Browsing by Author "Rantanen, Susanne"

The aim of this study is to describe how education staffs' attitudes and actions as well as environmental characteristics impact children’s risky play. Risky play where children can challenge themselves is important part of learning. Risky play develops children’s risk-taking skills, which can be learned only by trial and error. Opportunities for children to challenge their skills in risky play have decreased considerably during the last decades, which have led to the fact that children spend a lot of time inside playing games that do not offer physical challenges. The danger is that children will not learn skills related to managing risks. This study approaches supporting risky playing by examining how education staffs’ attitudes towards taking risks affect to their reactions towards risky play and what are the factors that affect to education staffs’ attitudes towards children's risky play. I also describe the features of the environment and playing materials that will attract children to take risks in their play. I will also examine how society’s changed attitudes appear to affect to children's play areas. The research method used was systematic literature review and the international scientific journals used as a research material were found from relevant research databases. The journals found were elected using inclusion and exclusion criteria. Relevant studies were divided into categories according to the research questions and the results were reported as an inductive analysis. Studies show that education staffs' positive attitudes towards risk taking could be seen in practice as higher risk allowance. A negative attitude, in turn, was reflected in risky playing as denial. Attitudes also affected to the provided activities, children’s safety skills and in the environment shaping. The surrounding culture, society’s attitudes, understanding the benefits of risk-taking, training received and the personal characteristics influenced educators’ attitudes. Features of the environment that attracted children to the risky play were found to be the opportunity to play with great height and high speed and the possibility to challenge their current skills. Open ended playing materials and "real" materials intended for use by adults, as well as heavy movable equipment attracted to risky play. Society's attitudes contributed to the construction of a children's play environments, so that playgrounds in many countries were found to be so risk-free that children were not able to challenge their skills in them, and some of the equipment were left unused.