[00:00:12.160] – Speaker 2
Well, hey, everyone. I’m Chris Tompkins, and welcome to the Shaping Our World podcast. My goal is to invite you into a conversation that will leave you more confident in understanding and inspiring the young people in your life. Each episode, we talk with leading experts and offer relevant resources to dive deeper into the lives of our youth today. Today, we have a really interesting guest on the show. Dr. Mariana Brussoni is a developmental psychologist and professor in the Department of Pediatrics and the School of Population and Public Health at the University of British Columbia. She is the director of the Human Early Learning Partnership and an investigator with the British Columbia Children’s Hospital Research Institute. Mariana’s award-winning research examines child injury prevention and children’s unstructured matured outdoor play, including the risks that come with it. Her focus on the benefits of risky outdoor play to child development means that she works with parents, caregivers, and educators to bring risky play back into children’s lives. I think a lot of parents will find what she has to say fascinating because it seems so opposite to what we typically try to do, which is protect our kids from risk. This is a great conversation in which Mariana offers a lot of ways in how we can feel more comfortable in letting our kids experience risky play and really unpacks the benefits of this to children and their development and their futures.
[00:01:42.080] – Speaker 2
Let’s dive into the conversation with Dr. Mariana Brussoni. Before we meet our guest, a quick word about an opportunity at Muskoka Woods. Starting as a staff member here, I found it to be more than just a job. I discovered a pathway way to personal and professional growth. We are committed to intentional staff development, providing training, and building a network that can propel your career forward. Imagine working where you’re nurtured to grow with access to amazing facilities and staff care events. If you’re seeking a role that prepares you for what’s next, visit jobs.muskokawoods.com for more details. Now, let’s get into the heart of our show. Welcome, Mariana. It’s great to have you.
[00:02:29.330] – Speaker 1
It’s great to be here.
[00:02:30.570] – Speaker 2
Yeah, and I’m so looking forward to this conversation. The topic we were saying as we were getting going. Topic is near and dear to my heart and our heart at Muskoka Woods, so I’m really thrilled that you’ve joined us today.
[00:02:41.570] – Speaker 1
It’s going to be a fun time.
[00:02:43.000] – Speaker 2
So as we get going, our podcast is called Shaping Your World. And so we want to know what shaped your world when you were growing up. What were the biggest influences on you as a teenager?
[00:02:53.010] – Speaker 1
Well, I was a big reader, so definitely books swallowing books whole. But we had some family, friends who were really outdoorsy. I think, especially in terms of this topic, they really had a big influence on me because they took us everywhere, hiking and in the outdoors. That really grew my love of nature and being outside.
[00:03:14.410] – Speaker 2
Can you remember any significant trips you did when you were growing up?
[00:03:18.080] – Speaker 1
Well, I grew up in Calgary, so we spent a lot of time in Banff and in that like, Louise, Jasper, that area. Lake Minnewanka. Just so lucky to be to experience all that.
[00:03:31.620] – Speaker 2
Well, our Canadian listeners will know what you’re talking about. But if you’re listening in from anywhere else, make sure you Google Lake Louise and Jasper in those areas, and then you’ll know exactly what Mariana is talking about. What’s shaping your world today? What do you like to do for fun? Are you still outdoorsy and getting out? Tell us a little bit more about that.
[00:03:49.250] – Speaker 1
Well, again, I’m lucky to live in Vancouver, and we have these beautiful mountains and the ocean right next to us. I spend a lot of time outdoors, whatever time I can. And even at work, we try and have our meetings as walking meeting outdoors. So certainly the outdoors and certainly my family. I’ve got two kids, and so very relevant to my research, thinking about children and parenting and what do I want for them. So, yeah, all of that has been a big influence.
[00:04:18.900] – Speaker 2
You mentioned your work and research. Can you tell us a little bit about what you’re doing to shape the world of kids today?
