Creating environments for risky play: Understanding the interplay between parents, play professionals and policymakers

Abstract

Playing outside is essential to growing up actively, socially and in good health. It is theorized that children particularly benefit from risky play situations. Opportunities for risky play, however, have declined in the last decades. Based on interviews with parents, play professionals and municipal policymakers in the Netherlands, we illustrate how environments for children's (risky) play are produced through the interplay between these three groups of stakeholders. Beliefs, attitudes and decisions of these stakeholders influence choices on risk and safety, which, in turn, become manifest in the social and physical context for play.