Let’s admit it. As parents and educators, we spend a lot of time worrying about children’s safety. Every scrape, fall, or bump feels like a risk to be managed. And yet, those very experiences are often the ones that teach children courage, judgment, and resilience. Risky play is not reckless. It is thrilling and exciting, engaging children with uncertainty and challenge while allowing them to test their limits and learn from minor failures.
During my years as an educator, and in my interactions with parents and fellow educators, I have found that most adults trace their happiest childhood memories not to a worksheet or a screen, but to moments of play, often outdoors, that carry a hint of danger. Climbing trees without knowing how high was too high. Racing bicycles down uneven roads. Exploring the long way to a friend’s house, heart pounding with both excitement and uncertainty. These moments were thrilling not because they were reckless, but because they demanded judgment, courage, and trust in oneself.
This type of play once formed a natural part of childhood. Today, those experiences are quietly disappearing from children’s lives. Across the 1980s and 1990s, a global cultural shift moved parenting toward curating a childhood that has become increasingly supervised, structured, and risk-averse.
The shift did not happen without reason. Traffic increased. Urban spaces changed. Parental anxiety rose alongside social and legal pressures. Notably, what has changed is not only how much freedom children have, but also how adults interpret injury itself. A scraped knee, a fall, or a bump was once seen as an expected part of growing up. Today, the same incident is often viewed as a failure of supervision or care. Injury, even minor, is increasingly unacceptable. Risk is equated with danger, and danger is expected to be eliminated.
Yet risk and hazard are not the same. A hazard is something a child cannot reasonably see or assess. Risk, by contrast, is visible and negotiable. It allows children to make judgments, feel fear, adjust behavior, and learn limits. Removing all risk in the name of safety removes the opportunity for children to develop the very skills that help them stay safe.
In Nepal, as in many other contexts, parents are increasingly fear-driven, hyper-cautious, and intolerant of accidents, particularly in the care of someone other than themselves. Schools, responding to this fear, are pushed to design environments that are “risk-proof.” Yet in making childhood safer, we may be stripping it of something essential.
Risky play is thrilling and exciting, involving uncertainty and the possibility of manageable dangers. It includes climbing to heights, moving at speed and impacts, rough-and-tumble play, exploring spaces where children might get temporarily lost, using tools considered dangerous, interacting with elements like water or fire under supervision, taking chances in unfamiliar situations, and even watching other children take risks. This last form, called vicarious risky play, lets more cautious children engage cognitively with risk without direct participation.
A growing body of research shows that risky play supports the development of executive function, emotional regulation, risk assessment, and resilience. Studies led by researchers such as Ellen Beate Sandseter in Norway and Mariana Brussoni in Canada have found that children who engage in risky play show lower levels of anxiety, better ability to manage fear, and stronger problem-solving skills. Large-scale reviews indicate that while risky play may result in minor injuries like scrapes or bruises, it does not increase the likelihood of serious injury.
In fact, the opposite may be true. Children who are denied opportunities to assess and manage risk early often lack the skills to do so later. Risk competence is built gradually, through repeated exposure to uncertainty, decision-making, and recovery from mistakes. Risky play also fosters emotional growth. When children test their limits, feel fear, and then realize they can cope, they build resilience. They learn that discomfort is temporary and manageable. These lessons are foundational for mental health.
This is especially relevant today, as rates of childhood anxiety and emotional distress continue to rise globally. Research suggests that avoiding risk may actually increase fear, as children never develop the confidence that comes from facing and overcoming challenges. Risky play offers children a safe space to practice handling uncertainty, something life will inevitably demand of them. We must allow children to experience uncertainty, not because it is comfortable for us, but because it is essential for them.
The question is no longer whether risky play is beneficial. Research has answered that. The question is whether parents and educators are willing to confront their fears and trust children’s own capacity and appetite for challenges to guide the risks they take. Implementing risky play is not simple, especially in school settings. One accident, even a minor one, can quickly lead to questions of blame or legal complications. Under such pressure, the instinct to remove all risk feels logical. I have personally established and run a school for almost two decades, and even as an educator who understands the importance of risky play, I struggle with confidence in integrating it. This tension is real, and it cannot be ignored.
Childhood was never meant to be perfectly safe. It was meant to be deeply formative. The goal is to keep it as safe as needed, not as safe as possible. So, I leave you with a question: can we create a culture, at home and in schools, that values children’s ability to navigate uncertainty, while still protecting them from genuine hazards? Can we truly normalize risky play and allow children to grow through the very challenges we often fear?