[00:04:26.770] – Speaker 1
Yeah. Well, what we’ve been up to, and just to give a bit of background, so I’m a developmental psychologist, but for years and years, I was doing injury prevention research, which is really important. But what threw me on my current journey is that I was concerned that we were actually keeping kids too safe, that we were too overprotective in our approach to children, and that as a developmental psychologist, I was also getting more and more concerned about what kids were missing out on. Then I started doing research on risky play in the outdoors and why kids need it, which is what I’ve been working on for the last 15 years or so.
[00:05:04.910] – Speaker 2
Well, and it’s going to be the backdrop of our whole conversation today. And so I’m looking forward to learning alongside our listeners all about what you’ve discovered along the way and what you’re thinking about. And I think it’s a bit of a really relevant topic today for us. And so, like you said, you study risky play and the benefits around children and all that type of stuff. Can you talk a little bit about what makes the element of risk, specifically beneficial for kids? Why is risky play something that’s beneficial?
[00:05:40.750] – Speaker 1
Yeah. I guess it gets back to some of the challenge in injury prevention is that risk was seen as equivalent to danger or hazard and something to be gotten rid of, to be minimized at all costs. But what that loses out on is the understanding of that there’s risk everywhere and that just like anybody else, kids need to learn to navigate that, that they can’t and shouldn’t be protected from all risks, and that some risk is good and positive and people seek it out. I mean, you can think of something as basic as learning to walk. That’s an inherently very risky activity and yet absolutely essential to child development. You can take that and build on it. That’s when kids are really young. But those kinds of situations situations and lessons apply throughout childhood. And so through play, and risky play in particular, kids can get exposure in situations that are relatively safe to managing risk, to understanding what they’re comfortable with, how far they can push themselves, to figuring out where they’re willing to go and what they’re willing to do, and just to be able to get that capacity to understand that risk is not necessarily a bad thing, that it can be something that can bring a lot of joy and wonder to life rather than something that should always be avoided and a cause of anxiety.
[00:07:09.050] – Speaker 2
Yeah. I love that idea of activities that we need to develop having some risk in it. When I heard you talking about in childhood, I think that even goes into adolescence when we let our kids start to drive. That is an inherent risky activity, but one that we know that’s essential for people to be able to do, to navigate the world around them. What do you think happened socially for us that as a group, that we started to engineer risky play out of our kids’ lives? Growing up, I remember my parents seemed less concerned about where I was playing. I was able to leave for the day and ride my bike at all hours, not really knowing where I was or what I was up to. And likewise, I know our producers was telling me at our kids’ school, they’re only allowed to play with soft of tight balls now in the schoolyard for fear of the risk of head injuries. And tetherball is completely out of the question. So what do you think has happened as a society, as people who are navigating the decision making around this either corporately at schools or individually as parents in the local playgrounds and on our streets?
[00:08:21.160] – Speaker 1
Yeah, it’s a complex question, and there’s a lot of elements that have led to where we are now. But There’s a few things maybe I’ll highlight to bring it out to people, and I think that people will recognize. We really point to the ’80s, in particular the late ’80s, as a time when we really started noticing these kinds of trends happening. In particular, this move towards intensive parenting. So this is an approach to parenting where parents are like, Well, I need to be more involved in my child’s life to make sure that they succeed. And this wasn’t happening in a vacuum. It’s not like All of a sudden, parents decided that this is the way to do things. It was happening in the context of a couple of serious recessions that really impacted the prosperity of your typical middle class household in the ’70s and ’80s, and parents realizing that their kids had to get more education and attain more than they had at the similar age in order to even be able to have a standard of life that was comparable to what they had become accustomed to. Parents were like, Oh, well, I better make sure that my kid gets into the right school and they’re in the right activities and so on.
[00:09:35.880] – Speaker 1
There was also proliferation at that point of parenting advice books quite different from earlier. Parenting even became a verb. It really wasn’t a verb before that. You had this movement towards the idea of a good parent being one who oversees their child’s activities, who keeps them safe so that they shouldn’t be unsupervised and they should be in adult-led activities that enrich their brains and so on. But along the way, we lost sight of what kids really miss out on and all of the things that we were giving up on by taking out, for example, even just outdoor play and the importance of kids just hanging out outside, and especially kids being able to engage in risk.
