Skip to main content
NCBI home page
Wiley Open Access Collection logoLink to Wiley Open Access Collection
. 2025 Feb 26;51(2):e70056. doi: 10.1111/cch.70056

Children's Risky Play and Resilience: Perspectives of Emergency Care Practitioners

Michelle E E Bauer 1,✉, Laura Cunningham 2, Meghan Gilley 3, Ian Pike 4
PMCID: PMC11862869  PMID: 40007454

ABSTRACT

Background

Parents' perspectives on children's risky play can provide researchers with insight into their injury prevention and safety needs and support researchers in understanding how challenging and exciting play may positively shape children's physical, cognitive, and social development. To date, however, the perspectives of parents who witness severe injuries as part of occupational experiences, and who have medical training, are lacking within this scholarship. In this study, we worked with emergency room practitioners to understand their perspectives on children's risky play and resilience.

Methods

A risk and sociocultural theoretical lens informed our approach and we conducted semi‐structured interviews with doctors and nurses (n = 56) across Canada who had children between the ages of 4 and 13.

Results

Findings from a thematic analysis were threefold: (1) learning to persevere through failure, (2) developing distress tolerance, and (3) supporting child autonomy and independence.

Conclusion

Findings indicate doctors and nurses can perceive children as more emotionally and physically equipped to cope with stressful and potentially injurious situations across their lifespan if they are exposed to challenging and exciting play during childhood. Further, while the practitioners believed it was important to intervene in play which could result in children experiencing severe injuries, they believed adults should support children in testing their physical and cognitive boundaries during risky play without adult interference.

Keywords: childhood, injury, play, resilience, risk

Summary.

  • Building resilience by learning to self‐navigate failure, stress, and conflict in childhood play, is perceived as an important marker for life‐long independent threat navigation and conflict awareness

  • Coping with fear during childhood risky play is believed to bolster children's distress tolerance and emotional regulation

  • Health practitioners and parents should support children's autonomy by listening to and addressing children's unique safety and play needs in communications with them

1. Introduction

Play is considered a child's right (United Nations 2024), and it can afford children joyful opportunities to engage in explorations of their everyday physical and social worlds (Bento and Dias 2017; Xial et al. 2023). Risky play, where children encounter thrilling and novel environments (Brussoni et al. 2012), can expose children to obstacles which test their use of critical thinking skills and motor functioning as they attempt to successfully overcome challenges (Dinkel et al. 2019; Gull et al. 2018). Problematically, although risky play can bolster children's problem‐focused coping skills, threat mastery, and emotional regulation (Sandseter et al. 2023), it is known to be restricted by parents in Euro‐Western nations (Waddington and Pearson 2022). These restrictions are attributed in part to societal shifts in child injury prevention concerns and “good” parenting ideals over the past six decades, where there have been intensifications in child risk anxiety (Dao and McMullin 2019), a heightened awareness for the preventability of injuries (Beaulieu and Beno 2024), and increased parental blame for child injuries (Dao and McMullin 2019; Kennair et al. 2018). To evade societal stigma, parents can attempt to “childproof” children's play by over‐supervising and over‐structuring children's activities (Dao and McMullin 2019; Kennair et al. 2018), which could result in children becoming risk deficient and lacking in opportunities to build resilience (Ball et al. 2019; Sando et al. 2021). Resilience, commonly positioned as the capacity to cope with adversity and stress (Goldstein and Brooks 2021; Gull et al. 2018), can be built through children's attempts to solve problems without adult intervention and navigate failures during activities (Goldstein and Brooks 2023). Risky play can provide children with unique opportunities to build resilience, as it can function as a “practice arena” (Sandseter et al. 2023, p. 130) for testing cognitive and physical skills independent of adult intervention (Gull et al. 2018). Researchers thus work with parents to understand their perspectives on risky play, to explore opportunities for supporting children's healthful development.

To date, while a wealth of research considers the risky play perspectives of parents from different geographic regions and within various social roles (MacQuarrie et al. 2022; Sak et al. 2024), there is a lack of examination of the perspectives of parents who are emergency care practitioners (ECPs). Their perspectives can provide unique insight into the potential beneficial and harmful consequences of risky play for children, as they can witness and treat injuries on a more recurring basis. Given recent evidence demonstrating the potential for exposure to injuries to shape parental play perspectives (Bauer et al. 2022; Niehues et al. 2015), it is important to consider how direct/indirect exposure to children's severe injuries (e.g., those requiring hospitalization) (Bauer et al. 2022) could shape parents' perspectives on risky play and children's development of resilience. ECPs can have an instrumental role in children's recovery from and treatment for play‐related injuries, and they can be societally perceived as a source of medical expertise (Staum and Larsen 2006). Their perspectives on safety and play may thus be shared with others to inform their child play‐safety practices. They can provide researchers with novel insights into the potential developmental benefits of risky play for children. In this study, we thus explore the question, “What are ERPs perspectives on children's risky play and opportunities for children to develop resilience?”

