Nat Locke: If you really want a kid to test the notion of risky play, let them hang around an electric fence

I read an article this week about “risky play” and its benefits for kids. They were big benefits too, such as increased resilience, the development of risk assessing and problem-solving skills, increased confidence and physical development. Well, that sounds amazing, I thought. Who wouldn’t want that for their kids? And then I found out what risky play is. It’s things like climbing trees, jumping off things, whacking things with a hammer . . . you know, all those things we used to call “mucking around”. I got a little bit sad then, because we have a whole generation of kids who have been so protected from danger that they haven’t had the opportunity to do all the dumb things we did. And it’s not helping them. Now they need an official name for it, and recommendations from the experts. When I was a kid, there was no such thing as “risky play” because absolutely everything we did was positively dripping in peril. It truly was a miracle that any of us survived. And sure, my farm upbringing allowed me access to a plethora of dangerous pastimes, but my city dwelling friends managed to get up to a fair bit of life threatening behaviour as well. The stuff they owned up to was building jumps for their BMX bikes in the bush behind their houses (remember when there was bush behind our houses?), jumping off the roof into the pool, and a lot of trampolining shenanigans, before safety nets and pads were attached. And did we get hurt? Well, sure, from time to time. My brother was the accident-prone one of us and as such, he broke a lot of bones, but most of them were motorbike-related, and if they weren’t, they were gravity-related. But I got through pretty unscathed. Even though I fell off my horse with alarming regularity, the only injury I sustained was a black eye. If you really want a kid to test out the notion of risky play, let them hang around an electric fence for a while. I can remember learning a harsh electricity-related lesson at about the age of five when I attempted to thwart the electric current by taking my T-shirt off and draping it over the wire, so I could climb over it. I think this falls under the “developing problem-solving skills” category of my development. Suffice to say, thin cotton jersey did not protect me from getting a decent boot from the fence, and whilst a difficult lesson to learn, I never did it again. Similarly, my brother tested the scientific hypothesis that standing in a puddle and touching the electric fence with a long piece of grass was a good idea. Conclusion: it was not. He never did that again, either. It is not lost on me that my generation — the one who lived this dangerous, blissfully unsupervised childhood — is the same generation who has turned around and hovered over their children, watching their every move and monitoring every interaction in case they got hurt. Why has the pendulum swung so far the other way? Partly, it’s because we also became very judgey of one another, and therefore, we became overly concerned about what other parents would think if our kid turned up with a busted collarbone because he rode his skateboard off the garage roof, or something equally dare-devilish. Also, there are a lot more rules now. The only risk assessment being done these days is by insurance companies, and they’re a bunch of killjoys. An increasingly litigious society means the insurance companies have to literally become the fun police, so there are fewer opportunities for kids to cut sick even if their parents allowed them to. All it takes is for one person to sue the council because their kid fell out of a council-owned tree and then tree climbing is banned forever. You know what I mean? Obviously, I’m not suggesting you give a two-year-old a chainsaw and encourage them to go their hardest, but letting go of the reins a bit and allowing kids to jump around in puddles and toast marshmallows on open fires and chop wood with a small hatchet and ride their bikes over bits of wood that have been precariously placed between the edge of the deck and the outdoor table. For example. And when they fall — and they will — let them do it again. And if it helps, feel free to mutter quietly under your breath, “It’s good for their development, it’s good for their development”.