[00:10:27.820] – Speaker 2
Is there a correlation between the lack of risky play and a decrease in outdoor play in general? We had Dr. Leigh Vanderloo, the Director of Research for Participation, on the show last season, and the report card on physical activity for Canadian children and youth that they put out each year revealed that our kids received a D plus on overall physical activity. With only, I think, 39% of children and youth meeting the National Physical Activity Guidelines, which is around 60 minutes of moderate to vigorous activity per day. Do you think there’s a correlation there? How are these things connected? Can you comment a bit more on that?
[00:11:07.100] – Speaker 1
Yeah, they’re intimately connected. Sometimes I don’t even bother saying risky play. I just say outdoor play. Because risky play is… It’s going to emerge. If you have an environment where kids can play outdoors and they can do so in ways that they choose, risky play will emerge, and it’ll emerge quickly. It’s not that they’re mutually exclusive. And so absolutely, as I mentioned, this trend towards a decrease in prioritizing kids, just being outdoors and hanging out with their friends is related to what Dr. Vanderloo was telling you about. And certainly in our own research, we found that kids are more physically active, not only outdoors, but also when they’re engaged in risky play. They’re much more engaged in the play. They sustain it longer, they move their bodies in different ways. So even from a physical perspective, it’s extremely beneficial.
[00:12:04.580] – Speaker 2
Is that lack of outdoor play in our kids’ lives uniquely Canadian or North American, or is this something we’re seeing as a whole in different areas around the world?
[00:12:14.460] – Speaker 1
Lots of issues with this in many different countries. I would say that it’s a bigger issue in more Western countries, but in Canada and in North America, in particular, we’re amongst the most concerning There’s less of an issue in, for example, Scandinavian countries who really have an ethos of kids being outdoors.
[00:12:37.120] – Speaker 2
Yeah. And I think once that takes hold culturally around, it’s hard to combat that. At Muskoka Woods, outdoor play by an extension, outdoor learning is a huge part of what we do. And we’ve seen and know that it helps build confidence and resilience among our kids and helps them learn to work as part of a team, which are essential life skills that they carry with them into adulthood. I have a two-part question, and I’m going to adopt a little bit or move away from our original questions we put out. Can you tell me about the impact of outdoor play that kids have, that it has on kids in your studies? What are the benefits of outdoor play for development, not just for who they are today, but who they’re becoming? Then second part is, can you talk about the communal nature of outdoor play? Because that’s one of the things we’ve seen is kids at camp are doing it together and helps them with important life skills that are socially, teamwork, things like that. So what are the overall benefits or the impact of outdoor play on kids? And then a little bit about what’s the communal nature of outdoor play and how does that factor into the benefits, but also the willingness or desire for kids to do it?
[00:13:58.010] – Speaker 1
Yeah, I think I can answer both those questions at once. So one of the ways that I find easiest to explain to people what the benefits are is really to take them back to their own favorite childhood play memories. And so we’ve done this with all sorts of people in all sorts of different contexts. And what’s really striking is that the vast, vast majority are outdoors in these favorite play memories, and many of those are taking risks. So then you ask them, Okay, so why was that memory special to you? What do you remember? They talk about a sense of joy and fun and freedom and being away from adults’ prying eyes and feeling like they could do what they wanted, how they wanted, and hanging out with their friends and figuring out together, what are we going to do? How are we going to do it? Negotiating things, resolving disputes, and setting goals together and working together to meet those goals. And nobody telling them that inside voices. They could run and jump and shout and move their bodies. And because the outdoors is such a vast space, there’s more space and there’s more variety.