2. Risk and Sociocultural Theory

We employed a risk and sociocultural theoretical lens to the study (Lupton 1999). Conceptualizations of and attitudes towards “risk” as an area of inquiry have been examined within child play and developmental contexts, in part as response to intensifications towards child protection in Euro‐Western nations (Dodd and Lester 2021; Jackson and Scott 1999), and more broadly towards risk anxieties globally (Henwood et al. 2008). As “risk” is perceived as the likelihood of potential harm in many societies (Cevher‐Kalburan and Ivrendi 2016; Jackson and Scott 1999; Lupton 1999), some theorists have posited that the study of “risk” is shaped through modern and insular perspectives towards safe‐guarding populations against any and all perceived or actualized threats (Lupton 1999).

In this study, we used risk and sociocultural theory to inform our examination of parents' perspectives on risky play and resilience. In doing so, we sought to understand how the language that parents used framed their perspectives and provided insight into their attitudes towards children's independence, emotional regulation, and overall development. Importantly, in acknowledging that risk perceptions are not universally shared across all populations (Lupton 1999), we reflected on the potential sociocultural factors shaping the perspectives of parents who are emergency room practitioners. We considered, for example, the complexities of parents negotiating risk within many life roles, including as parents who practice safety strategies within a Canadian society with heightened risk awareness, where child injury prevention is a pervasive discursive concern (Harper 2017; Sandseter et al. 2023), and within medical and health roles, where they may feel an intensified responsibility towards the care of others (Bourgault et al. 2015; Søvold et al. 2021).

3. Methods

This study is part of a larger research project exploring doctors' and nurses' perspectives on their occupational experiences in emergency rooms and their play, safety, and injury perceptions across Canada. It was approved by the University of British Columbia's C&W Research Ethics Board under #H23‐00102. It was   supported through the first author's award of a post‐doctoral fellowship by the BC Children's Hospital Research Institute and the first and third authors' receipt of a clinical and translational research seed grant from the BC Children's Hospital Research Institute.

Parents were contacted through email correspondence by the last author and prospective snowball sampling was used for recruitment through previously established professional networks across Canada with partnerships with the BC Injury Research and Prevention Unit and the BC Children's Hospital Research Institute (Stratton 2019). The first 10 parents were initially identified by the third author through their close professional networks as fitting recruitment criteria and were subsequently selected as initial contacts by all authors. These individuals were perceived to be open to participating in research studies, available for participation in the short term, and interested in discussing their perspectives on the given topics. Parents could choose to share the recruitment advertisement with others in their network, with many parents opting to disseminate the information via email to doctors and nurses they worked with and/or knew who fit recruitment criteria. On average, the parents chose to share the recruitment information with an additional four parents in their professional networks. Doctors and nurses who had emergency room experience within a 2‐year period from the time of data collection and at least one child between the ages of 4–13 were invited to participate. It was not a requisite for parents to be involved in emergency room roles for a specified amount of time in order to participate in the study. Thus, time spent involved in emergency room roles differed for each parent (e.g., a few weeks to a few years). In total, 40 doctors (mothers = 30, fathers = 10) and 16 nurses (mothers = 14, fathers = 2) from across Ontario (n = 26), British Columbia (n = 21), Alberta (n = 5), Quebec (n = 3), and the Northwest Territories (n = 1) participated in individual interviews over Zoom (Zoom Communications, Inc. 2025), with one individual participating in‐person in British Columbia. Interviews ranged from 30 to 90 min and were conducted by the first author. Semi‐structured interviews were selected due to the affordance of probes to delve deeper into parent responses and experiences (Ruslin et al. 2022). Examples of a question from interviews included, “Do you think there are any developmental benefits associated with play for children?,” while an example of a probing question included, “In what ways do you think the activity you're describing affords children with opportunities to build resilience?”

