The Learning Sanctuary Facebook New enrolments: Share this:. Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email. So, how do we support the action of positive risk taking in our children as they grow? Risky or adventurous play gives children the opportunity to push boundaries, experience challenges and tests their limits in an exciting, engaging and fun environment.
You can promote risky play environments in the home, outdoors and in child care settings, providing safe and supervised environments that teach children about risk.
A risky play could range from walking and running to riding a bike, climbing and balancing. As well as providing essential lessons about risk, these activities are fun. They improve motor skills, promote body awareness and aid coordination. As parents and carers, we offer our children the opportunity to experience risk, consequence and resolution in an environment that will not threaten their wellbeing.
Modelling and encouraging positive risk taking behaviours provides your child with the opportunity to embrace their natural human instinct and use it to their advantage. In this way, they can lay down the neurone pathways that will support healthy decisions later in life.
This is especially important through their teenage years. Introducing risk taking into play communicates to children that risk can be our ally in life if we treat it with the respect and discernment it deserves. They will learn the impact of their consequences and the value of seeking help when they are out of their depth. When a parent or educator in a day care centre delivers these activities with awareness, children can learn to trust emotional and physical exploration and begin to associate risk with positive outcomes.
With a focus on natural environments and play-based learning, Keiki Early Learning helps your little one to learn about risk in a safe and supportive atmosphere. For more information about our curriculum or enrolling your child, contact us today.
Children will continue to use their environment in unintended ways. Often boredom leads to misuse and other unacceptable behaviors. Our goal should be to eliminate known hazards while creating a fun challenging free play environment that meets the developmental needs of the intended user groups. Part of the design process should be a risk assessment by the owner and designer. Currently there are no federal laws regulating playground safety other than the U.
Department of Justice Standard for Accessible Design. This law references ASTM International standards for public playground surface system performance requirements for the accessible route and when this route falls within the equipment use zones. F is related to impact attenuation, F gives the minimum surface area requirements around the equipment where falls are likely to occur, and F gives some guidance to assess accessibility issues related to propulsion and maneuverability for a wheelchair user to go across the accessible route.
Owners need to use care in assessing the results of this test method as it relates to the playground impact attenuating surface system and the needs of the wheelchair user. In addition to the impacts these standards have on playground design form and function there are voluntary standards and guidelines that are the best industry practices to follow when it comes to not just the form and function of the play environment but the safety of the intended users. These must be applied to the design and manufacture of public play equipment, its age appropriateness, equipment layout, signage requirements, installation, maintenance, inspection, and documentation.
The challenge facing the owner of a public playground or the designer of the facility is to reduce the number and severity of playground hazards while providing essential risk-taking activities.
It appears the marketplace is struggling with their duty to meet the above-stated challenge because of their own interpretation of what types of risks are acceptable and necessary versus what constitutes a hazard.
Each year there are an estimated , playground-related injuries in the United States alone. Get down! When my youngest child was at nursery there was a weekly visit to the local beach or playpark. What children need is to be surrounded by adults who support not only regular outdoor play, but also encourage healthy risk-taking.
In an increasingly digital world where children are spending less time outdoors, especially in a second wave lockdown, there is more opportunity than ever before to watch over our children and warn them off risky activities.
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