[00:15:11.260] – Speaker 1
So the outdoors is changing constantly, even within a day, but within different seasons and so on. So just the infinite possibilities of what can happen outdoors. We know that outdoor play is not the same as indoor play. It’s quite unique. Then we ask people, Okay, so what do you think you got out of it? If you do that with yourself in your own mind, the research backs up intuition. You’ve got kids who are moving their bodies in ways they can’t endure. We already talked about physical activity. There’s physical literacy and physical movement skills. You’ve got kids who are working with each other to plan things, to resolve disputes. That’s social emotional learning. They’re making goals. They’re keeping the attention on those goals, and they’re seeing them through. That’s executive functioning skills. They’re managing risks. They’re failing and they’re succeeding. So they’re learning risk management skills, but they’re also learning that failure is good, that you need to fail lots of times before you succeed, and that the world doesn’t end when you fail, that you can handle it. So there’s a sense of self-confidence and resilience and so on. And so really, the more we learn, we even know that outdoor play is good for eye health.
[00:16:32.350] – Speaker 1
So the more we learn, the more we are amazed by how important it is.
[00:16:37.370] – Speaker 2
Yeah. And I hear often about when you’re thinking about wellness, being outside, vitamin D, the sunlight. Does that factor into that as well? Are there some physiological benefits from outdoor play?
[00:16:52.990] – Speaker 1
Absolutely. So if you think back to the COVID pandemic, and certainly in my province, we were really encouraged to go outside. Now, why was that? Part of that was just reduce the spread of disease. But actually, we know that being outdoors helps because, as you say, of the exposure to vitamin D and the health-giving properties, because of the physical activity benefits and so on. And there’s also, of course, the gut microbiome benefits, right? So kids who are getting their hands in the dirt and so on, that’s actually good for building gut microbiome healthy This is how we get to play with our kids.
[00:17:30.370] – Speaker 2
That’s amazing. I’m just thinking now about how do we encourage kids and parents to get outdoors and play. I maybe want to start with a question around, In your research and in your looking at it, I know all kids are unique and individual, but is there a type of play? Are there things that kids are more interested in doing when it comes to outdoor play, like riding bikes or going to a park or playing to a park or playing to a park or playing to a park or playing to a park? Sports teams? Where do kids gravitate to? Have you discovered anything that really works for this?
[00:18:07.140] – Speaker 1
Well, our aim when we think about providing for play is to ensure that there are many variety of affordances as possible in the play space so that kids of different abilities, different interests, different like today I feel like doing this, tomorrow I might feel like doing that, that it’s all there for them. We’re not limiting their degrees of freedom in terms of what they want to do. We talk about three key ingredients for this and something for parents and teachers to keep in mind is one is time, the two is space, and three is freedom. With respect to time, making sure that it’s a priority, that we don’t cut recess at school, or that parents realize that it’s just as important that their kids have that time outside as it is for them to, for example, go to soccer practice. The The space is what I’m talking about, so that they have access to high-quality space with variety of affordances, make sure that there’s different levels of challenge. You have kids who at different levels of ability and interest who still find really interesting and challenging things for themselves to do. Then the freedom is where we deal with our own adult fears.
[00:19:24.410] – Speaker 1
One of the biggest barriers here is adults. We are managing our fears by not letting kids do these things. So we have to get past those initial fears to really think, Okay, what’s the worst that can actually happen here? Can I focus on what the benefits are for my child or these children and put aside those fears so that I can support what’s going on?
[00:19:49.360] – Speaker 2
Yeah, and I found it really interesting in the counterintuitiveness of this. I think we heard a lot as we were working with really supportive teachers and school boards about getting kids to come back to experiential learning at camp like we would offer, and hearing and feeling a lot of resistance from key decision-makers saying, Kids have missed out on classroom experience, and we need to give kids more time in the classroom. And I think that focus diminished and pushed to the side the value of learning that happens in some nontraditional settings. And that’s why I love talking about this outdoor play like we have been recently is because it’s easy for us to think about, okay, as kids develop, we need to structure and organize it. When are they taking these lessons and when are they doing their homework and when are we doing the things that we think are really important? But what is equally and sometimes even more beneficial is this unstructured like you’re talking about, play or what we would say is alternative learning than the classroom environment, getting kids outside and in nature. And it’s funny, all of that social, when you hop on a bus and drive 2 hours up to our place and you’re with friends that you don’t normally interact with or you may in a certain context, but now you’re negotiating a new property and you’re trying new activities together and you’re having fun and you’re laughing.