4. Thematic Analysis

We conducted a thematic analysis of the data resulting from interview transcripts (Braun and Clarke 2006), which provided us with a means to examine commonalities and differences in data. We progressed through six steps of analysis consisting of the following: (1) familiarizing ourselves with the transcript content and the parents' perspectives through reading and re‐reading the transcripts, while the first author reflected upon how data related to parents' conversations within the audio files of interviews; (2) developing initial codes for themes that aligned with similarities and dissimilarities in perspectives and language (e.g., shared commonalities of discussing the need for children to experience “risk” and “challenge” within conversations); (3) further reflections on how initial codes identified (e.g., “emotional regulatory benefits,” “resilience as perseverance”) related to more nuanced patterns in the data, such as play affording opportunities to cope with pain, fear, and anxiety; (4) developing themes aligned with shared perspectives that resonated with the topic (e.g., “benefits of encountering challenge”); (5) refining themes (e.g., “benefits of risk and challenge”) to clearly illustrate how parents' positioned play relative to affordances for resilience; and (6) exploring how the data collected, the themes identified, and the parents' experiences embedded within the manuscript, could enrich scholarship in the area of childhood play and resilience. The initial codes were identified by the first and second authors. The initial codes were derived from the data as they reflected overarching attitudes and beliefs of the participants towards the given topics of risky play and resilience. There were no discrepancies in coding. All authors were involved in developing themes. To practice reflexive strategies in analysing the data (Braun and Clarke 2019), we reflected on the generation of themes as a partnered process with the goal of illustrating parent experience. Codes and the process of constructing themes was a collaborative effort among all authors through back‐and‐forth conversations on the data, reflections on parenting experiences, and ongoing discussions within broader play scholarship. As two of the authors have children of their own, and one of the authors has children and occupies an emergency care medical role, the lived experiences of the authors provided guidance throughout the analysis into the potential tensions parents face as they attempt to support children's beneficial developmental opportunities while keeping them safe from harm within a Canadian context.

5. Results

Our analysis resulted in the identification of three themes: (1) learning to persevere through failure, (2) developing distress tolerance, and (3) supporting child autonomy and independence. Each theme is presented below with supportive evidence from parent interviews.

5.1. Learning to Persevere Through Failure

All of the parents believed it was important for children to engage in play where they could take risks and encounter challenge to build resilience towards injuries and fear‐invoking stimuli. They positioned “risk” as the potential for children to experience relatively minor injuries (e.g., scrapes and small fractures that would not require children to miss more than a month of school or play time). They perceived risky play as affording children with important opportunities to learn to persevere when they fail at a task. Brooklyn explained,

When I go and I watch [my daughter] horse back riding, I sit on my hands. I do not get up when she falls off the horse … I think that's really important that she learns the skill of getting back up.

Two thirds of the parents likened children's development of resilience to them learning how to “keep trying” after failure. They believed that it was important for children to learn to self‐cope with injuries they might experience. They further assessed whether or not the play was “risky” (i.e., associated with opportunities to learn to persevere) or “dangerous” (i.e., could result in severe injuries and required intervention). All of the parents said they would intervene if they assessed the play to be dangerous, such as when it involved activities resulting in injuries they knew contributed to a high prevalence/severity of emergency room visits (e.g., playing close to open windows). As Ella, a nurse from Ontario, explained, “If [the play is] going to [cause you to] break a bone or cause a big injury, then I'll intervene. But for the most part, if [my children are] just going to fall, I'll let them learn.”

Half of the parents discussed their awareness of health and safety position statements on the benefits of outdoor play and risk for children. They believed that learning to overcome novel risks and challenges during play can help children become more connected to their outdoor worlds. Rose, a Dene nurse in the Northwest Territories, explained that her views on children's risky play and resilience are shaped by cultural beliefs about land and human connection. She explained,

We call it having a flexible brain and being able to be adaptable … I think the more flexible your brain can be and the more different ways you can think about solving that problem is very helpful. And I think also with being outside or playing outside or exploring … and touching the earth or the sticks and the stones ‐ I think it brings a sense of calm and grounds you … It's like an Indigenous way of being … I think that's part of playing outside and problem solving and building your confidence.

All parents believed that perseverance through failure and minor injuries was important to learn to instil confidence in children that they may overcome challenges.

5.2. Developing Distress Tolerance

The parents believed risky play can serve an important role in children's development of distress tolerance. They discussed how, when children fail at play‐related tasks, they can learn how to calm themselves down when they are angry, such as when they climb a play structure and fall because they do not yet have the capacity to reach for a stabilizing structure. The parents believed that challenging and exciting play can help normalize encountering daily life stressors. Vik explained,

I think that's a very valuable teaching lesson ‐ to put children in positions where they can actually feel fear … [Fear] teaches you about yourself. It teaches you how to respond to situations in life … I think it's really important to start that at a young age where they know where danger is and where it's too far to go. And not me or not a parent teaching them how to do that … That's probably what I actually see a lot in the emergency room are the kids who do not know that value [of pushing themselves too far] and get hurt because they do not know how to emotionally or internally regulate that response of where to push themselves.

