Let Your Children Risk a Little: The Case for Risky Play

I often see the quote “What if I fall?  Oh, but my darling, what if you fly?” used as a caption on various social media outlets, usually underneath a photo of an adorable little human, and posted by a proud mama who wants nothing less than the world for her child.  Every time I see this quote it gets me thinking about how whimsical and beautiful it sounds in theory, as words on a page often do, but what is the real world manifestation of this, and what does it mean for our children?  Do we, as a society, value the ability of flight that comes from letting our children engage in risk taking play behaviors, or have we become too afraid of letting them fall? 

I grew up in a household where I was allowed to wander around the sewers with my friends, we climbed huge mountains of rocks and collected the best ones from construction sites, we played in the gutters while it rained, climbed tress as high as we could, and rode our bikes as fast as possible, with no hands of course (and in my case falling off and knocking out my two front teeth).  We chased each other, wrestled, and jumped off the high dive even when were terrified to do so.  It was all always worth the risk.  These forms of risky play are so very important to the development of young children. 

From an evolutionary perspective this type of play has proven to be invaluable, and teaches children an infinite amount of important things.  Their bodies grow and adapt to learning new physical skills as they build with new materials, learn how to use a hammer, whittle with a knife, or utilize rarely used muscle groups while climbing a tree.

  They learn how to regulate their emotions when something doesn’t go their way, or they get hurt while playing rough.  For example, during rough and tumble play (which I let my childcare kids engage in, though I know most providers don’t), if one child gets hurt accidently they may become angry.  However, they know that in order to continue the fun they were having they must be able to overcome that anger.  If they decide to lash out and retaliate, the play is over.  If they can learn how to deal with that anger (usually with my help) in a constructive way, the fun can continue.  

They learn how to work together and manage a situation in order to find the safest way to achieve their goal.  I see this taking place every single time I take the kids to play in the nearby creek.  We go over the rules, and they become the most helpful and responsible friends and siblings.  They help each other over larger rocks, they call out warnings such as “be careful right there Yards, that was a slippery one!”.  They learn about the powerful rush of water in certain spots, and stop to take notice of how when the water goes faster its more difficult for them to move through it, versus where the water is slower.  

Last week I tore out some old stones from my garden bed and decided to break them up into smaller pieces to see if the kids would be interested in building with them (which of course they were).  I had three different adults say to me “Arent those too heavy for them?”, “What if they drop them?”, “What if they trip over them while trying to carry one?”.  These are all valid questions, and of course we all want to keep our kids as safe as possible, but they NEED to be able to have experiences where they are able to push their abilities to new levels, which is exactly what they did. 

They never cease to amaze me with their capabilities, and this time was no different.  I asked them to sit down, explained to them that these stones are very heavy and that they need to lift them slowly and place them down slowly.  I told them they had to wear shoes and that if they felt one of the stones was too heavy for them that I would come grab it from them.  I told them that they need to focus and be very careful while piling them, and that if one of the toddlers started walking around them, they had to stop until I moved them. 

They followed every single one of these rules with laser like precision.  I was bursting with pride at how even my most easily distracted child was able to focus, and place each brick perfectly in its place.  They were also beaming with pride as they showed me their carefully constructed castles.  It mean so much to them that they were able to take on this adult-like task.  They told me all about how they were strong construction workers, how they would use the concrete to hold their castles together, and they praised the work of their friends.  It was truly a wonderful thing to watch.

Unfortunately though, I believe this kind of play is allowed less and less.  As a society I believe that we are beginning to see the harmful consequences of play deprivation.  “Over the past 60 years we have witnessed, a continuous, gradual, but ultimately dramatic decline in children’s opportunities to play freely, without adult control, and especially in their opportunities to play in risky ways. Over the same 60 years we have also witnessed a continuous, gradual, but ultimately dramatic increase in all sorts of mental disorders, especially emotional disorders, in children.  When you look back at the six categories of risky play (great heights, rapid speeds, dangerous tools, dangerous elements, rough and tumble, and disappearing/getting lost) in the 1950s, even young children regularly played in all of these ways, and adults expected and permitted such play.  Now parents who allowed such play would likely be accused of negligence, by their neighbors, if not by state authorities.” (Peter Gray PHD-Psychology Today)

While we may not be able to draw a direct connection between the lack of play and emotional disorders, there have been studies conducted on both rats and monkeys that would lead one to believe that there must be some correlation. 

