Daring To Grow: Promoting Healthy Risk Taking In Childhood

In this thesis, I discuss the topic of risky play and risk taking in childhood. I argue that risky play is a developmentally appropriate and natural endeavor for children of all ages, especially based on observations of various school settings around New York. Risk play encourages children to interact and create boundaries, connect with one another, be decision makers, create private play spaces, work through big feelings of vulnerability, and understand that they are capable. Research in the field points to all these and more benefits to incorporating healthy risk taking in classrooms. I discuss numerous teaching practices to work towards the goal of creating a place where children are allowed to be as safe as necessary, not as safe as possible, while valuing this desire children have to engage in “dangerous” play.