There was consensus that resilience can be shaped by and shape children's development of critical thinking skills when they navigate uncertainty. Jo explained,

Resilience is independence for me and the ability to encounter an unexpected situation or feeling or interaction and being able to work through that, even if it's in a really messy way ‐ even if there are tears involved … I like [children] to understand that they are fine if they fall, even if it's a minor scrape or a bruise, that's okay and their life is not over. And I want them to understand that Mom and Dad and their parent are not going to rush to their aid immediately … It would [help with] interpersonal interactions [later on in life] where you are dealing with an unexpected situation between you and someone else and start feeling like, “Oh, this doesn't feel good. What can I do about this?”

The parents discussed the need for children to experience some fear, anxiety, and pain during play for developing resilience towards later‐life events such as interpersonal conflict, where children will need to cope with social stressors.

Some of the parents believed their role as a nurse or doctor may shape their children's attempts at regulating their emotional responses to injuries and pain experienced as a result of play. Sadie discussed a time when her daughter was playing at a sleepover with her cousin and injured herself. Afterwards, when she picked her daughter up, she said,

“Now what have we learned from this?” And [my daughter's] like, “You always said you shouldn't panic in an emergency. And I didn't panic. I held pressure on it, like you said you're supposed to. And Martha helped me, so I don't understand what the big deal is.” And I was like, “What? The big deal, Little Miss, is that you would have had a scar that would have been three inches wide on your forehead, because after 24 hours I can't close it.” She's like, “Oh, well, you never told me that.”

Similar to other parents, Sadie believed that children may attempt to overcome situations in ways aligned with the injury and safety education they receive from their parent, and children of medical and health professionals may be more likely to adopt safety practices if they know family and friends trust their parents' health and safety knowledge.

5.3. Supporting Child Autonomy and Independence

Two thirds of parents believed that North American society more broadly is too restrictive towards affording children opportunities to develop autonomy and independence through engagement in risky play. These parents believed that over‐structuring and over‐supervising children by, for example, not allowing them to select their own activities, can strip children of opportunities to develop self‐confidence and hone skills necessary to successfully overcome larger challenges over the course of their life. Mira said she challenges societal pressure she feels to restrict risky play for her son:

[Playgrounds] are safe for the most part. Yes, I have lots of broken arms that come through [the emergency room] from swings and monkey bars, but in general, [those injuries are] not going to be a harmful long‐term thing … But I think that when you have everybody saying, “Oh, you shouldn't do that” or “you can't have that,” it makes [children] cautious and scared and maybe not as willing to try new things.

Phil shared similar concerns to the other parents that children could become anxious if they are not afforded with opportunities to decide for themselves what is potentially risky or dangerous during play. He said,

I think there's this false belief that adults know better than children … [If] there's so much anxiety ridden in our society [towards child safety] that [it's almost] their normal from the start ‐ then [anxiety is] all they are going to know. And that anxiety is going to be kind of ingrained in them. And that's scary and sad.

Polly believed it was important for her daughter to decide for herself if she wanted to continue to play after experiencing a minor injury. She said,

The risky play helps [my daughter] learn how to trust herself and helps her learn how her body works and how she can respond to things in her environment. So, I think that has also helped some of her gross motor development by allowing her to climb and allowing her to use her independence and use her body to do those things at the playground … We got her a balance bike and she loved the balance bike … She slipped on some mud because it was still a little wet out and face planted right in the dirt. She cut up her face and she was all muddy and she was sobbing. And I was like, “Oh, this is horrible … let's just go home. I'll carry the bike.” And she's like, “No, I want to get back on my bike … I want to learn how to do it again better so that this doesn't happen again.”

The parents believed that engagement in risky play can support children in developing a life‐long positive sense of well‐being and autonomy in their decision‐making and identification of threats. Conversely, two thirds of parents were concerned that a deficit of risky play could result in less joy in children's lives and contribute to children developing anxiety disorders. Amaya explained,

I do not want [my children] to have an anxiety disorder … Because when you are taught that everything is a threat, then I could see how that would just become like a generalized worry that everything [is dangerous] and you would avoid things because you think that it's a threat, when really, it's not. It's just learning how to navigate a situation so that it's not a threat.