[00:21:29.430] – Speaker 2
And like you said, you’re using your outside voices and you’re shouting and cheering on people as they go up a ropes course. There is so much development that can happen in a 2-3 day experience that doesn’t happen even in a whole semester in a classroom. And so I think thinking about that back to parenting and kids is it’s really easy to think about the most important things they do is the one or two hours on their homework. And it feels play as this extra thing on top of it. But I would love for us as parents and people who care about kids and are interested in development wherever we are, to think about this as actually being a little more preeminent and important in the developmental process and on par with homework time at the end of the day. And it sounds… So there’s this counter to an eminence that happens because it feels like this extra thing that we do when really I would love to see it. And I know you probably would echo this, and I just love for you to give some input in that. It’s not an extra thing. It actually could be the main thing for a lot of the developmental desires we have as people who care about young people.
[00:22:43.960] – Speaker 1
Absolutely. I couldn’t agree more. We have a whole area of research on learning outside the classroom and tools for teachers and so on. It’s not that it’s on par with homework. It’s more important. If you think about our evolutionary history and the way that we’ve learned across millennia is through experiential learning outdoors. The way that we’re doing things now with kids stuck inside classrooms and staying still is not normal from an evolutionary perspective, and we’re not built to learn efficiently that way. There’s some kids that do just fine, But there’s a lot of kids that really struggle in that context and yet thrive when you take the learning outdoors. I have a PhD student, Megan Zennie, who’s been teaching outdoors for over two decades, And through her PhD work, we created a tool for teachers to deal with all of the, right? So how do I deal with the gear? How do I deal with the hazards? How do I deal with kids taking risks? So we have teachers from across Canada that have contributed the little videos to this tool so that people can see how it’s done in different geographical contexts and by different teachers and what they’ve noticed in terms of what kids get out of it.
[00:24:15.260] – Speaker 1
People can have a look at it. It’s a free tool. It’s at outsideplay. Org. We’ve got tools for teachers. We have one for parents. Lots of material there to help people really dig into this.
[00:24:26.840] – Speaker 2
That’s great. Let’s say parents caregivers, teachers are listening to this and they’re like, Okay, I’m tracking with you. What can we do to facilitate, to encourage kids around this outdoor or risky play? What can we do to really champion it in our home, our classroom? You mentioned some resources we could look to, but what can we do? How would you encourage us to get involved and get moving on some of this?
[00:24:56.860] – Speaker 1
It’s really about thinking of this as a journey, right? People really need to build their own journey that starts out in a very underwhelming way. Because if we can get started on it in ways that don’t feel like it’s too much for me to tackle, then it’s just these little steps that can make such a big difference, and you can see the change immediately. As I mentioned, the three key ingredients, time, space, and freedom, and keeping those in mind. But what we have on our parent tool, for example, we have another one for early childhood educators, is we start with what are your values? What’s most important to you in terms of what you want for your child? If you think about those values, then they can help anchor you through everything else. When other parents are passing judgment or when you have doubts or whatever, you can think about, Yeah, but what do I want most for my child? And so that can also help you overcome the initial fear and so on. Our tool takes parents some self-reflective questions and some ideas so that they can build their own journey, which starts with very simple steps.
[00:26:08.830] – Speaker 1
It can be as simple as next time that I want to say, be careful or no, I’m going to count to 17 and just let it play itself out. And that helps me grapple with my fear while I’m watching what my child is doing and really seeing, do I need to step in?
