Risk and Forest School
Today, I’m going to be looking at risk and Forest School. Now, this is sure to be a topic that I shall come back to in future episodes as it’s complex and pretty fascinating!
I would argue that a particular contemporary issue facing young children in the modern world is their participation or rather lack of, in play that is considered risky. Initially, risky play is defined as play that is thrilling and exciting which involves a risk of physical injury if miss managed. Basically someone could very well need a plaster!
Risky play is by no means a static construct meaning it is ever changing. There are no fixed outcomes, limiting adults ability to control and structure experiences, stirring evolutionary mammalian instincts. It is uncontested that a certain level of protection for children during play is a good thing and warranted.
However, there is mounting concern that adults in western societies have become increasingly overprotective of children partaking in risky play, framed within an oppressive always present ‘culture of fear’. Such over-protection has produced significant restrictions on the outdoor play experiences of childhood compared to previous generations.
Just think back to your childhood? Were you ever in?
Children naturally wish to seek out risky play opportunities in which to satisfy developmental drives and better their innate qualities.
By preventing this, key child development benefits both physically and mentally, helped through risky play are infact harmed. More worrying still is the under development of emotional processing.
Risky play deprivation can also contribute to a fear, discomfort and dislike of the environment, reduced sense of personal control and emotions, increased social isolation and a reduction in happiness; all of which are associated with anxiety.
In short, it is timely and paramount to reflect on adult caregivers overprotective approach towards safety and to consider its impact on healthy child development.
Risky play arguably prepares a child, for future survival. Through exposure to risky play, children are able to test and become familiar with its possibilities, their own limits and abilities. How they interact within a given perceptively risky play situation involves a stand off between two oppressive emotions; exhilaration and fear.
It is this exhilaration, adrenaline arousal and ‘scarryfunny’ feeling that drives children to habitually seek out risk in their play. It takes time and practice for children to master risks and succeed at new challenges, which are further motivation for their experimentation and great development of life long skills, such as perseverance.
Such experiences build to form an ever evolving portrait that a child relies upon as they grow into adulthood. It is perhaps best viewed as ‘training for the unexpected’. When children are successful at taking risks, identifiable merits are seen within character such as self esteem and self worth. Further evidence to support children’s exposure to risky play is the belief that it improves perception of risk and mastery of risky situation.
Risky play is also beneficial in the development of anti phobic traits. It is logical to suggest that if children are able to face their fears, balance them and indeed thrive off them in play, it is likely they will not be afraid in those situations outside of play that may pertain to a life threatening situation, improving self regulation and essentially survival.
There are occasions children are unsuccessful when taking risks, to learn about their abilities, which may lead to minor injuries such as cuts and bruises. It takes time for children to master risks and succeed at new challenges.
By the very nature of risky play the opportunity for injury is increased if play is mismanaged or ill judged, however minor injury holds developmental benefit for young learners. Through facing adversity of failure, children build hardiness, self reliance, self motivation and emotional competency benefiting them in the future. This said children are often able to self regulate risk so that it is appropriate to their age and abilities.
They really don’t want to get hurt. They almost just know when something is a bit to far beyond them. It is often when they are helped into a risky play situation such as into a tree by an adult where risky play becomes well more dangerous. If a child cannot get themselves into a tree there is even less chance they will know how to get themselves out creating a nasty situation.
However, it is the fear of injury that has led adults to limit exposure to such play type as to ensure children’s safety and protection. Adults often view children as vulnerable and in need of protection and guidance to minimize potential injury, which breeds fearfulness and adult over dependency.
There are conflicting debates amongst adults as to how much risk children can aptly manage and who will be blamed if injury ensues, thus, such adults tend to err on the side of over-protection, perhaps to the unintentional detriment of a child’s developmental benefits.
It is pertinent to point out that there is a parallel discourse of risky play that permeates the overprotection of early childhood and that would be ‘children at risk from the absence of risky play itself’ . Therefore it would appear from the outset that adults are positioned in a quandary of encouraging positive risk within children, but also ensuring their safety from significant harm
Enter Forest School. This movement emphasises and explicitly endorses, in some cases, inherently risky activities and play such as fire lighting for developing resilient, resourceful and creative children. Children are seen as capable individuals who are able to assess and respond to their own levels of risk in a supported environment,
Positively, such engagement in Forest School programs has been shown to shift child and parents beliefs about risk toward increased engagement. This has done some to help alleviate certain adults concern about overly protective, increasingly sterile environments, thus Forest School could conceivably be the antidote to overprotection.
There are different stages of severity of risk at Forest School and these go from Comfort Zone, to Play, to Challenge, to Adventure through eventually to misadventure.
It is the role of the Leader to understand not only the presence of the risk but also the benefits and opportunities to learn new things that the child will be engaged in, for example, play in mud.
Now, when we look at risk we are defining the likelihood of harm coming to that child and how things can be put into place to minimize the chances of these harmful outcomes happening. On the opposite side of this scale is a hazard, which is a thing that will cause serious harm or even death and cannot be adequately minimized either therefore hold little benefit.
Hazards, are kept well out of Forest School as you can imagine. In relation to muddy ground, the risk is that someone will slip over and potentially break or twist something.
However when we consider the benefits of walking on muddy ground and environmental awareness, we notice the consequences of the weather, the seasons and the natural river channels, or that our boots slide about, and if it’s really deep it’s interesting properties and the way it behaves.
By each child becoming mindful of the muddied ground and change that happens, then it can increase communication and language, it can develop empathy and social skills, self-awareness and regulation. As a result of regulation it can allow us to problem solve and make decisions.
So, the presence of the risk, even though creating potential for harm is also surrounded by many benefits and positive outcomes. It is then upto the Forest School leader to develop focused, repetitive strategies with the group to minimize the chance of someone hurting themselves, but maximizing these benefits. And this will very quickly aid learning of risky processes and allow children to use and adapt these and become skilled at managing risk appropriately.
Children need to engage with risk in order to learn new skills and to embed knowledge and understanding in their cognitive and emotional centers of the brain.
Challenge during outdoor play and at Forest School where deep-level learning opportunities are presented allow the brain to process and take in a wide range of situations and environmental information very rapidly, allowing children to test their own limits of physical, intellectual and social development
The media has a lot to answer for with regards to influencing parental decisions and choices but that is a whole other debate. Forest Schools, is truly, not the only process where risk can be learned, but is a good one, and as it relates to the research that suggests that children should have a right to play, to experience the world and to grow in understanding, then nature is the prime place to learn in a holistic way about risk, as apposed to discussing the aspects in the classroom.
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