Tilly shared her perspectives on how limiting children’s affordance for risky play could result in negative developmental consequences:

The developmental years in early childhood are shaped by play, and the type of play that kids can engage in is going to build and promote resilience and problem solving and even to some degree, executive function and collaborative play and distress tolerance ‐ even if they are injured, you know, say they fall out of the trampoline and suffer an elbow dislocation and have to be in a splint over summer and then cannot swim. That distress tolerance is so important in the early years of a child's life. I think that society's tolerance for distress and risk has diminished over many years. I do not know if that is generational, [or] because of effective public health campaigns previously, [or because of] the changes with Covid‐19 and the changes in classrooms and sports and activity and interaction in person … But I really, really believe that we have gone a little bit backwards in terms of overprotecting our kids over the past, you know, 10 to 20 years … Kids are naturally curious and will naturally explore to whatever their limits [and what] their own comfort levels are. And I think we need to do a better job of facilitating that [independent learning] as parents and as society and obviously as medical professionals.

Tilly, similar to other parents, attributed risk‐restrictions in children's play to multiple societal shifts, including heightened awareness for potentially injurious activities and environments and intensified safety protocols, that require adults to consciously balance their promotions of safe and developmentally healthful play.

6. Discussion

A growing body of scholarship provides evidence for the importance of children taking risks, having fun, and experiencing joy and challenge during play, for maintaining normal progresses of age‐friendly cognitive and physical development (Gray 2020; Kennair et al. 2018; Sando et al. 2021). As play is considered a child's exploration of their world and serious investigation into life and happiness (Lillemyr 2009; Moore and Lynch 2018), the opportunities afforded or limited for child development through risky play, and the factors shaping these affordances and limitations, are essential to consider. We found that parents who are ECPs believed children need to experience challenge and failure during play to develop resilience towards fear‐invoking stimuli and minor injuries. The parents believed opportunities to encounter new features and obstacles and choose activities for themselves would help them learn to cope with fear, anxiety, pain, failure, and conflict over the course of their lives. They did not associate risky play with a high likelihood of children experiencing severe injuries (e.g., head trauma, spinal injury), and they challenged societal pressure to restrict risk in their children's lives. This is similar to findings with parents in non‐medical occupations, who perceive risk on a continuum, with high injury risk resulting from “dangerous” play (McFarland and Laird 2018; Niehues et al. 2015). In our study, however, parents' perspectives on play requiring medical and/or adult intervention were shaped through their experiences as emergency room practitioners, as they intervened in their children's play if they knew that the play activity had the likelihood of children experiencing a high prevalence of emergency room visits and pain.

The parents' perspectives provide insight into the ways in which “risk” may be socially negotiated among communities of health professionals more broadly, as a result of professional and interpersonal experiences with patients and family members. For example, findings suggest parents who have access to safety knowledge and training can use this information to resist subscribing to dominant child safety discourses they do not associate with fruitful developmental opportunities for their children. The parents did not subscribe to child safety discourses positioning children as vulnerable and in need of adult supervision at all times (Clark and Dumas 2020; Ungar 2009), and they instead resisted over‐supervising and over‐structuring children's activities for fear their children may be stripped of opportunities to reap the developmental benefits of learning to independently cope with challenges (Goldstein and Brooks 2021; Sandseter et al. 2023). For example, the information parents received through risky play position statements on the developmental benefits of risk in children's lives informed their decisions to allow their children to independently persevere during failure. This was illustrated through Brooklyn's experience with her daughter when her daughter fell from a horse and Brooklyn chose to “sit on [her] hands” instead of intervening. The parents' perspectives were further informed through their exposures to injuries in their occupations, as they discussed how they would intervene in children's play if they believed their children could experience severe injuries they witnessed in emergency rooms.

We argue that occupational cultures promoting safety information exchanges could shape parents' independent negotiations of affordances for risky play for their children. We posit exposure to an occupational culture which promotes “risk” as developmentally beneficial and thus a positive experience for children, and which simultaneously dissuades parents' promotions of activities which could result in severe injuries, can shape parents' negotiations of “risk” and “danger” in children's lives. Indeed, counter to traditional safety discourses of children as in need of protection from any safety threats (Jackson and Scott 1999; Lupton 1999), the parents in our study believed adults have a responsibility to prioritize children's positive development and thus allow them to become autonomous in their decision‐making. The parents in our study discussed their beliefs that children are capable of internalizing injury prevention and safety information passed to them by their parents, and they discussed how children can use this information to inform their independent coping practices when injured. Future researchers should thus consider how parents' negotiations of “risk” in children's lives more broadly may be shaped by the amount of time they spend in emergency rooms, as this was outside of the scope of the current study. It is possible that more time in emergency rooms could expose parents to a greater number and severity of injuries, and pain and emotional suffering. It is possible this exposure could result in their re‐assessment of support for risky play, despite access to information on the developmental benefits commonly associated with opportunities for children to engage in thrilling and exciting experiences (Brussoni et al. 2012; Xial et al. 2023).

