Risk has its rewards!
From time to time we see articles in the news debating playground safety. Some say playgrounds needs to be safer but increasingly the question is being asked, “Are we making playgrounds too safe?”
The danger of over protecting our children is that they lose the benefits of risk taking. We need to take risks to grow. We need to understand boundaries. And every now and then we need to step over those boundaries to understand limits.
Today’s iPad edition of The AGE Newspaper, featured an interesting article from the New York Times. In the article it was suggested that by removing elements of fear from playgrounds we risk creating children who are generally more fearful. The article referred to research that concluded “While some psychologists – and many parents – have worried that a child who suffered a bad fall would develop a fear of heights, studies have shown that the opposite pattern: a child who’s hurt in a fall before the age of nine is less likely as a teenager to have a fear of heights. By gradually exposing themselves to more and more dangers on the playground, children are using the same habituation techniques developed by therapists to help adults conquer phobias, according to Professor Sandseter and a fellow psychologist, Leif Kennair, of the Norwegian University for Science and Technology.”
In Australia, we have a robust set of safety standards which address key risk issues and set a reasonable balance. These Standards continue to evolve.