[00:26:29.450] – Speaker 2
That’s really good. What would you say to parents who are listening and are like, I want to do this. I’ve tried this, but my kids just don’t like getting outside? You feel that, right? Kids are like, Oh, I don’t want to do that. They much rather go to the basement or their room and get on devices or do other things. And that may be stereotypical, but for those parents that are really struggling who believe in this, think it’s a good idea, what advice would you give them to encourage their kids to be more open to trying it, to getting outside, to playing? How can they navigate those conversations with their own kids?
[00:27:07.320] – Speaker 1
Yeah, and I totally understand that. I mentioned the three key ingredients, but the fourth ingredient is other children. It’s boring if there’s not other kids to play with. Right. Thinking about in some neighborhoods, when my kids were growing up, we were lucky enough that we had some families close by. We all had the same attitude, and the kids, they would just go out and hang out with each other in the streets and go in and out of each other’s houses and so on. That’s not always typical. In fact, it’s less and less likely these days, but you can also work to build that. So think about how you can bring other children. Even if you have playdates, that it could be an outdoor-based playdate. Sometimes it’s simple. We talk about making stimulating spaces. One of the easiest ways to do that is lose parts. So things like Rocks, sand, stones, boxes, tarps, et cetera, throwing them into a space and letting kids loose. They love playing with that stuff, right? So providing those environments where they can start to explore. Sometimes it’s just letting them be bored, and they will find stuff to do when they’re bored enough, and they will enjoy it.
[00:28:23.090] – Speaker 2
I have a quick story on that. We used to take students on a ski trip from Muskoka Woods to Vermont, and we plan out all the time together. You’re taking teenagers, some who know each other and some who don’t with some adult leaders. Yes, skiing is the predominant type, but we’re a big programming organization, so we put a lot of pressure on us to entertain them in the evenings, go to a local. We will go to the Burton Snowboard store, and we would take them on all these things. And one of the trips I remember, we found that we were sitting around on the first night with not a lot programmed. And the kids started, they just developed this game as they were sitting there. And I can’t even remember what. It was something to do with a soccer ball and a barrel. And They just started playing this, and they started to get more and more into it. And then what we found through the trip is that we would plan all these really fun excursions, and they would get on them, and they were dying to get back to play this game that they had just co-cruised created.
[00:29:30.830] – Speaker 2
And I remember we were laughing at the end. We’re like, We should have just let them do this the whole time. They would have loved it. We didn’t need to plan or pay for all these other little things. They left on their own, found something that they had a lot of fun doing. Competition and laughter and fun and together was all part of it. And when you said that, I remembered, yeah, they didn’t allow boredom to set in themselves. They just figured it out. And I remember sitting back as youth leaders and professionals going, Oh, we shouldn’t we shouldn’t forget this in programming. Sometimes we can over program things for kids when they do need a bit of that freedom and lack of structure to develop out of boredom the ability to find something that’s interesting to them.
[00:30:21.900] – Speaker 1
Beautiful story. It’s a perfect example, right? They’re incredibly creative. They’re going to figure it out.
[00:30:27.440] – Speaker 2
Yeah. I love when you answer that because that was actually going to be my next question. You said other kids, and I’m wondering as an encouragement to some parents who are listening to say, I really want to get my kids to do this. Who are the co-conspirator adults around you that have kids as well that you can get together and strategize? You mentioned playdates for younger kids. I remember it was so difficult to get our daughter to go for a walk. My wife and I love hiking, and we’ve got a lot of trails out by us, and it was so difficult to get our daughter to go. But when we found another couple that had a daughter who was her friend, we would all go. And then we’re like, okay, if so-and-so is there, she’s going to be more likely to come. So let’s co-conspire with them because we get to be outside and do something. We get to do with our friends, and we get to bring along our daughter. So she’s not just looking at mom and dad going, oh, this is awful. Why am I here? So, yeah, who are the other parents that you can conspire with?
