small beginnings: a not so risky situation

This is a story about my developing practice around risky play.

I can see a couple of three year old children are riding on low to the ground, hard plastic trikes. They had found out they could "bang" into the edge of the sandpit. I felt myself becoming very anxious - I remember telling them to stop. I want to believe that I was echoing other staff there - I was, after all, the intern - but might it have been my own anxiety and stress that made me say it?

In retrospect - there was no way they were going to hurt themselves doing this. So why was I anxious? Because the trikes were new and might get damaged? Because allowing the children to "bang" into things would reflect badly on me as a carer? As if my capitalist, money driven, insecure perspective is more important than the child's risk-taking, sensory-seeking one.

I mean, it must be super fun to come to a sudden stop! For the same reason we play on swings - the moment when you're stationary before you fall backward or zip forward again - or ride rollercoasters - the sensation of your body catching up with physics, as what your riding changes direction, speeds up, slows down, and tugs your physical body around. And the whole-body jolt accompanying it is so precious from a developmental perspective, since whole body sensation that often isn't "allowed" or is restricted because it comes from jumping, "falling" or rolling off things, tugging and pulling heavy things and rough-housing.

Small steps towards allowing risky-play.