7. Conclusion

Our findings from interviews with doctors and nurses across Canada suggest the parents believe risky play affords children with opportunities to develop resilience towards fear‐invoking stimuli and minor injuries, by strengthening their distress tolerance and teaching them to persevere despite failures. The parents believed children who have opportunities to engage in risky play may feel more confident navigating social conflicts later on in life and may be less likely to develop anxiety disorders. Parents stressed the need for adults to support children's autonomy in deciding what activities and injuries are “too much” for them to handle without adult support. In accordance with findings from research with non‐medical parents (Gull et al. 2018), developing resilience was positioned as important for maintaining child autonomy and teaching children “the skill of getting back up.” The parents believed adults should not perceive children as less knowledgeable about their safety and play needs, and they challenged dominant discursive productions of children as vulnerable, fragile, and dependent on adult knowledge about safety threats (Lupton 1999; Ungar 2009). We thus suggest familial dialogues include and respond to children's voices, so family members and the health practitioners working with them can identify children's unique play and safety needs. Further, our findings demonstrate that child safety and development information disseminated through public health networks can inform parents' play perspectives (Beaulieu and Beno 2024; Tremblay et al. 2015). We thus suggest health practitioners and policy‐makers strive towards expanding the reach and uptake of this information to families across Canada, and that more research be done to consider the diverse injury exposures of parents and how this exposure may shape play safety attitudes and beliefs.

Author Contributions

Michelle E. E. Bauer: conceptualization, investigation, funding acquisition, writing – original draft, methodology, writing – review and editing, formal analysis, data curation. Laura Cunningham: writing – original draft, writing – review and editing. Meghan Gilley: conceptualization, writing – review and editing, resources, funding acquisition, investigation. Ian Pike: writing – review and editing, conceptualization, resources, supervision.

Ethics Statement

This study was approved by the University of British Columbia's Research Ethics Board under #H23‐00102.

Consent

All participants provided their written consent to participate in this study and agreed with the use of their data for manuscript development purposes.

Conflicts of Interest

There are no competing interests to declare for this work.

Permission to Reproduce Material From Other Sources

This permission was not needed as no reproductions of materials are used in this work.

Acknowledgments

We extend our appreciation to the doctors and nurses who took the time to speak with us about their experiences in their occupations and with their families. We are grateful for your time and your voice in this research.

Funding: This work is supported through the first author's award of a post‐doctoral fellowship by the BC Children's Hospital Research Institute under #GR027911 and the first and third authors' receipt of a clinical and translational research seed grant from the BC Children's Hospital Research Institute under # GR029411.

Data Availability Statement

There are no data available for this work.

