The Importance of Risky Play

Just the sound of the phrase “Risky Play” may make many parents cringe, even more so, if you know your child has a disability.  It is essential to a child’s development but before I get into that, let’s look at the types of risky play children engage in.

Children’s risky play can be put into five categories.

• Great Heights – Kids love to climb up trees, up shelves, any structure that will allow them to feel like they have a view from an airplane.
• Rapid Speeds – Kids have a need for speed. They love riding bikes, skateboards, down big hills, swinging really high and fast. Kids love the wind in their hair and the feeling of flying.
• Ruff and Tumble – Children love to wrestle, and roll around on the ground. There is great satisfaction in being able to out power someone. It is also allowing them to find their bodies in space by the extra pressure on different parts of their body.
• Dangerous tools  & Dangerous Elements – It is an honor to be allowed to hold/use such things, and a thrill of the possibilities of getting hurt.
• Disappearing  – Young kids love to hide and seek it a temporary thrill of being separated from their peers and other adults. You will find very young kids will hide in twos and threes because they are not quite ready to do it on their own.

Risky play is important for every child even children who are not mainstream for many reasons some of which I outline below with examples from my experience.

• Builds physical strength, coordination, and proprioception (where their bodies are in space) – climbing trees, jumping off ledges all build muscles.
• Allows your child to learn to identify and measure the risk. Is it worth it?
• Allows your child to build a growth mindset (that things take practice and failing is learning).
• It teaches them to be persistent and builds stamina.
• Allows them to realize their boundaries.
• Allows your child to problem solve.

I have some really great examples that model several of these. A little guy at a preschool where I work a few mornings a week is one of the older yet smaller kids in the class and he really wanted to be able to hang off the monkey bars but he couldn’t reach. He worked through this over the course of a couple of weeks.

Day 1 – He was upset, mad and pouty that he couldn’t reach. (Deal with the frustration)

Day 3 – He found something to climb on so he could reach.  (Problem-solving)

Day 6 – He could hang on the bar for a good 25 seconds before losing his grip. (Strength building, proprioception of shoulders).

Day 9 – He saw another child actually move across the monkey bars and he wanted to but couldn’t quite let go. (Negotiating the risk)

Day 12 – He builds up the courage to let go of one hand, and reach for the next bar and then after several tries he would add one or two more bars until he could go all the way across. (Coordination, growth mindset)

All along the way the leaders encouraged him but didn’t help him in any way. He learned a valuable lesson over the course of a couple of weeks.

Another is young boys love to roll around on the ground crawling all over one another. Wrestling is allowing proprioception for many parts of their bodies they don’t often engage. They are learning their boundaries between this are fun and this has gone too far. Ruff and tumble play also teaches them to speak up for themselves and teaches the others who are playing with them to have the self-control to stop.

So what are you as the Parent going to during this Risky Play?

Try some of the following strategies:

Bite your tongue – calling out “Be careful” can instill unnecessary anxiety and breaks the child’s concentration making it more likely he or she may have an accident.

Step back – take the approach most daycares do. If they can’t reach or negotiate the situation themselves, it means they are not ready and encourages a growth mindset.

Wait to save the day – meaning when kids are wrestling over a toy let them figure it out on their own. As long as they are not hurting the other child see if they can come to a compromise on their own.

Watch them Smile – There is no better reward for a child than letting them take a risk and succeed.

 

There are numerous reasons for fidgety kids and I will touch on that in a future post. For now here are some of my more successful tips for getting your fidgety child to sit relatively still:

Hard work breaks

These allow children to expend their extra energy so they can calm their bodies and focus. Some of the ones I use most often include:

• Rearranging the classroom or bedroom
• Animal walks ( walk like a crab, a bear, jump like a rabbit)
• Trying to push the wall back an inch.
• Carrying or pushing a box of toys/ books/laundry basket to where they belong
• Scooter board rockets ( lay or sit on the scooter board and push with feet off a wall)

Sensory break  

I have heard the term sensory break used for hard work breaks in some article but I feel they are similar but not the same.  I feel sensory breaks or just that more sensory oriented like swing, bouncing which will affect a child’s vestibular system. Some of my favorite sensory breaks include:

• Swing
• Bouncing on a ball
• Yoga
• Beanbag squishes ( have the child sit in or under a bean bag)
• Body sock time ( a spandex bag that I child can sit/stand in and push on the sides)
• Crashing ( my crash mats are mattress covers filled with foam leftovers in it)
• Earphones with calming/ or stimulating music
• Over stimulation breaks ( sitting in a darker room, ear protection)
• Darkroom with projector images on the wall

