Playfully building resilience: Dutch children’s risk-managing tactics in digital risky play

Abstract

In this paper, we coin the concept “digital risky play” and conceptualize this type of digital play. By means of a taxonomy of tactics that children develop and employ through digital risky play, we explore how children build resilience. Risky play has been mainly studied in the outdoor context and has been found to have positive outcomes for children’s risk-managing tactics and resilience. Based on longitudinal participant observations in combination with in-depth interviews with children between the ages of eight and twelve, we identify four categories of risk-managing tactics children employed to navigate digital risky play, namely technological, physical, social, and emotional tactics. Building on the conceptualization of Zolkoski and Bullock (2012) of resilience, we argue that engaging in digital risky plays allows for a playful environment in which children actively explore internal boundaries as well as develop tactics that aid their development of resilience.