Research on risky play is still relatively new, but what is known thus far is that children can benefit in numerous ways from engaging in risky play behaviors. This study adds to what is already known by investigating how often children engage in risky play behaviors. This study also considered differences in risky play behaviors in relation to gender, age, and environment (indoors vs. outdoors).
Eight early childhood education and care (ECEC) institutions in different parts of Norway participated in this study. Their indoor spaces were similarly equipped and met the Norwegian norm of 4 square meters of indoor space per child. Their outdoor environments ranged from small playgrounds to large natural environments. All of the outdoor playgrounds included some fixed playground equipment and a variety of manipulable play materials such as buckets, tricycles, and spades. Data for the study consisted of 1878 randomly recorded two-minute videos of 80 children in indoor and outdoor environments during periods of the day when they were free to choose what to do, where they wanted to be, and with whom they wanted to interact. Analysis of the data included second-by-second coding of several categories of risky play.
Results showed that almost all of the children engaged in some form of risky play during periods of free play. Overall, risky play constituted 10% of children’s activity during the observed time for free play. Play involving heights was the largest type of risky play observed. The next two types were “play with speed†and “rough and tumble†play. These two types were almost equal in terms of frequency. The extent to which individual children engaged in risky play varied from four not engaging in risky play during the recording periods to one spending almost 30% of the time engaged in risky play activities. There were no significant differences in risky play between boys and girls overall, although boys tended to engage in more rough and tumble play than girls. With increasing age (from 3 to 6) there was a slight increase, of about 2.5% per year, in the amount of risky play. While some risky play occurred indoors – particularly rough and tumble play – a significantly greater amount occurred outdoors, particularly in the "high speed" and "great heights" types of risky play. These specific findings suggest that the indoor environment with its tumbling spaces and the outdoor environment with its open spaces and slopes provide affordances for different types of play.
This research shows that risky play is attractive to children, and that, when given the opportunity to choose freely, children engage in risky play at the same level as other typical types of play. These results highlight the importance of (1) providing the type of physical environment (usually outdoors) that encourages risky play and (2) giving children the freedom to choose their own play activities.
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