Studies reveal how risky play can benefit child development. But encouraging it can be a challenge for parents.

cross-posted from: https://feddit.dk/post/9969468

From the article:

Risky play is associated with greater resilience, self-confidence, problem-solving and social skills such as cooperation, negotiation and empathy, according to studies by Sandseter and others. When a study in Leuven, Belgium, gave four- and six-year-olds just two hours a week of opportunities for risky play over the course of three months, their risk-assessment skills improved compared with those of children in a control group2. In this study, the risky play took place at school, in a gym class and in the classroom.

    • czardestructo@lemmy.worldEnglish
      6·
      2 days ago

      College professor here: we’ve all seen a major decline in social skills over the last 4+ years, rather sudden and precipitous, so clearly not just the “normal” changes we’d been seeing over the previous two decades. Loss of basic functionality is the most glaring, like students who simply cannot bring themselves to talk to a professor face-to-face, or speak in class, or make a phone call, or make a decision about their own education, etc. etc.

      The most glaring last fall was an entire class of mine that would arrive early and sit in the dark…despite my explaining how to turn on the lights (i.e. the wall switch by the door). When pressed they collectively said they were “afraid they’d get in trouble” for turning on the lights (despite my telling them to do so) and were afraid to “do anything that would draw attention to them” like being the one person to turned on the lights. So next month with my next group of freshmen we’re going to have a talk about basic life skills on day one, starting with turning on the classroom lights when they arrive.