[00:31:24.500] – Speaker 2
Then maybe step back and let the kids be together and navigate some of this on on their own in safe spaces that don’t need a ton of adult supervision or structure. Let’s take a moment to talk about Muskokawood CEO Leadership program. This isn’t just a summer program. It’s a stepping stone for your future. Teenagers can earn a grade 11 high school credit or complete community service hours, all while developing leadership skills in a supportive environment. Our team of passionate staff ensures every CEO has a remarkable and educational experience. Interested in joining this July or August? Find out more at Muskokawoods. Com. You’ve mentioned a few resources along the way. Maybe if you could just highlight some… If parents are like, How do I… Or teachers or other adults that working with young people, children, what are some things that you have access through, through your work or other things that you know of that can point us in the right direction to gather more information or encouragement or knowledge or tools along the way?
[00:32:44.320] – Speaker 1
Yeah, we We’ve worked hard on tools that work for different adult audiences. So as I mentioned, if you go to outsideplay. Org, which is our website, there’s three different tools on there, one for parents, one for teachers, another for early childhood educators, where we’ve really worked with each of those groups to come up with things that make sense and tested them and they work. There’s also infographics that, for example, let’s say a teacher could take in to the school principal to encourage this stuff. Why is outdoor play important? Why is risky play important? Lots of infographic resources and things like that that people can dig into on our website.
[00:33:26.630] – Speaker 2
I’ve taken a look through the website. It’s really well laid out and easy to use, and I think a great tool for parents. I think another thing for parents to do is to spend some time finding out in your community where are all the outdoor facilities that your kids might be able to explore and play in? I know in every community there’s walking trails or parks or different things that the more knowledgeable we are of what’s around us, the more easy it is to let our kids explore and to be part of things that are outside. A small plug for places like Muskoka Woods and outdoor recreation is to find out what’s happening in your local schools. I would encourage parents, send your kids on the field trips. I think that’s an important thing. I think often we’re hesitant to do that, but I think they’re well worth the investment.
[00:34:21.640] – Speaker 1
Yeah, I agree. I also want parents to keep in mind that it’s important that kids be able to access spaces that they don’t need you to take them to, right? Yeah, that’s good. And it’s incredible where kids find as interesting place spaces. It’s not necessarily parks or things that we would say. It could be alleyways, abandoned parking lots, things like that. It’s like the leftover spaces that adults might not even notice that become incredibly stimulating for kids.
[00:34:51.650] – Speaker 2
And that’s why, as you mentioned, affording kids the time to explore, say, yeah, leave the house with your friends for a few hours tonight. Come back at dinner. I think, like you said, that’s when kids are able to figure out some of these spaces that bring about a lot of the benefits that you talked about.
[00:35:11.830] – Speaker 1
Yeah, absolutely.
[00:35:13.690] – Speaker 2
It’s such an encouraging conversation. I wonder, just as we wrap up, as someone who really values giving our children freedom and autonomy, what are some thoughts, final words of encouragement for parents who might still feel a little uncomfortable? And they hear the word risk, and They heard you say alleys, and they’re like, oh, they get that visceral response. What would be your little pep talk or final words of encouragement for them to promote their kids to explore and to get into some risky play?
[00:35:46.260] – Speaker 1
I would say to trust themselves, right? So parents know their kids best, and they’re best poised to be able to figure out what this looks like for them. So don’t beat yourself up. It’s okay. You’ll figure it out. And start small, really small, in a way that doesn’t seem scary. As I said, maybe it’s you wait 17 seconds to say before… Every time you want to say, be careful, you just wait a few seconds before you do something like that. All these little steps, they do add up and just really notice what’s going on for your kids. I think you’ll see changes pretty quickly that will encourage you to keep going.
[00:36:25.960] – Speaker 2
That’s amazing. Thank you for that encouragement and for the great work that you’re doing to promote outdoor risky play. And I hope that our listeners buy in and get this going with their own children in this spreads because we’ve heard about all the benefits and what it can do for development and for the future of young people. And so I really hope that our listeners really take this to heart. And it’s been a great conversation. Thank you so much.
[00:36:55.760] – Speaker 1
I appreciate having it. Thank you.