Feet fidgets

Feet fidget easy, cheap and effective way of allowing a child to fidget in place. The ones I use most often include:

• A pool noodle strung on a bungee cord and connected to the desk legs or the legs of a chair.
• A thera band from the dollar store wrapped around the desk or chair legs
• I have put microfiber mop heads under children feet ( child has to be in socks for this to work) for them to rub their feet along
• A piece of foam for a footrest

Balls, wobble seats

I have mixed emotions about wiggle seats. I agree they work for some children with strong core muscles but for those that don’t, it is not a great base of support for them to do their work. Children without strong cores tend to wrap their feet around or rotate their pelvis to stabilize themselves which is not beneficial either.  If you are using a wiggle seat it doesn’t need to be expensive. Here are just a couple of ideas:

• A deflated ball instead of expensive wobble cushion
• Piece of foam on their seat
• Ball in a create to stabilize it

Finger fidgets

There are so many fidgets out there from fidget spinners and cubes, to worry rocks and pencil toppers. In my life skills group, I use them often but mine don’t cost a fortune. The group’s favorites include:

• Two paper clips looped together
• Playdoh
• beads on a pipe cleaner
• nuts and bolts
• balloons filled with flour, cornstarch and water, sugar, marbles or water beads
• fabric marble mazes

I do use some bought fidgets also like:

• Fidget spinners
• Hand putty
• Squishy dollar store toys
• Chinese finger traps sown shut with marbles inside

We all Agree Sleep in Important, Why?

Good sleep is essential so many reasons.   Sleep supports growth because the majority of Child’s growth hormones are released during sleep.  Heart health is also dependent on good sleep because it protects damage from stress hormones and cholesterol build up. Children who wake several times a night tend to have higher cortisol levels making it hard to fall asleep and have been linked to higher weight, diabetes and heart disease. Much like adults when a child is tired their body craves higher fat or higher carb foods and are just as guilty of looking for comfort foods when they are upset. It’s not their fault, all their life they have been trained that food fixes things, ie “ohh you hurt your self will a lollipop make it feel better?” Good sleep helps a child deal emotionally with what the world throws at them better. Still to this day my mom always says when I am upset, “ Hun, go to bed, get a good night sleep and everything will look better in the morning” and she is usually right. Sleep also plays a vital role in your child’s immune system, by produces proteins that fight infection, illness, stress and make us feel sleepy. Sleep deprivation and ADHD share many of the same characteristics such as increased impulsiveness and increased distractibility which can look like ADHD.

Create a Good Sleep Environment

Make sure your child’s room is for sleeping. Ideally, we want homework, screen time, play to happen in a playroom or somewhere other than the bedroom. This creates a connection of relaxation, sleep, and calmness to the room. If you can’t keep the whole room “play free”, try just their bed.  The room should also be dark because lights can keep the children up. Growing up my parents had blackout blinds in our rooms so even though it was still light out at 8 pm in the summer our rooms where dark.

Create a Routine

Have a bedtime routine which may start right after dinner with no screens or only an hour depending on the age of your child. The light from the screens affects your child’s body to produce melatonin which is a hormone that helps your child sleep. Your routine is up to you but most families have one that includes a reading stories together, a healthy snack (so your child doesn’t wake up hungry) and brushing teeth. The other important things are to try and keep the routine happening at the same time regardless of whether there is the school in the morning or not.  It allows your child’s body to get into a regular sleep rhythm.

Outside/ Active play

The more energy your child expends during the day the better they will sleep it is as simple as that. It can be hard sometimes when children are drawn to tv, and tablets but creative parents have gotten around it. I know one mom who makes her children earn TV minutes for every hour outside they play they earn 15 minutes of TV time.  Family outings such as to go for a walk, play at the park or go for a swim at the pool on the weekends is a good way to increase the whole families level of activity. Sports are a great way to keep your children active; they build social skills and sportsmanship as well. I would caution you to not have your children too scheduled. Valuable things happen when your child is bored, but that is a conversation for another day.

Control Liquid Intake

Watch what and how much your child is drinking and when.  Beware of drinks full of caffeine, or tons of sugar that will keep them up. Waking up for the washroom can be a huge disruption in a child’s sleep.

Control Screen Time

For some children, the blue light from a tablet, television, or gaming device can stimulate their brain and keep them from sleeping. Children need more screen-free time then Adults do before bed so I have heard of some families doing no screens after dinner.