Helping children to manage risk

During the first period of a man’s life, the greatest danger is not to take the risk – Soren Kierkegaard

Children naturally push the boundaries and take risk. Recently, there has been an increase in research carried out around risky play, particularly in the outdoors, but there is little research around decision-making and children’s assessment and management of what they perceive to be risky. Understanding the process of children’s risk-taking is a foundation on which we can build our support for the children we work with and empower them in their decision-making. Risk for children is an inevitable part of their everyday life. In giving them the appropriate tools we can support their learning and guide them towards good and thoughtful risk-taking.  

Children need to maximize their life’s experiences, taking risk both emotionally and physically is at the heart of their play, there seems to be a natural desire to take risk, to challenge themselves and to weigh the risk against the benefit, they develop their own innate calculus that enables them to make their lives interesting and fulfilling. Yet as practitioners we allow red tape and risk adversity to limit the opportunities the children have. Maria Montessori told us to ‘trust the child’, where did we lose the ability to do this? She reminds us consistently in her writing that the child is the most knowledgeable about himself, yet again and again we stand over the top of him instilling our knowledge and not giving the child the voice to share his knowledge...unless it will tick the box of a learning outcome!

Without risk-taking children do not reach their potential, yet the debate between risks and benefits still ensues. Children have an enthusiasm for making choice, investigating, exploring, questioning and experimenting, in essence taking risk. In our Montessori environment all this is happening in the indoors, yet much of the literature and training that we are exposed to as practitioners is centered in the outdoor environment and physical risk.

Day in and day out I observe children taking risks however big or small, deciding independently which activity to work with, using kitchen knives to prepare food, using breakable jugs and cups when having a drink and making choices when leading their learning in our environment, yet these tasks are never perceived as risk! Montessori’s aim was to reduce needless constraints on the child and remove him from the destructive influence of adult expectations.

The freedom to act, combined with independence-enhancing skills, allows the child to develop autonomously and gain the experience and confidence needed to become a fully functioning adult. The child’s first instinct is to carry out his actions by himself, without anyone helping him, and his first conscious bid for independence is made when he defends himself against those who try to do the action for him.’

Through research carried out in partnership with the children about their risk-taking, observing whether they can identify, assess and manage risk, a child friendly toolkit began to develop. This toolkit empowers the child to manage the risk in their learning environment. It gives the child a voice to inform adults, allowing him to find his own boundaries and manage the risk in such a way that he has the knowledge to confidently carry out the task at hand supporting the child’s development of positive risk behavior whilst eliminating negative risk behavior. Through observing the use of the toolkit I learned even more about children’s risk taking habits.

Risk-taking like other skills, needs to be learned and practised over time. By empowering children in their self-management, trusting them to make decisions around risk and allowing them to push themselves to that point of risk and danger, we are enabling them to learn and practise their risk assessment skills consistently giving them confidence in their own abilities.  

Growing up in the a risk averse society, such as we currently have, means that children are not able to practice risk-assessment which enables them to match their skills with the demands of the environment in which they are growing up. A risk-taker, becomes and independent thinker, who develops into a confident learner who is willing to take that step into the unknown following their innate learning path. Empowering children by developing this independence, giving them the power over their choice of risky decisions will better prepare them to be autonomous individuals at a young age and acknowledges their right to be seen as individuals now, rather than an adult in waiting.

This is a speech given by Michele Wisbey, proprietor of five Montessori nurseries, at the Montessori St Nicholas MEAB School Leaders’ conference, on 26 June at the Institute of Education, London.