Safety At Play

8 Pages 2093 Words

Childhood is the period of life that enables children to become competent and develop into confident adults. The role of an adult will influence the child significantly and during childhood, a child relies on the adult to care, protect and support whilst they learn and gain knowledge of the world. Part of the role and adult plays in a young child’s life is that of looking out for risks that a child may not anticipate. This is a natural instinct but can be taken to extremes by restricting a child from certain things. Restricting activities or disallowing a child from doing something because of fears about what might happen, blocks the development of a child intellectually which in turn causes social, emotional and physical deteriation.
An adult needs to understand that it is impossible to shield a child from all risk whether it is part of their development, physically, emotionally or intellectually. All children need and want to take risks. A child will learn through risk and the ‘’learning has to be grounded in their own personal, social and emotional development.’’ (Jennie Lindon 2003).
The lessons they need to learn focuses on confidence and ability. They need to feel confident enough to deal with mistakes and to take risks with the confidence that it is all right not to know something. Confidence is also needed to learn new words in order to express opinions or doubts in situations. Thus developing language and communication skills.
Taking risks encourages a child to explore limits, experience new situations and develop their capacities, from a young age. Gaining new experiences extends problem solving, planning and reflection skills, which are essential to life. Children would never learn activities such as walking or climbing stairs unless they were motivated to respond to risk.
Risk taking is often found in play situations where a child will learn through the play activities they partic...