‘It's Just Because It Went Really High and We Go Wheeeee…!’: Young Children’s Views on Risk-Taking Play in Their Early Years Setting

Previous research suggests that young children enjoy taking risks in their play and that risky play offers many benefits. To gain further insight into the child’s perspective, the present study explored young children’s views about risk-taking play, employing a sample of eight children aged four years old from four different early years settings in one local authority in England. Since research outside the UK has identified categories of risk-taking play, this was used as a starting point to inform for the current small-scale study. Semi-structured interviews with the children were undertaken with a series of photographs depicting different types of play used to engage the children in discussion. Data from each of these interviews were subjected to thematic analysis. Findings revealed that children had a variety of reasons for choosing to participate in risk-taking play, such as it being scary or exciting. Children’s choices were mediated by their awareness of safety issues with each child articulating the boundaries around whether, where and how they might choose to engage in a risk-taking play activity.