Safe as Necessary, Not as Possible: Rethinking Risk in Children’s Play
There’s a phrase that developmental psychologist Mariana Brussoni uses that has a way of stopping you in your tracks: we should keep children as safe as necessary, not as safe as possible. It sounds simple, but unpacking it changes the way you see every playground, every recess, every moment a child climbs a little too high or wanders a little too far.
For decades, the dominant approach to child safety has been subtraction — remove the sharp edges, lower the platforms, eliminate anything that might lead to a scraped knee or a bruised ego. And while that impulse comes from a genuinely good place, the research is telling a different story. When we strip away risk, we don’t just prevent injuries. We prevent growth.
Brussoni’s work at the University of British Columbia draws a clear line between risky outdoor play and the development of cognitive flexibility, emotional regulation, and resilience. These aren’t soft benefits. They’re foundational skills that children build precisely because things go wrong — because they fall, reassess, and try again. That feedback loop, messy and unpredictable as it is, turns out to be irreplaceable. No structured activity or indoor alternative quite does the same job.
Think back to your own favorite childhood play memory. Chances are it involves being outside. Chances are something went slightly sideways, and you figured it out. That experience of navigating uncertainty — with friends, without a script, and without an adult hovering nearby — is exactly what the research points to as essential.
So what can educators and parents actually do? Brussoni points to three core ingredients for creating the conditions where risky play can thrive in schools and childcare settings: time, space, and freedom. Kids need outdoor play built into their daily rhythm the way sleep and meals are — not as a reward, not as a gap-filler, but as a genuine priority. They need spaces that are stimulating and appropriately challenging. And they need adults who are willing to step back and let children direct the experience themselves.
That last one is often the hardest. Our instinct to protect is real and valid. But there’s a meaningful difference between managing danger and eliminating all risk, and learning to sit with that distinction is part of the work.
The goal isn’t to make childhood reckless. It’s to make it real. When we create the right conditions and then get out of the way, children don’t just play — they develop into people who know how to take on the world, one calculated risk at a time.
Check out Outside Play Website, full of toolkits, research, ideas and a ton more… AND Dr. Brussoni’s book in collaboration with Megan Zeni “Embracing Risky Play at School”.
