Related Experiment Video
Updated: May 25, 2025
Four Temporary Waterslide Designs Adapted to Different Slope Conditions to Encourage Child Socialization in Playgrounds
Published on: December 9, 2022
Children's Risky Play and Resilience: Perspectives of Emergency Care Practitioners
Michelle E E Bauer1, Laura Cunningham2, Meghan Gilley3
1Department of Pediatrics, Faculty of Medicine, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada.
Insights
Children’s risky play helps them develop resilience and coping skills. Medical professionals believe supervised risky play builds emotional and physical capacity for future challenges.
Area of Science:
- Child Development
- Pediatric Safety
- Risk Assessment in Play
Background:
- Understanding parents' views on children's risky play is crucial for injury prevention and recognizing developmental benefits.
- Limited research exists on the perspectives of medical professionals regarding children's risky play and resilience.
- This study explores emergency room practitioners' insights into children's engagement in risky play.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the perspectives of emergency room practitioners on children's risky play.
- To understand how these medical professionals view the role of risky play in child development and resilience.
- To gather insights relevant to injury prevention and safety needs in the context of children's play.
Main Methods:
- A risk and sociocultural theoretical lens guided the research.
- Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 56 doctors and nurses across Canada.
- Participants were parents of children aged 4 to 13 years.
Main Results:
- Thematic analysis revealed three key themes: learning perseverance through failure, developing distress tolerance, and fostering child autonomy.
- Practitioners identified that exposure to challenging play enhances children's ability to cope with stress and potential injuries.
- Key outcomes include improved emotional and physical coping mechanisms developed through risky play.
Conclusions:
- Medical professionals perceive that children exposed to challenging and exciting play are better equipped to handle stressful situations.
- While severe injuries necessitate intervention, adults should encourage children to explore boundaries during risky play.
- Findings suggest a balance between ensuring safety and allowing children the space for independent exploration and risk-taking in play.
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.
Related Concept Videos
01:08Obedience
01:17Ethical Dilemmas I
Let us explore some examples to understand the potentially complex moral decisions nurses face.
Take the case of caring for minors, particularly in areas related to reproductive...
01:30Socioemotional Development during Infancy
Primary Temperament Types
01:28Erikson's Theory on Socioemotional Development during Childhood
The first four of Erikson's eight...
01:30Specialized Care Centers and Settings-II
Rural health centers are specialized care facilities in remote locations with very few medical personnel. The primary care providers who run the centers are mostly Registered Nurse Practitioners. Here, emergency treatment is provided to critically ill or injured patients before they are transferred to the closest hospital. Fortunately, due to advancement in technology, many rural healthcare facilities and professionals have easy access to diagnostic and treatment...
03:34Theory of Romantic Attachment in Adulthood