“Researchers have devised ways to deprive young rats of play, during a critical phase of their development, without depriving them of other social experiences.  Rats raised in this way grow up emotionally crippled.  When placed in a novel environment, they overact with fear and fail to adapt and explore as a normal rat would.  When placed with an unfamiliar peer, they may alternate between freezing in fear and lashing out with inappropriate, ineffective, aggression.  In earlier experiments, similar findings occurred when young monkeys were deprived of play (though the controls in those experiments were not as good as in the subsequent rat experiments).  Such findings have contributed to the emotion regulation theory of play—the theory that one of play’s major functions is to teach young mammals how to regulate fear and anger.  In risky play, youngsters dose themselves with manageable quantities of fear and practice keeping their heads and behaving adaptively while experiencing that fear.  They learn that they can manage their fear, overcome it, and come out alive.” (Psychology Today)

Research has continuously shown that risky play (within reason) is of the utmost importance and I would urge parents, caretakers, and providers to research the benefits, and watch in amazement at what your children are capable of when they are given the freedom to play.

 

Showing Gratitude & Spreading Love (How are you Teaching your Little Ones?)

This is a post that I’ve been wanting to (meaning to) write since February, but to be honest, I’ve been busy since February. I’m still busy, but I thought that Thanksgiving would be the perfect time to pose this question to all of the seasoned parents, and to discuss the small ways in which we have been trying to give back.

I have been taking care of children for a very long time, and have always felt a responsibility towards them to help show them the importance of recognizing the gifts we have, and appreciating the people around us. Now that I am a mother myself, I feel that responsibility even more so. With the holidays approaching I have found myself having moments, of what I can only describe as panic, at the mere thought of how to even begin teaching my daughter what is truly important, at a time when it’s so easy to get lost in the selfishness of it all.  My husband and I have already made the decision that we will be very limiting in what we give our daughter as far as Christmas and birthday gifts. This year she is only one, so it is not yet an issue, however, as she gets older I want to combat the commercialism of the season, with the idea that our heads and hearts should be focused on giving back, and showing our gratitude, instead of focused on what we want but don’t need. So my question to you (and its a heavy one) is how do you instill this in your young children? What are the small things you do on a daily or weekly basis, and what do you do on a larger scale around the holidays?

The reason I have been wanting to write this since February is because for Valentines Day I decided that we would take the week to practice random acts of kindness. We did things such as making notes for our elderly neighbors and leaving them a box of candy. We thanked our mail lady (who is always so sweet to the kids) with a note and few boxes of Milano cookies. We took gifts to the park and left them for kids in the neighborhood, and while we were there we picked up trash, which is something I try to make a habit with them. We also made feeders for the birds and squirrels, and hung them in the yard.  

I haven’t been able to do as much as I would like to for Thanksgiving, because I’ve been battling bronchitis for about 2 weeks. However, one of my awesome daycare moms has stepped in and saved the day. The town we live in has a small movement called Frederick Rocks, where people paint and leave rocks around town with all kinds of messages on them. This mom gave us a ton of pre painted rocks, along with all of the supplies we needed!  The kids colored them with paint markers, and I wrote quotes and sayings about being grateful and giving thanks. Tomorrow we will place these all around our park and local community. We will also be taking brownies to three of our neighbors, who are always so kind to us, and have donated an abundance of things to our daycare. We will also be drawing and writing about the things we are thankful for. I’m very curious to know what everyone else will be doing to show their children the importance of gratitude this week? I know I will be grateful for all of your insight! 

Happy Thanksgiving to Everyone!

