era of bubble-wrapping our children and instead focusing on the value of free play.
Children are naturally curious and seek out opportunities to make sense of the world. When children are left to their own devices, they experiment with their surroundings, take risks, make mistakes, and then learn from the mistakes. They problem solve, negotiate, imagine, and investigate. Children learn an immense amount of information through free play. Our children will be well served if we offer them the freedom to play on their own, to learn through making mistakes, and to come to their own conclusions about the world around them. This process will help prepare them for life while improving their cognitive, social-emotional, and physical skills at the same time.
As adults, we may feel that we always know what is best for our children. A child’s neurological system begs to differ. Children with healthy neurological systems naturally seek out the sensory input they need on their own. They determine how much, how fast, and how high works for them at any given time. They do this without even thinking about it. If they are spinning in circles, it is because they need to. If they are jumping off a rock over and over, it is because they are craving that sensory input. They are trying to organize their senses through practice and repetition.
I’ve heard many adults and even so-called experts claim that spinning can be dangerous. “Children shouldn’t spin,” an adult may claim. “They may feel sick afterward.” To an extent this is true. However, it can be risky for an adult to control how much sensory input a child gets. Adults can accidently send a child into sensory overload if they don’t know what the warning signs are when a child is not tolerating vestibular input. Sensory overload is when the sensory input becomes too much for a child; it can cause the child to feel sick for the rest of the day. Another downside of sensory overload is that the child may refuse to do that activity again in the future. However, the danger goes away when the adults step back and let the child determine the adequate amount of sensory input.
You may find yourself having a natural tendency to say, “No spinning, you may get dizzy,” or “Get down from that tree, you might get hurt.” However, when we restrict children from experiencing new sensations of their own free will, they may not develop the senses and motor skills necessary to take risks without getting hurt. Then we, the adults, become the barrier to healthy child development. Later, when the children are older and get behind the wheel of a car, they may not have the skills necessary to safely navigate the roads. It’s important for us to give children opportunities to practice moving their bodies in new ways at an early age; doing so will prepare them to be safer in the long run.
Children are natural risk takers. They need it. They crave it. Ellen Sandseter, a professor of early-childhood education at Queen Maud University College in Trondheim, observed and interviewed children on playgrounds in Norway. She found that children have a sensory need to taste danger and excitement. She defines risky play as “thrilling and exciting forms of play that involve a risk of physical injury.” She identifies six types of risky play: (1) handling dangerous tools, such as knives and hammers; (2) being near dangerous elements, such as fire and water; (3) exploring heights, by climbing trees and rocks; (4) speed, such as skiing fast down a hill; (5) rough-and-tumble play, such as wrestling and play fighting; and (6) playing on one’s own. She feels the last one is the most important for fostering healthy development (Rosin 2014). “The urge to walk off alone in new and undiscovered environments without supervision from adults is children’s way of exploring their world and becoming at home in it” (Sandseter and Kennair 2011, 269).
Most of the time risky play occurs during free play, as opposed to play organized by adults. During free play, children learn to manage, control, and even overcome their fears by taking risks. Sandseter refers to risky play as a form of exposure therapy, in which children force themselves to do things they’re afraid of in order to confront their fears and overcome them. For instance, a child may launch her bike off a jump built of wooden planks or perform new tricks on his skateboard. According to Sandseter, this type of risky play provides a desensitizing effect. Through research she has found that children who injured themselves by falling from heights between ages five and nine are less likely to be afraid of heights when they are eighteen years old (Sandseter and Kennair 2011).
On the other hand, if children never go through the process of exposing themselves to new risks, their fear can turn into a phobia (Rosin 2014). Sandseter states, “Our fear of children being harmed by mostly harmless injuries may result in more fearful children and increased levels of psychopathology” (quoted in Tierney 2011). In other words, our parental anxiety can become a barrier to children’s emotional development. JoAnn Deak (PhD), author of Girls Will Be Girls, states, “Girls who avoid risks have poorer self-esteem than girls who can and do face challenges” (PBS Parents n. d.). Therefore, in order to help deter the rise in social-emotional issues we are witnessing in children today, we would be wise to provide thrilling play experiences for children.
