A Child’s Right

Healthy childhood development through outdoor risky play: Navigating the balance with injury prevention by Émilie Beaulieu and Suzanne Beno
Canadian Paediatric Society, January 25, 2024

Risky play has so many documented benefits for healthy child development that robust uptake of the concept seems intuitively inviting. This report not only brings us documentation, beautifully building the case for children to experience time and settings that give them healthy choices, but also speaks directly to the adults who will implement, supervise, and defend outdoor playtimes as foundational blocks of learning for children from early years into the teens. Balancing the benefits of risk-taking with the possibility of injury is seen as a challenge worth taking up from the point of view of this report from the Canadian Paediatric Society, authored to help professionals everywhere make careful, logical, and supported choices and changes in school-based programs so that children can exercise their ability to choose safe play. This report has it all: the statistics on injury prevention, a down-to-earth look at risk vs. hazard, and a how-to on design features that increase physical, cognitive, and social growth potential in outdoor play. The best part of this paper is its position of respect for children and their capacities, judgment, instincts, and experiences. Here is an elegant medical defense that smoothly slides into place to support educators interested in exploring how the UN declaration on a child’s right to play can more meaningfully leap off the page straight into our schools’ playgrounds.