Its a finding thatDr.
Today’s children are over-scheduled, there’s a lot of pressure on them.
Stolberg says that the study of risky play mirrors a wider trend in the field.
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The researchers connected their findings with a need for schools to integrateadventurous playinto their planning decisions.
They also noted that this was especially important for kids from low-income households.
Kevin Stinehart, a fourth-grade teacher in South Carolina, uses opportunities for risky play in his classroom daily.
Integrating Risk into Play Structure Design
A lot of play structures tend to follow the same mold.
But I’m not super impressed by that mindset because I don’t think that it has staying power.
For him, playground design when it comes to mental health boils down to a couple of questions.
Is this a place where a kid emotionally can stretch themselves?
Is there an opportunity in this space for them to emotionally feel safe?
For Stinehart, his forest classroom includes an overturned tree that kids can treat as a balance beam.
So they raked a big pile of leaves and started jumping into the leaves at first.
But it was cool to see how they kind of egged each other on in a good way.
Kids should be encouraged to play a little outside of their comfort zone.