The third-grade classroom that was visiting TimberNook for the day consisted of mostly boys—rowdy, loud, and rambunctious boys. As soon as the children realized they had the freedom to explore and build in the woods, something funny happened: they got really quiet. They dispersed, and many of them started working together to build a massive teepee.
Nothing gives me more pleasure than to see children contentedly building a structure using branches, bricks, and logs out in the woodland. That is, until fear kicks in and everyone’s pulse increases a few notches at the cry of alarm.
“Put the sticks down!” I looked over to see a chaperone running frantically toward the children. “Danger! Danger!” she shrieked. Momentarily astonished by the sudden state of perceived emergency, I finally found my voice. “It’s okay,” I reassured her. “I said they could use the sticks as long as they respect each other’s personal space.” Speechless, the chaperone frowned, turned, and walked to a group of nearby chaperones. I could have stopped the kids from building, given in to the fear, and encouraged them to do something considered a little less risky by the surrounding adults. However, I decided to let the kids proceed.
The children, with the help of a few excited adults, persisted with building their colossal stick teepee. “Look at what we built!” one of the boys said proudly, showing off their work. “Can you believe it?” another child eagerly asked.
During this time of construction, no child got hurt, which would have been fine. Getting bumps and bruises is a normal part of healthy outdoor play experiences—a right of passage of sorts. But not only was no harm done while these kids participated in “risky” play, but they took great pride in the work they completed.
Letting children take risks boosts their confidence. Using a knife to whittle a stick, exploring without an adult, tending a fire, and creating a fort all have one thing in common: there is the risk of injury. Even though letting kids take risks can be scary for parents, these experiences offer considerable reward and value to growing children.
When a child takes a risk, such as riding a bike for the first time, it can be frightening. At the same time, the child is learning to overcome that fear to reach a goal. In the process of learning to ride a bike successfully, the child learns patience, perseverance, and resilience. She learns to keep trying, even when she continues to fall. In the end, she will be riding her bike well. She may think, I did this all on my own. What a great life lesson, because life is a continuous series of trials. Having the confidence to persevere and have patience helps children to be successful with relationships, school, and work experiences later in life.
Not only does taking risks help children overcome their fears and build confidence, but doing so also helps children develop strong physical skills that support good body awareness. Having adequate body awareness is essential for the safe navigation of and interaction with the world around us. There are many simple activities that are excellent for promoting balance and good body awareness:
No matter where you live, you’ll want to teach your child how to safely get around on his own. If you live in the city, teach your child street smarts. He needs to learn how to read the signs, how to get from point A to point B without getting lost, how to cross the street safely, who to talk to in case he needs help (for example, to look for a police officer), how to stick with his group of kids, and so on.
If you live in the suburbs, you may change the lessons slightly. You may focus on teaching your child how to safely ride her bike to the neighbor’s house, to check in with you to let you know she is going somewhere new, how to watch out for cars, how to cross the street safely, to not go into the houses of strangers, and so on.
If you live in the country, you may focus on teaching your child what poisonous plants to look out for, what to eat and not eat in the wild, how to safely navigate the woods, where the boundaries for playing are, that he’s not to go swimming in the river without an adult, and so on.
Below are a few safety tips to consider when children are playing in more natural settings.
Although letting kids take risks may be scary for parents and even children at first, it is an essential part of growing up. Taking risks allows children to overcome physical challenges and strengthens their senses at the same time. These benefits ultimately make them safer and more resilient in the long run. Risky play also allows children to overcome fears and anxiety and builds strong character. Children need opportunities to fail and make mistakes in order to become more confident and capable when facing future life challenges.