Reflection #1: Risky Play

A professional reflection based on the contemporary perspective of outdoor play risk.

As an outdoor specialist before being an early childhood educator, I worked in Hong Kong and Australia with young children aged 4 – 6 and taught them how to pitch a tent, sail a boat and even abseil off a four-storey building. However, in Singapore; these activities are deemed too dangerous for children. In my experience, lesser parents have signed up for holiday programs that involves rock climbing for children as compared to a program which is more focused getting the children ready for formal schooling in Primary School. I believe that children should interact with risks to learn how to manage it themselves, within safe precautions and adult’s facilitation. As an early childhood educator, I believe it is my responsibility to provide children with as much opportunity as possible to experience learning in different environments. When I bring my children outdoors, I make sure that I have done my risk management and lay down ground rules for them to ensure that they are able to enjoy their time outdoors in the safest way possible. Additionally, I am also open to the fact that accidents might happen because I understand we can never eliminate risk as a whole, only minimise and manage it. Therefore, establishing my objectives and expectations of risky play for young children and conveying it to my class parents is very important to garner their support and understanding in the event something unplanned happens to one of my class children.

I am an advocate for outdoor learning and risky play. I enjoy being in the outdoors with my children and I make sure I am actively participating in the outdoor activities when I bring them out. As I am actively interacting with the same environment as children, I am able to identify risks and raise the awareness to my class children to practice precaution when participating in risky play. From past experience, a child fell from a medium height permanent structure at the playground and she fractured her left elbow. I applied first-aid and reported the accident to my Principal before calling the child’s parents to inform them of what happened. While making the call, I knew I had to apologise and accept the parent’s reaction. I informed the child’s parents of the incident as how it happened and reassured the parents that I have assessed and manage the risks to the best of my ability. I seek their understanding that accidents might still happen especially during outdoor play. I realised then that as long as I am confident and knowledgeable in what I do with my class children, it is less scary when delivering news about risky play related injuries to parents than I actually thought it would be.