Process Centered Art & Learning for Young Children

I have written previously about process centered art, and the value that the practice holds, however, I realize that for many people this may be a new model of what children’s art (and subsequent learning) “should” look like.  I wanted to give a bit of further explanation, along with a recent real life example of when focusing on the artistic process gave way to some collaborative learning.  I believe that the key to understanding and embracing this worthwhile method is recognizing that whatever it is that the individual child creates through THEIR process is what that child’s art (and subsequent learning) “should” look like.  This is a very dissimilar concept to what the American education system teaches.  Many educational institutions, such as the NAEYC, advocate for process based art and learning, especially for preschoolers and kindergarteners, yet much of the research continues to be ignored by our education system.  Most schools tend to concentrate mostly on the PRODUCT of children’s art (and as a whole, their learning), which holds very little significance for young children.  Product focused art is exactly what it sounds like, it is “creating” something where the value lies in the end product.  However, the end product is generally one that has been given to you.  It is something that someone else has already created and you are merely replicating their work, and being told by an adult how to do so.  From what I have observed, this type of art, a recreated craft or picture, is often more for the benefit of parents,  to show them that their child has “created” something that is recognizable to them.  Still, this recreation often holds little worth or meaning to the child who made it.  The largest benefit of these types of crafts for young children is that they get to hone their fine motor skills.  This however is something that children can also achieve through process focused art, along with the other innumerable benefits that go along with the practice.

Just to reiterate and refresh, here are just a few of the wonderful things that can be learned and gained while focusing on the process instead of the product:

• Social and Emotional Development: It is relaxing and theraputic, Children get to express their emotions, they feel a sense of accomplishment and success, they can use symbols to replace real objects which represent ideas and feelings, and they learn to find meaning and satisfaction in the present.
• Language and Literacy Development: Children discuss their art with adults and peers as they are creating, and they can add print to their art, or dictate what they would like it to say
• Cognitive Development:  They can make comparisons of texture, color, mediums, etc., they can plan, they can make predictions, they can learn to problem solve and make decisions.
• Physical Development: They use small motor skills to paint, write, glue, mold, and make collages.

It may seem difficult to know where to begin with process focused art, which is why I wanted to give a real example of a collage that we created last week.  This was created by two of the one year olds and one of the two year olds I have in my care.  It was really wonderful to watch them work on this.  Children are often capable of so much more than they are given credit for, and this collage was a perfect example of that.

The first thing that we began with was a wide variety of materials.  The children were able to freely choose which materials they wanted to use, and how they would like to use them.

I started this activity with both watercolor and tempra paints, different colored paper, paint brushes, sponges, several types of yarn, cotton balls, felt, pieces of differently textured and patterned fabric, contact paper, tubing, and q-tips.

I let them pick through the materials and they both said that they wanted to paint, so I put out the water colors and tempera paint and let them use their hands, brushes, sponges, cotton balls, whatever they decided on.  They spent well over an hour painting, and using the different types of tools and mediums available to them.

Once the two year old had finished painting I asked her if she would like to use anything else on the table, and she said that she would like to use the scissors.  I let her choose what she would like to cut and she choose paper.  She practiced using the scissors for a bit, but became frustrated, so I showed her that she could also use her hands to rip the paper, which gives a different effect than cutting.  She loved ripping the paper and once the one year old saw her doing this, she wanted to join in, so they both spent some time doing that.  The one year old also started teasing the cotton balls and yarn apart.  Throughout the rest of the process they cut yarn, ripped fabric, and cut fabric.

As they worked we discussed how colors mix to make new colors, we talked about the shapes and colors of the felt that I put out for them, we also sorted the shapes, we talked about the sound ripping paper makes, but how “ripping” yarn makes no sound at all.  We talked about all of these things along with much more.

                                    

I had contact paper taped to the wall, with the sticky side up, and when they were finished with all of the above I put all of the materials that they had painted, cut, teased, and ripped into two baskets and showed them how they could stick the materials to the contact paper.  They LOVED this so much that they worked quietly together for nearly another 40 minutes.  The whole project lasted about 2 1/2 hours and they were entirely engaged and active the entire time. The two year old couldn’t wait to show her mom and seemed to be so thrilled about what they had created together.   It was really a perfect example of what process art can help children learn and achieve.  We were so successful that the next day I repeated parts of the process with the second one year old, we and added to our collage.

I hope that you will try something similar with your little ones and help them to experience some hands on, in the moment, messy, extensive learning!