References

  1. Ball, D. J. , Brussoni M., Gill T. R., Harbottle H., and Spiegal B.. 2019. “Avoiding a Dystopian Future for Children's Play.” International Journal of Play 8, no. 1: 3–10. 10.1080/21594937.2019.1582844. [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  2. Bauer, M. E. E. , Giles A. R., and Brussoni M.. 2022. ““As Long as There's No Mortal Risk”: The Perspectives of Members in Combat Arms Occupations on children's Outdoor Risky Play.” Qualitative Research in Sport, Exercise and Health 14, no. 7: 1070–1081. 10.1080/2159676X.2021.2019097. [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  3. Beaulieu, E. , and Beno S.. 2024. “Healthy Childhood Development Through Outdoor Risky Play: Navigating the Balance With Injury Prevention.” Paediatrics & Child Health 29, no. 4: 255–261. 10.1093/pch/pxae016. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  4. Bento, G. , and Dias G.. 2017. “The Importance of Outdoor Play for Young children's Healthy Development.” Porto Biomedical Journal 2, no. 5: 157–160. 10.1016/j.pbj.2017.03.003. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  5. Bourgault, P. , Lavoie S., Paul‐Savoie E., et al. 2015. “Relationship Between Empathy and Well‐Being Among Emergency Nurses.” Journal of Emergency Nursing 41, no. 4: 323–328. 10.1016/j.jen.2014.10.001. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  6. Braun, V. , and Clarke V.. 2006. “Using Thematic Analysis in Psychology.” Qualitative Research in Psychology 3, no. 2: 77–101. [Google Scholar]
  7. Braun, V. , and Clarke V.. 2019. “Reflecting on Reflexive Thematic Analysis.” Qualitative Research in Sport, Exercise and Health 11, no. 4: 589–597. 10.1080/2159676X.2019.1628806. [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  8. Brussoni, M. , Olsen L. L., Pike I., and Sleet D. A.. 2012. “Risky Play and children's Safety: Balancing Priorities for Optimal Child Development.” International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 9, no. 9: 3134–3148. 10.3390/ijerph9093134. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  9. Cevher‐Kalburan, N. , and Ivrendi A.. 2016. “Risky Play and Parenting Styles.” Journal of Child and Family Studies 25: 355–366. 10.1007/s10826-015-0236-1. [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  10. Clark, E. , and Dumas A.. 2020. “Children's Active Outdoor Play: ‘Good’ Mothering and the Organisation of Children's Free Time.” Sociology of Health & Illness 42, no. 6: 1229–1242. 10.1111/1467-9566.13107. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  11. Dao, A. , and McMullin J.. 2019. “Unintentional Injury, Supervision, and Discourses on Childproofing Devices.” Medical Anthropology 38, no. 1: 15–29. 10.1080/01459740.2018.1482548. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  12. Dinkel, D. , Snyder K., Patterson T., Warehime S., Kuhn M., and Wisneski D.. 2019. “An Exploration of Infant and Toddler Unstructured Outdoor Play.” European Early Childhood Education Research Journal 27, no. 2: 257–271. 10.1080/1350293X.2019.1579550. [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  13. Dodd, H. F. , and Lester K. J.. 2021. “Adventurous Play as a Mechanism for Reducing Risk for Childhood Anxiety: A Conceptual Model.” Clinical Child and Family Psychology Review 24, no. 1: 164–181. 10.1007/s10567-020-00338-w. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  14. Goldstein, S. , and Brooks R. B.. 2021. Tenacity in Children. New York: Springer. [Google Scholar]
  15. Gray, P. 2020. “Risky Play: Why Children Love and Need It.” In , edited by The Routledge Handbook of Designing Public Spaces for Young People , 39–51. Routledge. [Google Scholar]
  16. Gull, C. , Goldenstein S. L., and Rosengarten T.. 2018. “Benefits and Risks of Tree Climbing on Child Development and Resiliency.” International Journal of Early Childhood Environmental Education 5, no. 2: 10–29. [Google Scholar]
  17. Harper, N. J. 2017. “Outdoor Risky Play and Healthy Child Development in the Shadow of the “Risk Society”: A Forest and Nature School Perspective.” Child & Youth Services 38, no. 4: 318–334. 10.1080/0145935X.2017.1412825. [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  18. Henwood, K. , Pidgeon N., Sarre S., Simmons P., and Smith N.. 2008. “Risk, Framing and Everyday Life: Epistemological and Methodological Reflections From Three Socio‐Cultural Projects.” Health, Risk & Society 10, no. 5: 421–438. 10.1080/13698570802381451. [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  19. Jackson, S. , and Scott S.. 1999. “Risk Anxiety and the Social Construction of Childhood.” In Risk and Sociocultural Theory: New Directions and Perspectives, edited by Lupton D., 86–107. Cambridge University Press. [Google Scholar]
  20. Kennair, L. E. O. , Sandseter E. B. H., and Ball D.. 2018. “Risky Play and Growing Up: How to Understand the Overprotection of the Next Generation.” In Pseudoscience: The Conspiracy Against Science, edited by A. B. Kaufman, andJ. C. Kaufman 171–194. MIT Press. [Google Scholar]
  21. Lillemyr, O. F. 2009. Taking Play Seriously: Children and Play in Early Childhood Education–an Exciting Challenge. IAP. [Google Scholar]
  22. Lupton, D. 1999. Risk and Sociocultural Theory: New Directions and Perspectives. Cambridge University Press. [Google Scholar]
  23. MacQuarrie, M. , McIsaac J. L. D., Cawley J., et al. 2022. “Exploring parents' Perceptions of Preschoolers' Risky Outdoor Play Using a Socio‐Ecological Lens.” European Early Childhood Education Research Journal 30, no. 3: 372–387. 10.1080/1350293X.2022.2055103. [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  24. McFarland, L. , and Laird S. G.. 2018. “Parents' and Early Childhood Educators' Attitudes and Practices in Relation to Children's Outdoor Risky Play.” Early Childhood Education Journal 46: 159–168. 10.1007/s10643-017-0856-8. [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  25. Moore, A. , and Lynch H.. 2018. “Understanding a Child's Conceptualisation of Well‐Being Through an Exploration of Happiness: The Centrality of Play, People and Place.” Journal of Occupational Science 25, no. 1: 124–141. 10.1080/14427591.2017.1377105. [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  26. Niehues, A. N. , Bundy A., Broom A., and Tranter P.. 2015. “Parents' Perceptions of Risk and the Influence on Children's Everyday Activities.” Journal of Child and Family Studies 24: 809–820. 10.1007/s10826-013-9891-2. [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  27. Ruslin, R. , Mashuri S., Rasak M. S. A., Alhabsyi F., and Syam H.. 2022. “Semi‐Structured Interview: A Methodological Reflection on the Development of a Qualitative Research Instrument in Educational Studies.” IOSR Journal of Research & Method in Education (IOSR‐JRME) 12, no. 1: 22–29. 10.9790/7388-1201052229. [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  28. Sak, R. , Şahin‐Sak İ. T., Öneren Şendil Ç., and Tuncer N.. 2024. “The Role of Parents' Gender in Parenting Attitudes and Parental Permission to Engage in Risky Play.” Early Years 1–17: 1–17. 10.1080/09575146.2024.2410435. [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  29. Sando, O. J. , Kleppe R., and Sandseter E. B. H.. 2021. “Risky Play and Children's Well‐Being, Involvement and Physical Activity.” Child Indicators Research 14, no. 4: 1435–1451. 10.1007/s12187-021-09804-5. [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  30. Sandseter, E. B. H. , Kleppe R., and Ottesen Kennair L. E.. 2023. “Risky Play in Children's Emotion Regulation, Social Functioning, and Physical Health: An Evolutionary Approach.” International Journal of Play 12, no. 1: 127–139. 10.1080/21594937.2022.2152531. [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  31. Søvold, L. E. , Naslund J. A., Kousoulis A. A., et al. 2021. “Prioritizing the Mental Health and Well‐Being of Healthcare Workers: An Urgent Global Public Health Priority.” Frontiers in Public Health 9: 679397. 10.3389/fpubh.2021.679397. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  32. Staum, M. S. , and Larsen D. E., eds. 2006. Doctors, Patients, and Society: Power and Authority in Medical Care. Wilfrid Laurier Univ. Press. [Google Scholar]
  33. Stratton, S. J. 2019. “Data Sampling Strategies for Disaster and Emergency Health Research.” Prehospital and Disaster Medicine 34, no. 3: 227–229. 10.1017/S1049023X19004412. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  34. Tremblay, M. S. , Gray C., Babcock S., et al. 2015. “Position Statement on Active Outdoor Play.” International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 12, no. 6: 6475–6505. 10.3390/ijerph120606475. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  35. Ungar, M. 2009. “Overprotective Parenting: Helping Parents Provide Children the Right Amount of Risk and Responsibility.” American Journal of Family Therapy 37, no. 3: 258–271. 10.1080/01926180802534247. [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  36. United Nations . 2024. “Convention on the Rights of the Child.” https://www.ohchr.org/en/instruments‐mechanisms/instruments/convention‐rights‐child.
  37. Waddington, K. C. , and Pearson E. S.. 2022. “Parental Perspectives on the Barriers and Facilitators to Risky‐Play in Children.” Journal of Multidisciplinary Research at Trent 3, no. 1: 104–123. [Google Scholar]
  38. Xial, R. W. , Leng P. W., and Mustafa M. C.. 2023. “A case study on kindergarten children’s social behaviors during peer play.” Journal of Research, Policy & Practice of Teachers & Teacher Education 13, no. 2: 40–58. 10.37134/jrpptte.vol13.2.3.2023. [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  39. Goldstein, S. , and Brooks R. B., eds. 2023. Handbook of Resilience in Children. Springer. [Google Scholar]
  40. Zoom Communications, Inc . 2025. “Zoom.” http://www.zoom.com/.

Associated Data

This section collects any data citations, data availability statements, or supplementary materials included in this article.

Data Availability Statement

There are no data available for this work.

Articles from Child are provided here courtesy of Wiley

RESOURCES